[time-nuts] HP5065A Rubidium question

Bill Hawkins bill.iaxs at pobox.com
Sun Feb 19 22:51:42 EST 2017


Well, if it was not working when you acquired it, the physics package
had probably reached the end of its life.

If it had been working recently and is not now, it might be repairable.

Others on this list know more about repairing than I.

Bill Hawkins 


-----Original Message-----
From: David Scott Coburn
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2017 4:42 PM

I have an HP5065A Rubidium Frequency Standard which is not working.

All of the oven temperatures look OK.
The power supply voltages look OK.
The ~60 MHz going into the RVFS package looks OK.
The 5.000 MHz and the ~5.315 MHz signals are within a few Hz.  (The unit
is running open loop only.) The A7 AC amp looks to be working OK.
The A8 137/234 Hz signals look OK.
There is 20 VDC feeding the RVFS lamp oscillator.

But, there is no current coming from the photodiode.  (Maybe a few
picoamps of dark current, certainly not the expected ~50 microamps of
DC, and no 137/234 Hz signals).

It seems the most likely problem is that the Rb lamp is not coming on.
Maybe possible that the photodiode is faulty, or a broken wire, etc.

Any other possibilities I should check before setting off into the
innards of the RVFS package?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Scott



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