[time-nuts] is there a cheap and simple way to measure OCXOs?

Bob Camp lists at rtty.us
Tue Jun 5 16:45:24 UTC 2012


Hi

OCXO's are mostly made up of the "usual stuff" of electronics. Once you get
past the heater, just about anything might go wrong. Usually it doesn't but
that's no real guarantee. 

The crystal in the OCXO is what likely makes or breaks it's performance.
About the only way to check the crystal is to measure the ADEV, phase noise,
and aging of the oscillator. There's really no shortcut there. 

Aging is probably the easiest to measure. A triggered scope, some math, and
a bit of time will give you a pretty good idea of what's going on relative
to a reference. Yes you do need a reference ...

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On
Behalf Of Attila Kinali
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 6:18 AM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] is there a cheap and simple way to measure OCXOs?

On Wed, 30 May 2012 15:11:03 +0200
Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch> wrote:

 
> I recently bought some Oscilloquartz 8663 from ebay and am now wondering
> how to check whether they are working correctly or whether they are
> out of specs.
> 
> Unfortunately, although i have a reasonable park of measurement
instruments,
> none of them are in the precision range that i'd need to characterize
> the 8663's.


thanks everyone for the answers! I did dig a little bit trough the avilable
devices (ie those that do not cost me an arm and a leg to buy) and came
to the conclusion that i have to reformulate my requirements.

I think, the most important thing for me at the moment is to verify that
i do not have any defect devices. Defect in the sense of something other
than "does not output any signal" (these are trivial to detect). 

And here i'm stuck again. What are likely defects of an OCXO? And how would
i detect them?


			Attila Kinali
-- 
It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All 
the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no 
use without that foundation.
                 -- Miss Matheson, The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson

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