[time-nuts] Mercury Ion Clock

[Magnus Danielson]

Dave,

On 11/03/2014 01:29 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote:
> On 1 Nov 2014 16:50, "Jim Lux" <jimlux at earthlink.net> wrote:
> behind a scintillator)
>>
>> The 40 GHz stuff these days is not nearly as exotic as it used to be. The
> challenge might be test equipment when you're debugging your 40 GHz
> synthesis chain.
>
> There's a fair amount of test equipment around to 40.0 GHz, but it is not
> cheap even on the used market. But above 40.0 GHz it gets even more
> expensive, as a lot of kit stops there. So a spectrum analyzer that works
> to 40.1 GHz is going to cost serious money.
>
> I don't know what ones chances of feeding 10.04 MHz into the 10 MHz
> reference input to 40 GHz test equipment to make it work to
> 40*10.04/10=40.16 GHz. I suspect that you could get away with it.

It would not really be needed. Only if you would be using a 40,5 GHz 
oscillator and steer it, that 40 GHz would be exposed. However, I would 
not be surprised if a source in the 100 MHz to 1 GHz range or so would 
be used as an intermediary clock to a big 5 MHz fly-wheel. Naturally 
that intermediary could be synthesized. There are many ways to go about it.

Cheers,
Magnus