[time-nuts] Star Box

"Björn" bg at lysator.liu.se
Mon Aug 19 06:45:24 UTC 2013


Hi Bob & Joe,

The CMC Allstar was a high quality 12 channel L1 receiver. There was even
an option for the DGPS version to have an onboard OCXO. Joe, does your
have that or the ordinary Rakon TCXO?

Shure the Allstar is not a high sensitivity receiver so do not try indoor
navigation with this receiver. However, measurement quality with a decent
antenna/antenna siting - it will still give the modern uBlox receivers a
run. Not to bad for a 10-15 year old product.

It is also nice - as Magnus pointed out - in that it driven by a 10MHz
oscillator onboard. Compared to a uBlox based GPSDO it does not need the
1PPS/phase detector.

These Allstars used for DGPS, were - I suspect - the prime reason for the
CMC/Novatel branded AT575-90 L1 Choke ring antennas we have seen
available.

--

    Björn
> Hi
>
> Pretty much everything made from silicon goes through 3-4 year cycles.
> Anything that's 10 years old is a couple of cycles behind. It's probably
> not going to work as well as an LEA-6T or even a LEA-5T. It might be
> competitive with a 4T or a 3T.
>
> Bob
>
> On Aug 15, 2013, at 10:47 PM, Joseph Gray <jgray at zianet.com> wrote:
>
>> I just picked up a Star Box for $10. It has an Allstar DGPS board
>> inside. I
>> saw several mentions of similar boards in the archives and I have found
>> some documentation on the net. Has anyone actually used one of these in
>> a
>> GPSDO? Does it work any better than the usual Motorola, Rockwell, or
>> other
>> available boards?
>>
>> The other thought is, since this is a DGPS board, how difficult would it
>> be
>> to use it to obtain a more accurate position fix? Or do I need other GPS
>> boards to correlate this one with?
>>
>> I'll admit that so far, I have only skimmed the documentation that I
>> downloaded. If I need to RTFM for my answers, just tell me so.
>>
>> Some data on what I have:
>>
>> Star Box Part No. 100-600304-100
>> (DGPS Base Station option is checked)
>>
>> Inside the box is a carrier board that has a power supply and an RS-232
>> TX/RX chip. The GPS board that plugs onto the carrier has a label on the
>> underside that says "VAR 100". This corresponds to the suffix of the
>> part
>> number on the box. The top side of the GPS board has the GPS receiver in
>> a
>> large metal box that is imbossed "ALLSTAR 12" and "CMC", which is the
>> manufacturer (since then bought by Novatel?).
>>
>>
>> Joe Gray
>> W5JG
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