[time-nuts] Why using HP5370 ext-ref is (maybe) a bad idea
Poul-Henning Kamp
phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Sun Mar 2 22:29:54 UTC 2014
I have spent another evening playing around with the 5370 and the
conclusion is pretty ironclad now:
Running a 5370 with ext-ref locked to input frequencies is simply
a bad idea and should not be done.
Running it on the internal OCXO works fine.
Running it on another frequency *not* locked to the input frequenc
also works fine.
In both cases the errors are statistically well-behaved, and can
be treated with normal statistical methods, including the built-in
STD-DEV function.
But feeding ext-ref a frequency which is locked to the input frequencies
causes the errors to become systematic, and they can no longer be
treated as statistically well-behaved.
For instance: The length of the coax to ext-ref suddenly affect
your TI measurements, because it shifts the phase between the 200MHz
and the input signal.
I tried tuning up the A21 200MHz synthesizer to the best of my
ability, and it clearly made a difference, the phase pattern
of errors shifted around, but the errors did not get any smaller,
they just moved.
I also tried disconnecting the "10 MHz present" circuit, that
didn't change the magnitude of the errors either, but did shift
the phase of the peak noise a couple of degrees.
Looking at some old notes from years past which just didn't make
sense, does now.
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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