[time-nuts] Fine print on HP 5334B

SAIDJACK at aol.com SAIDJACK at aol.com
Thu Feb 22 18:25:44 EST 2007


 
In a message dated 2/22/2007 23:15:49 W. Europe Standard Time,  
richard at karlquist.com writes:


3.  The interpolator has somewhat questionable accuracy when  you
get down to 12 digits.  This is hidden somewhat by the  firmware,
but if you monitor the bits the interpolator puts out, you  can
see what is going on.  To me, it is kind of amazing it works  as
well as it does considering the design.

So please lower your  expectations!

If you want a really good HP counter, move up to the  53181 which
is much more modern, even being 15 years old.

Rick  Karlquist N6RK
R&D Project Manager of 5334B (circa  1986)



Hello Rick,
 
I had a couple of Q's on these units, glad you are on this mailing  list!!
 
I have an Rb/Cs feeding the 10MHz ref ext. I feed 10MHz to the front panel  
from my DUT.
 
Then I subtract 10.0MHz from the display using math, and set a 99s gate  
time. This gives me down to 100uHz (1oo -6 indicated) resolution (11 digits) of  
the frequency difference.
 
Q1: Now when I press the 100 average button, I would expect the unit to  
calculate the averages of 100 (albeit very long) measurements and give me at  
least one, if not two more digits of resolution.
 
But the unit just comes out of this with some sort of overflow error.
 
Q2: How come I cannot enter more than 99s measurement intervalls? It would  
be great if the unit supported 1K and 10K intervalls to improve resolution one  
or two digits.
 
Is there any other trick I can use to increase the resolution, say by  
feeding the Rb/Cs also into channel B etc?
 
Thanks in advance,
Said
<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free 
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
http://www.aol.com.


More information about the time-nuts mailing list