[time-nuts] Of rubidium life and piggy-bank anemia....

[Michael Baker]

Greetings, all--

As a newbie to this list, I am playing catchup
in a number of arenas so please forgive me if
I post something which is old news to most.

In any event, something John Miles said pointed
me towards investigating what it would take to
cobble up something that would get me to the next
higher level of frequency accuracy that exceeded my
Trimble Thunderbolt.  My primary purpose is to have
the most (relatively) accurate 10MHz or 100MHz frequency
reference to use in measurements above 2GHz but
below 24GHz.  Obviously, a somewhat anemic piggy-bank
prohibits me from dropping several thousands of $$$ (choke)
on a surplus cesium reference, so I am going to have to
settle for rubidium.  I see lots of rubidium oscillators
come and go on eBay for several hundred $$.

I started out to see what it would take to replace the
OCXO in my T-bolt with a rubidium oscillator.  One
concern I had was paying $400 for a surplus rubidium
oscillator and then discovering that it only had a year
or two of life left in it.

I stumbled across an interesting (but a tad dated) Air
Force study titled:

Observations on the Reliability of Rubidium Frequency
Standards on Block II/IIA GPS Satellites

It is found at:

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/1995/Vol%2027_10.pdf

It may well turn out that after the tears dry following
the realization that I probably cannot afford a tighter
frequency reference than my T-bolt provides I will just
have to resign myself to the E-12 of the T-Bolt
and be happy...

Your thoughts and comments are most welcome--

Mike Baker
Micanopy, Florida
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