Time-nuts, this post wouldn't be merely speculative, I have an actual interest in knowing if what I'm going to ask is possible. As it has already been discussed here, crystals may jump in frequency. If I recall, about 20% of good quality crystals are prone to jumping, but a crystal that used to jump might not jump anymore, a crystal that never jumped might jump in the future, and so on. The trace of a disciplined (atomic or GPS) jumping crystal shows spikes (because it is soon steered), while the trace of its control voltage shows permanent changes in level. Well, I thought it is legitimate to assume that orbiting crystals, namely the ones disciplined by caesium aboard GPS satellites, are not extraneous to the issue. And here is the question: may a time-nuts grade equipment detect this? The answer would not be simple. In the majority of cases we get from our multichannel GPSDO the 1 PPS pulse. How may the pulse be affected by the spike in frequency of a single orbiting crystal? I know this list is also populated by qualified professionals, and hope to get for sure one of the following conclusions: -crystals aboard GPS satellites do not jump at all; -if they do, time-nuts can't detect this; -time-nuts can detect jumps, but can't identify the jumping satellite; -time-nuts can detect jumps, and can identify the jumping satellite;
Thanks. Antonio I8IOV _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
