For what it’s worth, the mercury ion clocks were shipped to the US Naval Observatory. HP shortly thereafter did a market survey and concluded there was not enough profit in it. They did allow Len and Robin to give short-answer support, and the project fell to me. I found the clocks were not performing well due to sudden vacuum-contamination events. Len, Robin, and I published our data in the proceedings of the 1995 Frequency Control Symposium. At about the same time, JPL came up with a second generation design. They kept improving it, and 20 years later this is now the Deep Space Atomic Clock, which was just launched. See https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/index.html <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/index.html> and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Atomic_Clock <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Atomic_Clock>
As for costs for an unit that is not space-qualified, I would guess you still need a lab with PhD’s and skilled technicians because I doubt much of the hardware is commercially available. Demetrios Matsakis, as of this Saturday a USNO retiree, and as of August 1 a consultant for Masterclock. > FWIW, about 20 years ago, Len Cutler and Robin Giffard of 5071A fame > built several Hg ion clocks to be shipped to some govt customer I > don't remember. One of the clocks was dropped by the shipping company > UPS or FedEX) and destroyed. Only then did Len learn that HP was > self insured, probably as part of a package deal to get a low > corporate shipping rate. HP products were packed extremely well, so > the only real risk was the unit getting stolen. I vaguely remember > Len saying they were out $10K, which was probably just the cost of > parts. Nevertheless, it didn't seem like building an Hg clock was > all that big of a project. Way simpler than the 5071A. > Now a days, the electronics would be considerably easier and cheaper. > The mechanical parts would all be CNC'ed by an online machine shop. > > Rick N6RK > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
