[time-nuts] crystal oscillators & TPLL

WarrenS warrensjmail-one at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 25 20:32:06 UTC 2010


Charles Posted a bunch of stuff (below),

Most think I should just ignore him, but I can not help myself,
he has after all made this one just too easy and silly not to respond to.

I hope Charles did not consider this to be just another "good example" of 
all the 'constructive helpful criticism' I've received.

> His childish tantrums, insults, and outlandish claims are his and his 
> alone.
Funny, I have to wonder if maybe Charles was just reading and referring to 
his own posting.
Charles's past and latest posting does show that he has several problems, 
both technical as well as emotionally.
Don't we all?, It is just that most have the good sense and taste not to 
make them so public.
Sounds to me that he is someone that does need a lot of help, but certainly 
not the kind of help I can give.

Some of the more ironic things, I find in the latest 'attack facts' is his 
statement: [paraphrased]

> [Warren does not understand that all the name calling and insults and 
> attacks have been fair attempts by professional engineers to understand 
> Warren's TPLL implementation]
> so that they can TRY to ascertain to what degree the TPLL is likely to 
> provide useful results over a broader range of conditions than those that 
> have been publicly demonstrated.

1) why would a professional engineer have to resort to attacks in a fair 
attempt to understand something so simple or so old and basic?

2) why would the professional engineers need to have more information, when 
everything that is needed is already on John's site?
especially if AS CLAMED over and over, they are asking to get this 
information from someone that does not even know what he is doing.

3) Just how much broader range do they want or need than has already been 
publicly demonstrated, that it works good enough from near DC to 100Hz for 
every device and noise type it has been tested WITH NO exceptions (limited 
only by the controlled OCXO).

There are some things that I do not Understand, Such as:

I do not understand, Nor do I really care, what part of this Charles does 
not understand.
I will not let his or others shortcoming and non-understandings be MY 
problem

Also posted:
>I know [some] have said more than once that we should just ignore "the 
>femtosecond thing," but why?
>(Not that anything turns on this one claim anyway)

Just because of Charles's and others own non-understandings and limitations,
why one would then feel it is MY reasonability to try and educate someone 
like that is way beyond my understanding.
but

I'll try again to comment on the femto second thing, since some seem to be 
hung up on that part most of all.
In order to work good (which no one seems to be denying any more), the TPLL 
method has to hold the two Oscillator's phase differences real, real close 
OVER the Bandwidth of interest.
Anyone that can understand what limits a noise floor plot, can see that the 
phase differences are being held to about 10 fs at 100 Hz, from the data 
posted on John's site.

Anyone that can do simple math and has a vary basic understanding of the 
TPLLs could calculate for their self with the BW information given in John's 
site,
that the TPLL is "trying" to hold the phase difference over the Bandwidth of 
interest from DC to 1 KHz  down to single digit Femtoseconds varation for 
low noise oscillators.
If you do not have a favorite Phase detector to use, can use the 
mini-Circuits SYPD-1 for you calculations,  (or any other),

A little less obvious but still very easy to calculate with simple math (OK, 
just a little harder than 2+2, but not by too much),
is that the noise floor limit of a good low noise AMP can give about 1 fs of 
phase differences between the two Oscillators OVER the Bandwidth of 
importance.
If you do not have a favorite low noise op amp to use, one can use the op-27 
for their calculations,  (or many others),

If Charles or anyone would like to do and post the SIMPLE math to show that 
ANY of femtosecond stuff above is not true,
and their answer turns out to be different than mine, I'd be more than 
willing to show what they did wrong or different than me.

The fact that Charles and others seem to be confusing 10 MHz Phase jitter 
with 100 Hz and below bandwidth limited Phase differences do
show they have a few major things missing  in their  understanding about 
what ADEV is and how it is a frequency stability value over a limited time 
and Bandwidth called tau.

Also if anyone still thinks they can make a reasonable data set file that 
shows where the TPLL will mess up, Go for it.
I'm still willing to try and prove to all that will NOT EVER be the case.
OR is it still OK for some expert to make an unsubstantiated and false clam 
that would be easy to prove wrong given a chance,
If they just reference some paper that has meaningless information because 
it does not apply to this method.

ws
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[time-nuts] crystal oscillators & TPLL
Charles P. Steinmetz charles_steinmetz at lavabit.com
Fri Jun 25 07:05:59 UTC 2010

Steve wrote:

>I agree with what you say and really wish we could move forward
>with this. The only thing that is preventing this happening is the
>expected reaction that will occur when/if that information is ever
>released. Unfortunately the concept of constructive criticism is an
>anathema to some members of this list and this is the blockage.

I must disagree.  I suppose it's good for Warren to have an
apologist, but you are simply not getting the facts right.  Warren
seems to be unable to deal with constructive criticism.

What you characterize as attacks by "arrogant naysayers" (and as
professional engineers looking down on amateur engineers) has, to my
reading, been a fair attempt by other listmembers to understand
Warren's TPLL implementation so that they can try to ascertain to
what degree it is likely to provide useful results over a broader
range of conditions than those that have been publicly
demonstrated.  As we have asked for more details so we can try to do
this, Warren has responded in every case -- every case -- with vague
allusions to details of his implementation and testing he has done,
childish accusations that nobody understands anything and we all must
think he can't add two and two, followed by more and more outlandish
claims about what his device does (for just one example, "the simple
analog TPLL method holds the Phase difference [between the reference
and test oscillators] to zero (with-in 1 femtosecond)" -- Wed, 9 Jun
2010 21:05:57 -0700), which (i) cannot be true and (ii) appear to
demonstrate that Warren not only has not tested at least some of the
things that he is claiming, but seems not to understand much of the
basic subject matter.  Warren has had more than ample opportunity to
answer any criticism by saying calmly that he did "a" (with a decent
explanation of what "a" is) and got "x" result, and similarly with
"b" and "y," "c" and "z," etc., but he has not once done so.  One
might reasonably conclude after all of the smokescreens and refusals
that he has not, in fact, done any of the things to which he has
vaguely alluded.

I know you have said more than once that we should just ignore "the
femtosecond thing," but why?  (Not that anything turns on this one
claim anyway -- there are plenty of others like it.)  You yourself
called it into question (Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:05:26 +1200).  It is a
claim Warren made, and very specifically -- not that a femtosecond is
the resolution of the test method stated in units of time (which
others have advanced to try to explain what he meant), but that his
PLL locks two 10 MHz oscillators to within one femtosecond of each
other and that he has verified this in several ways.  If Warren
claims this thing (and numerous others that can easily be found in
the voluminous record) that must be mistaken (or worse), what else
that he has claimed can we trust?  When you read the posts and make
the inferences that Warren's statements invite (in many cases,
seemingly inescapably), it appears that the only trustworthy
information we have about the operation of Warren's TPLL is what John
published -- which indicates that the method has promise -- perhaps
even considerable promise -- but is far from the proof Warren seems
to think it is that his device fulfills all of his claims or has been
characterized to the point that others can predict under what
conditions they can rely on it.

So, please, don't make Warren out as the poor, well-meaning basement
inventor being bashed by the "professionals."  His childish tantrums,
insults, and outlandish claims are his and his alone.  Even if we
assume for the sake of argument that he was hard done by (which I do
not believe is true), that would not excuse his responses.  It would
have been one thing to say, "Hey, I put this together and it seems to
work pretty well" and leave it at that, but that is not what Warren did.

Best regards,

Charles 





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