[time-nuts] Maximizing Cs Tube Life

[John Miles]

I recently ran across a paper from the 1980 Frequency Control Symposium, in
which HP and the USNO released their surveys on 5061/5062 failure modes.
There was a special emphasis on beam-tube life, showing strong positive
trends as HP got better at manufacturing the tubes in the 1970s:

Longevity Performance of Cesium-Beam Frequency Standards
http://www.ke5fx.com/cs_life.pdf (5 MB, 12 pages)

The paper obviously doesn't apply directly to the 5071A tubes, which came
out much later, but you can still clearly see the loss of service life
associated with high-performance beam tubes in general.  Seems that 5061A
standard-perf tubes were way out in front of everyone else, back in the day.

-- john, KE5FX

> -----Original Message-----
> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com]On
> Behalf Of Mark Sims
> Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 8:09 PM
> To: time-nuts at febo.com
> Subject: [time-nuts] Maximizing Cs Tube Life
>
>
>
> "The candle that burns twice as bright,  burns half as long..."
>
> Are both your units the high-performance version?  These units
> get their performance boost by doubling the beam current...  at
> the expense of half the life.  As a side "benefit" of the
> increased beam current,  you can get increased outgasing of
> contaminants in the tube/cesium supply.
>
>