Bob brings up all the additional details that are the reality of dealing with teh older gear. Especially the date offsets because of the 1024 week cycle. That is a real pain. But the reason to spend time on something like this is to understand something and to learn. I picked up the austron 2000 gps because it was a useful rack mount box. Then realized some of its unique qualities. That was the driver for reviving it. I was lucky that I was able to obtain some operational data and then later schematics. BUT it was still a heck of a reverse engineering and adapting process. I am pretty sure I shared that on time-nuts and will guess that must be 5 years ago now. Regards Paul WB8TSL
On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 5:58 PM, Bob Camp <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi > > I guess the first question would be: > > Are we sure it’s an AL-AK and not an XL-AK? > > Past that it becomes a fairly involved process of, is it worth real money > to get this up and running? > > If we are talking about a $20 eBay find that is worth another $5 to have > somebody else get it running, the > conversation is a real short one. > > If the AL-AK has some inherent value (it’s a working GPS disciplined Cs > maybe) then putting a few hundred > dollars into checking it out and getting it running might make sense. If > it’s like most of the parts from that > era, the delta between getting it checked and getting it running is pretty > small. > > Once you *do* have it running, what do you have? > > 1) Leap second problems > 2) GPS year rollover problems > 3) Tracking issues > 4) A noisy receiver with very few correlators > 5) Software support issues > > This is an unusual box that is at least 20 years old. It *will* have at > least some of the listed issues and > may have all of them. Fixing them will be impossible. > > ======== > > Why bring up all of the negatives? I for one have been sucked into this > kind of thing a *lot* of times > in the past. Just a few more this or that and it’ll be running fine. Much > better to figure out the likely > cost and outcome first. That’s *very* hard to do, and even harder to > follow through on. If you can’t > do the work yourself, the cost isn’t just lost time. This can cost real > cash. > > Bob > > > > On Apr 30, 2015, at 12:50 PM, Tom Van Baak <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I received this email. Anyone have a good answer? > > Thanks, > > /tvb > > > > ---------- > > Someone on ebay advised me to contact your website in hopes that someone > in your organization can help me with my TrueTime model AL-AK GPS Receiver. > I need to send it to someone so that they can check it to see if it works > and can track Satellites. This receiver has the onboard up/down convertor > board that changes the receiver input frequency which is set at 4.092 MHz. > I don't have the needed down converter at the antenna. I bought this > receiver on ebay from someone who told me that he doesn't have the down > converter as well and can't figure out how to get it to work at 1575.42 > MHz. He also didn't know if this receiver can be setup for a 1575.42 MHz by > removing the onboard converter and changing some DIP switches. If one of > your members can at least check out the receiver at 4.092 MHz for satellite > tracking That would be a big help ... > > ---------- > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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. > _______________________________________________ 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.
