[time-nuts] RADI-EPC7 / E1740A / E1725A TIA

[Bob Camp]

Hi

 

Does anybody have one of these running? The disk in mine has been wiped and
the required drivers don't seem to be out there anywhere. It's an early to
mid 1990's VXI based TIA. When it was new it ran Win 98. Single shot noise
floor is rated as 100 ps rms. I seem to recall there's a way to improve on
that by 2X to 3X. The internal clock is a TCXO, it may do better when fed
with a good standard.  

 

More or less I see four paths:

 

1)       Find the drivers for the 486 based RADI-EPC7 built in PC. Load up
Win 98, and the HP software. Run it as originally intended. Has some retro
appeal. May not be reliable.

2)       Load the HP software on an external Win 98 machine and run the
1740A via a GPIB VXI interface. High probability of success, fairly large
setup. May not be reliable. 

3)       Forget about Win 98 and the HP software. Run it via GPIB to VXI
from something more modern. Write new software to get the data out of it.
More likely to be useful in the future. 

4)       Gee that's a nice sturdy base for a coffee table. I already have a
coffee table ..

 

Since this is not exactly a state of the art machine any more, it may not be
worth a major effort to bring up. The built in analysis functions on the HP
software were one of it's main appeals when it was new. There are a lot more
packages doing that sort of stuff now than there were then. I'll only really
know what it's floor is once it's running, that's a bit late in the game. If
somebody is running one and knows how low they really go - that would help
the decision process. 

 

Ideas?

 

Bob