I uploaded the partial schematic and some other info to:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k23e3x00ypnlx67/NTGS50AA%20info.zip?dl=0
You don't need to have a dropbox account to download it, just follow the
link.
Regards,
Ignacio
El 17/06/2015 a las 3:20, EB4APL wrote:
Hi,
I has been making some tests with the 1 PPS output and here are the
results:
Lady Heather cable delay commands works with both polarities, i.e. it
can advance or retard both 1/2 and 1 PPS signals, I used as reference
and external 1 PPS signal from a Rb oscillator.
The first impression is that the 1 PPS edge leads the 1/2 PPS about
550 ns and this difference is consistent after some cable delay
commands and antenna disconnections, it is maintained during holdover.
Then I tried several power cycling and warm resets and this make an
annoying thing to appear: during the acquisition and phase locking the
difference jumped between 540 and 140 ns in 100 ns steps. This is due
to the 1/2 PPS synchronization with the SYS_CLOCK signal, so when the
internal 1/2 PPS moved back and forth until the system phase lock is
obtained, the output jumps between successive cycles of the
SYS_CLOCK. The annoying thing is that its final state is not always
the same, the final difference can be any of the mentioned steps, from
120ns to 550 ns and there is not guarantee which one is obtained while
in my board the 540 ns difference is the most common. I don't know
yet it the 1 PPS is closer to the "epoch second" or it is the 1/2
PPS, I have to hook up a GPS timing module and an antenna splitter and
see what happens. Anyway since Nortel specifies a tolerance of +/- 1
us of the 1/2 PPS with respect to GPS even second, any of the seen
values are within specs but it is not very convenient for Time Nuts.
Regards,
Ignacio
El 14/06/2015 a las 20:35, EB4APL wrote:
Even if I get a cell site I would not use it for a "private network",
here all cell phones are GSM not CDMA.
The only use for the 9.8304 MHz is as a master for deriving serial
comm clocks (i.e. 9600 is 9.8304 / 1024) but I don't plan to became
a "Serial Comm Time Nut" yet. ;-)
Ignacio
El 14/06/2015 a las 1:48, Bob Camp escribió:
Hi
Of course tomorrow you will stumble into a “great deal” on a
complete cell site that needs a 9.8304 MHz clock :)
====
One thing to watch:
The pps you now have may or may not be deterministic in its relation
to the every other second output. It also may or
may not be in a fixed relation to GPS. I would bet money that it
*is* in a fixed relation and that it’s actually better than
the other signal. Just because I believe it to be true does not make
it true. It needs to be checked against something else.
Bob
On Jun 13, 2015, at 1:56 PM, EB4APL <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I just finish the mod. It was easy, I cut the trace between TP14
and U405-6 and soldered a wire between TP14 and TP33. Now I have a
pretty 1 PPS on J5, the old 9.8304 MHz output. The signal has 0-5 V
levels, normally high with a 10 us pulse going down. In my unit
this pulse leads the even second pulse by 539 ns. I will check if
the Lady Heather command for compensating the cable length can be
used to move this if somebody needs a more accurate "epoch second".
I have to use the 1PPS from my FE5680A as a reference but now it is
disconnected.
I have made a picture of the mod and I'll include it with my
partial schematic (I made some advances there) and the list of the
TP signals that I'm preparing for upload.
I have checked that now I have also 4 additional 1 PPS outputs in
the 110 pin connector J2. They are in the pins previously used by
the SYS_CLK signal. They are differential LVDS as most of the
signals on this interface.
Regards,
Ignacio
El 13/06/2015 a las 1:14, Ed Armstrong escribió:
Ignacio, I would very much appreciate a copy of whatever
schematics you have, even if it is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate
I agree with you that the 9.9804 Mhz is basically useless, while
the even second pulse is merely almost useless. However, as you
have apparently looked the board over more carefully than me, you
probably already understand why I did it the way I did. The
location of the two output circuits were very easy to find, the
path from the connector to them is quite distinctive. I just
needed to find out where the signal got into the output circuit
from, and when I flipped the board over, the trace bringing in the
even second pulse was extremely obvious. There was no obvious
trace for the 9.9804, and I didn't feel like probing all over the
place and looking up a lot of chip numbers to try to figure out
where it came from, as I have a very unsteady hand which makes
poking around in these closely spaced components an invitation to
disaster. So I just went with the obvious.
I found it interesting that the output circuit inverts the signal
a few times. I actually would have preferred to invert it, so that
the polarity was correct for a raspberry pie or a serial port
under Windows, but it appeared some of the traces to do so were
hidden in the layers of the board, and again the more I fool
around the better my chance of shorting something out and becoming
very unhappy.
I will be anxious to hear how your version of the modification
works out, please do keep us posted.
I believe the antenna cable feed delay is going to work in the
wrong direction here, I also seem to recall reading somewhere that
the adjustment range may be limited. I did pretty much correct the
offset by manually setting my position about 75M higher than what
the device figured it to be, but I am concerned that would only be
accurate for a satellite directly overhead, and may cause other
inaccuracies by throwing off the geometry, especially for
satellites close to the horizon. Based on what I am currently
seeing from the Pi, I think the smart solution is to just ignore
the offset altogether.
Ed
On 6/10/2015 11:30 AM, EB4APL wrote:
Hi Ed,
I am the one who discovered the 1PPS pulse while troubleshooting
a NTG550AA. Instead of reuse the 1/2 PPS output and missing this
signal, my plan is to recycle the 9.8304 MHz output circuitry and
connector, the circuits are almost identical. So I will cut the
trace that goes from TP14 to U405 pin 6 and also use a wire
wrapping wire to joint TP14 to TP33 so the 1PPS will be at J5. I
think that I will do the modification this weekend.
I don't imagine any future use of the X8 Chip signal but having
the even second output could be useful, at least to see the
difference with the 1 PPS.
I had not measured the time difference yet, but I made a partial
schematic of the board for my troubleshooting and there I see
that the 1/2 PPS signal is synchronized with the 19.6608 signal
that is the source for the 8X Chip ( 9.8304 MHz), this is done in
U405B . The period of this signal is about 50 ns and this is the
origin of the 1/2 PPS width. The 19.6608 MHz oscillator is phase
locked somewhere to the 10 MHz oscillator thus it is as stable as
this one.
I think that using the other half of U405, which actually is used
to divide by 2 the 19.6608 MHz signal, could render the 1 PPS
synchronized with the 1/2 PPS and also with the same width.
Probably the easier way to correct this is to use the command
which sets the antenna cable delay and compensate for the
difference.
I don't have a full schematic, even I am not sure that the
partial one is 100% correct but I can send it to anyone who wants
it.
Regards,
Ignacio
El 10/06/2015 a las 6:30, Ed Armstrong wrote:
Hi, this is my first post ever to a mailing list, so if I'm
doing anything wrong please be gentle with your corrections :-)
A short time ago I purchased a Nortel/Trimble NTGS50AA GPSTM,
I'm sure many on this list are familiar with it. At the time of
purchase, my only interest was the 10 MHz output, for use with
my HP5328b frequency counter and perhaps in the future also my
signal generator. No question here, it just works great as is.
However, it certainly seems best to leave these devices powered
up all the time.
OK, now were getting close to my question. The unit pulls about
10-11 watts, which is really not very much. But it kinda bugs me
to have it sit there using electric and basically doing nothing
when I'm not using it. So, I bought a Raspberry Pi 2 with the
intent of using it as an NTP server. I can't really say I'm
enjoying my intro to Linux a whole lot, but I'll get there. It
still needs some work, but it does function with the PPS output
from an Adafruit ultimate GPS, which I bought for testing this
and possibly building my own GPSDO in the future.
The NTGS50AA is a very capable device, but unfortunately it does
not have a PPS output. Instead it has an even second output,
which goes low for approximately 50 ns. The falling edge of this
pulse marks the beginning of the second. During my search for a
solution to this, I came across a post from this mailing list
which I believe was discussing repair of one of these units.
Someone in that post mentioned that there was a PPS signal at
test point 33 which went low for about 10 µs. Thank you, that
saves me a lot of probing.
The first thing I did was verify that this pulse did exist, then
I decided to examine it a little closer. I kind of suspected
that it may have been a rather raw pulse as received from the
satellites. I found out that is not correct, once the unit
successfully phase locks, this PPS signal is very accurately
tied to the 10 MHz output, even when the unit goes into holdover
mode. I was very happy about this :-) Next step was to see how
accurately it was synced to the even second pulse. The bad news
is that it does not occur at exactly the same time as the even
second. The good news is that the offset is very consistent, 253
ns before the even second pulse, +/- 1 ns.
My next step was to find out where the even second pulse entered
the output circuitry. I then broke the trace taking the even
second into the output circuitry, and ran a piece of 30gauge
wire wrapping wire from the via at test point 33 to the via at
the input to the output circuitry. The wire fit so perfectly it
felt like the vias were made for just this purpose :-) Now I've
got a very nice PPS signal available both at the front jack and
at the backplane connector in the rear of the unit.
OK, here is the actual question. Do you think it is OK to
consider a pulse which arise 250 ns early to be close enough?
And no, I am not forgetting about that 3 ns, there is about 3 ns
of delay added by the output circuitry.
Hope you didn't mind the long-winded post, and I thank you in
advance for any advice you offer.
Ed
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