[time-nuts] Spectracom 8170 Time of Day grief...

[Burt I. Weiner]

Paul,

Thanks for the information. Late last night I did a search and found 
out about the "d-pskr-r" - an appropriate name, indeed. I gather 
there is no final design that says, "Here, build this and it'll 
work". I have a malady that I suspect is common in this group; I hate 
to throw anything away or convert it to a door stop.

Supposedly, WWVB reverts back to the non-psk mode twice a day, at 
12:00 Noon and again at 12:00 Midnight, each time for 30 minutes. 
Last night my 8170 did not set. At my location the signal has been 
the most stable during the day, so I'm going to watch it today at 
noon. I'll report my useless findings afterwards. If it were to set 
once every 24 hours I would probably be happy as I'm not using it to 
time a network, just to hopefully be a little more accurate than my 
30 year old kitchen clock.

By the way...  Earlier I mentioned that I have two 9150-52054 GPS 
units. Apparently my mind and fingers were not speaking to each other 
at that moment as I have should've typed, (DATUM) 9390-52054. Both of 
these run 24/7, use separate antennas and are on a UPS. I'm sure 
you've seen my various epistles in this group about them. Since I've 
changed out their power supplies and upgraded their crystal 
oscillators, they're most happy.

Burt, K6OQK
www.biwa.cc



>Burt search time nuts its all there. Its not a kit by any means.
>Spectracom did a very good job. To good, though in reality they simply
>reused the phase tracking rcvr from other units. Essentially the system
>locks to the stable carrier creating a local replica and then removes the
>carrier recovering just the AM. Or think of it as subtracting the carrier
>leaving just the data. Very good design very bad for PSK, since the carrier
>no longer has a relationship.
>Nist and spectracom did put notices and such out for over a year, so what
>can you say. Though we all have lots of strong opinions actually. Don't want
>to start that thread again.
>I have often thought and will spend no time doing it. Simply replace the
>demod with a diode detector. Now its not actually quite that easy. But if
>the only thing I had was a 8170 what the heck. The schematics of the system
>are available at spectracom.
>
>Near as I can tell the 8170 would run about 2 days on a fix.
>
>Off to seriously sleazzy land. You could always bugger a gps clock into the
>system adapting GPS time to local time by a micro. But that really is ugly.
>Though you end up with those nice clock digits working again. Hey when you
>do that send me the old rcvr parts. ;-)
>
>Regards
>Paul.
>
>
>On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 12:37 AM, Burt I. Weiner <biwa at att.net> wrote:
>
> > Paul,
> >
> > Ummmm... What a revolting development this is.  My 9150-52054 have a
> > smaller readout out that I can't see without climbing up on my bench,
> > so I suppose I will no longer know what time it is.

Burt I. Weiner Associates
Broadcast Technical Services
Glendale, California  U.S.A.
biwa at att.net
www.biwa.cc
K6OQK