[time-nuts] Low power timekeeping

[Chris Albertson]

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 7:19 PM, Hal Murray <hmurray at megapathdsl.net> wrote:

>
> How good a clock could you get at much lower power?  I guess I'm looking
> for something (logarithmically) between a watch and a GPSDO.
>

The trick to ultra-low power, I think, is to not run the GPS receiver full
time.  If you literally want something between a wrist watch and a GPSDO
then build a "GPS disciplined wrist watch" GPSDWW.  Let the watch run open
loop until  say an hour then turn on the GPS for a few seconds, adjust the
watch then power off the GPS.   Likely you'd use something better then a
watch crystal but almost as low power

Rather then spend a lot of energy with a heater and oven to stabilize the
temperature I think you can dig a deep hole in the ground like a well and
burry the oscillator and have an ultra stabile temperature for years.

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California