[time-nuts] ebay warning

[Tom Knox]

Thanks for the warning. An unfortunate fact is Rubidium oscillator life is inversely proportionate to to operating temp. At 60F they will last a very long time, where above 100F they die pretty quickly.
These sound like they were real old, run hot, or both.
Thomas Knox



> From: EWKehren at aol.com
> Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:14:22 -0500
> To: time-nuts at febo.com
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] ebay warning
> 
> These guys do not know what they sell. This was a marketing ploy, I did  
> catch him once before and made him change his listing. All a sudden he had 
> used  and new. Checked with him, claimed he ha d gotten some new ones bought 
> one,  looked very used took the back off, strong discoloration a give away but 
>  frequency way down a sign off long operating time, because FE ships them 
> as  close as possible and claim 5 E-11. Those of you that paid the extra for 
> a NEW  got ripped off.
> Bert Kehren
>  
>  
> In a message dated 2/21/2012 1:37:59 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
> albertson.chris at gmail.com writes:
> 
> On Tue,  Feb 21, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Bob Camp <lists at rtty.us> wrote:
> >  Hi
> >
> > I just got a couple of FE's in from the same guy. They all  lock up ok, no
> > idea about how they age. One interesting thing  though:
> >
> > All the other FE's I have seen came attached to PC  boards. The ones I 
> just
> > got were taken off the board before shipping.  All other FE's I've seen 
> came
> > in pretty close to 10 MHz on the high  end of the VCXO sweep. The latest
> > batch came in *much* higher (like 50  to 70 Hz high). I'm wondering if 
> they
> > were taken off the PC board to  adjust the VCXO so they would lock.
> 
> That makes sense.  If you have  many FE5680s, yu test them and sell the
> good ones first as you repair the  failed units.
> 
> On another list people were asking if they should buy  a
> "reconditioned" product from Apple.   (Apple offers the same 1  year
> warranty.)  The majority opinion is that the "reconditioned"  units
> have a better record because they were bench checked here is the  USA
> and have better quality assurance testing than the new units get  in
> China.
> 
> This may be true of the re-worked FE5680s too.    A reworked unit might
> have been tested for 30 minutes or so while the  others only got
> powered up briefly.
> 
> We don't really know the level  of testing but over all these seem to
> be reputable sellers who are  responsive to problems.      I do avoid
> sellers who claim  their stuff is "new" when it can't be new.  Either
> their understanding  of the English word "new" is poor or they are
> misrepresenting the  product.  Either way there are others who don't
> misuse the word that I  can buy from.
> 
> 
> Chris Albertson
> Redondo Beach,  California
> 
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