[time-nuts] Analog or Digital GPSDO?

WarrenS warrensjmail-one at yahoo.com
Sat Dec 6 14:56:38 UTC 2008


Here is a posting meant to start a debate between open minded freq-nuts.
It is inspired by  Tom's latest posting  at http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/m12-adev/

All else being equal, Tom's data says to me that a simple analog front end design when 
combined with a microprocessor  is able to provide a better performing GPSDO 
than any digital only unit that is using just the 1PPS. 
It would appear that the analog front end can be as good and even better 
than using the sawtooth correction data.

I may be a bit pregidous toward analog because I have been using 
analog only sub ns tracking of the GPS error signal for a long time.

What analog or digital can not address is any of  the issues concerning non carrier phase receiver limitations. 
so I'd like to assume for this discussion that the GPSDO is using a Motorola Oncore type 
of receiver with position hold capability.

A different but related question is, does or would using some form of  waas help a GPSDO?

Have fun with it,
WarrenS





More information about the time-nuts mailing list