Burt There is nothing wrong with your 8170. WWVB no longer allows it to work correctly because of the phase modulation. They went to all psk about 1 month ago. They had been reverting back twice a day for things like the 8170. So the ole 8170 is dead. You need to build something like the d-psk-r to get it going though I have not had time to actually add the am phase flipper precisely for the likes of a 8170. I have one also. Sorry Paul WB8TSL
On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 5:35 PM, Burt I. Weiner <[email protected]> wrote: > My good old Spectracom 8170 is not setting time. I don't use it for > frequency, just as a clock for my Hazetorium. I live about 20 minutes > north of downtown Los Angles in Glendale. The antenna I'm using is the > Ferrite Rod loop in PVC that came with the 8170. It's located on my back > porch just laying on the floor with its maximum pickup direction towards > Boulder, Colorado. It has worked reliably for many years in that location. > > The symptoms are... One day about a month ago I noticed that it seemed to > be in the start mode, that is, the far left digit was flashing between 0, > 1, 2, and a lot of 4's, and the left most digits were counting time since > an apparent restart. Zeros and ones are the logical data states, two is a > place holder and four indicates data errors. I'm not aware of it having > lost primary power, but it's not on a UPS. In a week's time it did not > give me time sync, but shows a green locked light most of the time. This > happened several years ago and a fellow at Spectracom told me to change all > the electrolytics on the one board that has only 4 electrolytics on it. I > did and it started to work just peachy-keen. The caps I put in then were > of good quality, but I decided to change them again. This did not solve > the problem. > > The power supply voltages are all well within limits and they look clean. > I seem to have plenty of, but not too much, signal. By that I mean it > doesn't appear to be oscillating. The antenna is about 30' away from the > receiver on a piece of coax that appears to look ok. What I do notice is > that the signal looks like it's going through quite a bit of turbulence. I > do not see anything that looks like interference. I've looked at the > output of the filter amp inside the 8170 and what I see is the signal > dithering in amplitude quite rapidly and sometimes squaring off for a > moment - sort of what you would expect to see during the Diurnal Shift > periods of the day. I can see the 10 dB drops, but they're not very clean > due to the rapid dithering. I've checked the antenna connections and tried > different azimuth headings. The location and azimuth it has been for years > still seems to be the best. Looking at the output of what I'm guessing is > a Schmitt Trigger, I see the ST's output jumping from 0 to +5, but > erratically, which considering the received signal, makes sense. > > I'm wondering if I'm just in a period of time that's receiving a poor > quality signal? It doesn't seem like WWVB's new phase-modulated format > should be causing this kind of a problem. > > All observations, opinions and suggestions are welcome. > > Thanks, > > Burt, K6OQK > > > > Burt I. Weiner Associates > Broadcast Technical Services > Glendale, California U.S.A. > [email protected] > www.biwa.cc > K6OQK > ______________________________**_________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/** > mailman/listinfo/time-nuts<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.
