I'm hearing a lot of recommendations for types of oscillators, but noone has asked the question - what is the desired performance?
For me, I wanted a clock that stays within a second of UTC for a year. I'm pretty sure the LPRO I bought will exceed that, (though I guess I won't know for another 12 months). Of course, I needed a way to evaluate what I built, so I also picked up a Thunderbolt. What was that about a tar pit? :-) I built my own clock/counter circuit, but it was a lot of work. I see a lot of Datum 9100s for sale on eBay for under $50. Has anyone tried out one of those? I still need to write up my circuit, but it is similar to (but not based on) this: http://www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/MICRO/CLOCK/ Thanks, -JP On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 8:42 AM, John Miles <[email protected]> wrote: > > Bill, > > > > he was planning to spend 100 USD on a used Rubidium, I think a Cs is way > > over his budget ;-) > > Luck has more to do with that than money. My cheapest cesium standard, at > $500, also turned out to be the only one out of three with a healthy tube. > You have to plan on buying a few turkeys. > > If you're shopping for a cesium standard on eBay especially, where the > sellers don't tend to know what they're selling or how to test it, it makes > sense to bid low and wait until you get lucky. > > > But I agree that a Rubidium has a shorter life span and if you get one > > for 100 USD on eBay, I would expect it to be "worn out" already. > > The LPRO-101 I bought from China recently for ~$100 is in good shape (it's > the dotted blue trace in the plot I posted earlier, measured against the > aforementioned $500 Cs.) It locks up quickly, and its lamp voltage is right > in the middle of the normal range. Others have had good results from the > same seller, so I think they're actually pretty safe. > > -- john, KE5FX > > > _______________________________________________ > 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. > _______________________________________________ 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.
