Hello Robert, your question is like asking which car you should buy, or which airline you should fly :) Everyone will have a different answer. But I do not recommend the Thunderbolts, it's a crab-shoot with them (different versions have different performance, the new ones are actually worse than older versions because of the temperature chip issue, the GPS is known to have lock issues, they don't work well until you spend a lot of time fine-tuning the parameters, etc etc) - that has all been discussed here ad-infinitum and you can find it in the archives. I recommend you search Ebay for HP 58503A. I just bought a number of them from a very well known seller in China, and they are absolutely superb, much better than any Rubidium unit I have tested. Much better than the Thunderbolt I have, and just slightly more expensive. He sells an entire kit for around $500, and it arrived here in less than a week (Northern California). This seller starts those units at around $260 I think. Performance you can get from these if you get a good one is: phase noise floor of around -163dBc, ADEV of 7E-013 to about 1E-012 to over 100s. Leapsecond.com has a number of test papers on these units. Caveat-emptor: there are significant unit-to-unit variations as with all GPSDO, Tom on leapsecond.com discusses this in detail. BTW: these are essentially the same unit as the Z3801A, just different software (ID string). I also have a Z3815A, and it is not even in the same class as the Z3801A/58503A. It is very noisy compared to the 58503A unit. I do not recommend the Z3815A, but it is a unique oscillator design,and some folks collect it for that oscillator. The 58503A uses a double oven version of the HP 10811A, which is a fantastic oscillator if you get a well-working one. If you want something low-cost with reasonable performance, brand new with warranty, antenna, and accessories, Jackson Labs Technologies, Inc. has the GPSTCXO eval kit for Time-Nuts special academic pricing of $300, which we believe is the lowest-cost true GPSDO (not NCO) in current production. Disclaimer: I work for them. bye, Said In a message dated 9/7/2012 13:09:24 Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Welcome aboard, yes, there is no FAQ about how to start in this hobby... should I try to implement one? Anyway, start with a Trimble Thunderbolt (aka TBolt), later you will know why it is highly recommended (direct OCXO disciplining and LH software support, mainly). I have a Z3815A with the famous (or infamous) E1938A "hockey puck" OCXO. They are all GPSDOs and there should not be any difference among them but, yes, there are differences in their performance and being a time-nut means test and find out. Then there are GPS disciplined Rubidiums, but take this step after the first GPSDO is correctly installed and stabilized. Start with the antenna: find a suitable place, with a 360 deg clear view of the sky, a satellite TV cable (sounds unusual, but works great). On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 8:52 PM, Robert Darlington <[email protected]>wrote: > You want to start with a GPSDO. I like the Trimble Thunderbolt. The > price is right and they're readily available. I have no experience > with the HP units but they seem to be highly regarded. > > Rb oscillators are great for some things, but need to be calibrated. > That's where the GPSDO comes in. > > Also, don't forget the antenna. You'll want something along these > lines: > http://www.ebay.com/itm/lucent-GPS-Timing-Reference-Antenna-antenne-40db-N-/230848464732?pt=GPS_Antennas&hash=item35bfa4075c#ht_2199wt_1404 > > Welcome aboard, and I'm apologizing in advance for how much money > you'll be spending on new toys. > > -Bob _______________________________________________ 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.
