[time-nuts] building a frequency counter.. use 1PPS, ,or 10 MHz reference from GPS?

[Tyler H]

Hello!  

 

I'm building a frequency counter for some amateur radio microwave
transverters to measure the local oscillators.  

 

I am designing towards a capability of directly counting up to 100 MHz and
up to 200 MHz with a prescaler.  

 

For a time base, I'd like to use a 1PPS pulse from a GPS, but how accurate
are they?   Should I just count a 10 MHz GPS reference and use that to
generate a gate for the counter? 

 

Yes, there will be propagation delays in dedicated logic gates, but they
don't appear to be too bad.  I should be able to get down to 100 Hz or so,
which will be fine for what I need to do. 

 

I'd rather stick with dedicated counters and gates than move to an FPGA.  

 

Thoughts? 

 

Thanks!

 

Tyler

KM3G

Shrewsbury, PA