[time-nuts] HP-5065a advise and purchase decision

[John Ackermann N8UR]

John Miles said the following on 07/01/2012 05:18 PM:
>
> The real problem with the 5065A is that it represents the end of the line
> for most noncommercial users.  There are no further upgrade possibilities
> for taus out to several hours -- not even the best commercial cesium
> standards -- until you get into masers.

This is a really good (and frustrating!) point.  The 5065A is not 
stellar at taus less than a few seconds -- mine doesn't quite hit 
1x10e-12 at 1 second -- but from that point out to at least 10K seconds, 
it's extraordinary.

Here's a plot I did recently of the short-term stability of some 
atomics, versus a BVA which is below 3x10e-13 from 0.1 out to 10K 
seconds.  You can infer how good the 5065A is at medium tau from the 
fact that it's still on the way down when the BVA aging starts to show 
at around 600 seconds:

http://www.febo.com/pages/oscillators/atomics/

I'm still planning to do a (long) comparison of the 5065A vs. my best Cs 
or a GPSDO to see if I can find its floor.

John