Perhaps the future of timing is the newly developed (and not yet commercialized) Mercury ion frequency standard.
Also, some high end rubidium (such as Perkin-Elmer) manufacturers are able to develope 133Rb clocks having > 450 000 hours MTBF! That'a a lot of nanoseconds! 73 de Normand VE2UM --- Jack Hudler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It seems to me that like all good things they must > come to and end. > > If all CBTs have a life expectancy that varies > depending on the > manufacturer. > > What are we going to do when all the CBTs owned by > amateurs start to end of > life? > > I for one am certainly not going to buy one, not at > those prices! (Unless > I'm retired then that's another story) > You only have calculate the time value of money for > that CBT purchase over > the remaining time to retirement; If that doesn't > stop you dead in your > tracks then this group really is aptly named! :) > > From my perspective, that of wanting to own a Cesium > Standard; I don't > really want to layout the monies for something > that's going to end of life > on me shortly (few years) afterwards. > > I know that handling (Caesium) Cesium-133 is tricky > at best. It's a heavy > alkali metal and contact with moisture is right out! > > Other than that it's not terribly difficult to > create a safe environment to > work with it. > > So there must be something else that's considerably > more difficult than > opening the tube, recharging the ampoule, resealing > it, pulling an ultra > high vacuum and baking it out. > > I've not seen any pictures of a naked CBT, still I'm > not too worried about > cracking the tube open if its Pyrex, unless > resealing it caused the cesium > beam collimation to be lost. > > Are there if any getters to worry about? If so, how > would one ablate the > contaminates of the surface? > > Anyone care to start a discussion on the merits of > restoring a CBT to life? > > Jack > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Finding fabulous fares is fun. Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list [email protected] https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
