Hi, On 2020-01-17 22:09, Skip Withrow wrote: > Hello Time-Nuts, > > I appreciate all the kind remarks regarding yesterday's post. > > Today the maser was tested on each of the attached power supplies and > on battery power. Unit stayed lit and locked, and the alarm went off > when on just battery. So, all the covers were replaced and the > readings logged. We'll see where things stand in a week or so after > it has had time to settle and reach its new thermal equilibrium. Good progress. > Sigma Tau Standards Corporation was the fist and only commercial > manufacturer of hydrogen masers in the U.S., in fact, I believe there > are only three companies world-wide (the other two being in Russia - > Kvarz and ?).
T4Science, which is where the team from Observatoir Cantonell de Neuchatel (ON) ended up, for a while also through Oscilloquartz. The Kvarz masers have been repackaged by severals, such as Oscilloquartz. I only have a rubidium from the pre-cursor to Kvarz. I aim to bring that back into operations again. > Harry Peters retired from NASA in 1975 after building > several units there, and moved to Alabama to found Sigma Tau. Over > the years Sigma Tau was bought by Symmetricom (when Harry Peters > retired again), Symmetricom was purchased by MciroSemi, and MicroSemi > was purchased by Microchip. The division is still active and > producing product in Alabama. Sigma Tau went up into DATUM and then Symmetricom bought DATUM as I recall it. > > There is at least one of the old guard left from Sigma Tau, Bryan > Owings. He was consulted on several occasions when the maser was > trying to be coaxed into operation. It was VERY clear that he has > seen many of these units and knows the intimate details of their > construction. Have to say that I learned a few things from him as > well. Masers is quite a different beasts from your normal beam clock, in several ways. You become much more aware about things, and to some degree they are more open. You learn a lot with these things. > If you need some light reading on hydrogen masers you might try the > following link - > https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740008078.pdf > It is from 1973 by Harry Peters and keeps it pretty basic. I don't > think there was ever a commercial version of a variable volume unit, > but it makes a good research tool. > > I hope to post again some months out when we have some data. Look forward to hear more! Cheers, Magnus _______________________________________________ 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.
