On 12/2/11 4:59 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:
On Thu, 1 Dec 2011 19:56:12 -0800
Peter Monta<[email protected]> wrote:
So, that'd mean there would be an automatic calibration system inside
the device, because i dont have any equipment with which i could
calibrate delays over a temperature range.
I suppose they could do that---provide a weak broadband source (say a
comb) combined with the antenna signal prior to the channel filters,
and provide a reference channel for this calibration signal to compare
against on-line.
Juup, i thought exactly at that. Use a dirac pulse generator with
a ~100MHz comb. That would generate nice signals in the L1 and L2 bands.
This could then be measured later... But it's ugly, and you have to deal
with either switching of the input source, or have to distinquish the
calibration signal somehow from the normally received signal.
Combs are used all the time for this kind of thing (e.g. calibrating
Deep Space Network). There's an old paper about calibrating a
interferometer radio telescope at Stanford using this kind of thing (by
Bracewell, as I recall)
It's easy to distinguish the comb from the GPS signal... the GPS is PN
coded, the comb is not. If you pick your levels right, depending on
your digitizing strategy, it might not even jam the GPS, so you could
leave it on.
However, even that's not a panacea, because generating and distributing
that idealized comb is non trivial without destroying the phase
relationship between the comb "teeth". I guess it really depends on how
nutty you want to be. 1 nS is pretty easy, I would think. 1pS is a lot
harder. 1 fS is very hard.
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