[time-nuts] How good is my T-bolt...??
Michael Baker
mpb45 at clanbaker.org
Sun Dec 21 14:09:40 UTC 2008
Hello, Time-Nutters--
Bruce said:
> A statement of accuracy is of little value unless you also give:
> 1) An estimate of the accuracy of standard used for comparison.
> 2) An estimate of the random and systematic errors in the comparison
> 3) Some details of the comparison method.
> 4) Averaging time and other pertinent info.
------------------------------
Mike asked:
> What frequency reference did they use at the university standards
lab to measure the T-Bolt frequency? And how did they measure its
frequency?
> How did they do the comparison to your TBolt? If it was a counter,
what kind was it?
> You mentioned the error was better than 1e-12 90% of the time. What
was the average error?
------------------------------
Hi, Bruce, Mike, et al--
Your points are all well taken! However, all I wanted to
know (and all I asked the standards lab) was: How much
"ballpark" error will I have when using my T-bolt as a
reference to confirm the frequency of my 10GHz ham transmitter?
Yes, from a Time-Nuts perspective, my question is crude and
unsophisticated, but I simply did not have any interest in
knowing anything about the T-bolt except how good it is when
used as a reference for checking the frequency output of my
10GHz transmitter. I really did not care about ADEV, MDEV,
XYZDEV or any other alphabet soup criteria, and yes, I know
that this confirms that I am a primitive knuckle-dragging
troglodyte with respect to the subtle nuances of time and
frequency standards...
It's kinda like looking at the speedometer on my pickup truck
as I drive down the Interstate highway....: My only interest
is that it be accurate enough to use for my particular
application. Same goes for my T-bolt... Can I trust it
to get me within 10Hz at 10GHz? +/- 100Hz? +/- 1KHz?
As for what the lab used to make the measurements, all I can
say is that the lab has several time/frequency references,
one I saw was about the size of a refrigerator called a
CH1-75 Active Hydrogen Maser. Big-- looked expensive,
blinking lights, pretty colors... impressed me.
I'll go back to my cave, now...
Cheers!!
Mike Baker
WA4HFR
Gainesville, Florida, USA
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