[time-nuts] HP 117/10509a...

[J. Forster]

> John I am with Bob on this. Its to keep the gear ticking and an alternate
> to GPS (Sort of).

I agree with that objective, but, I have seen peoplwe take BC-611 radios
and put cheap CB into the box. That interests me not in the slightest.

> But there is a huge difference between this and LORAN C.
> Here there is an opportunity to evolve as compared to LORAN that was
> simply killed.

I agree the LORAN-C shutdown was idiotic, but NIST is essentially
obsoleting all phase tracking receivers by going to BPSK. IMO, it is
essentially like the change from LORAN-A to LORAN-C, except that it will
happen at some defined date/time rather than over the years.

> Further maybe even obtain better performance. But thats far from my
> concern right now. I simply want to get the systems back online to watch
> propagation behaviors as I have for years.

I don't see how. The time transmitted will have the same propagation
issues as the 60 kHz, so will be subject to diurnal variations plus
ionospheric randomness.

> Maybe in the future there will be a $7 chip set that magically does whats
> been written by nist/John Lowe. Or like someone suggested we get the dtv
> tuner coupon. :-) Not likely.

Could well be just an EPROM, but you need all the other stuff to support
it...  antenna, cables, power supply. A $7 will not be the end of it.

YMMV,

-John

================

> But it does truly seem possible to succeed on this. Maybe its our skills
> that are insufficient to pull this off. But I haven't given up at all.
> Just delayed with family...
> Can't wait to heat the soldering iron up late next week.
>
> Regards
> Paul