[time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361/Thunderbolt antenna advice sought.

Chris Albertson albertson.chris at gmail.com
Tue May 5 00:01:46 UTC 2015


On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 5:18 AM, Oghma <oghma at live.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi, all
> I've only recently joined time-nuts, having recently become interested in having a stable, accurate frequency reference available - mainly for amateur radio applications in the 1-24GHz region.
>
> Anyway, I have a Trimble Thunderbolt GPSDO, and a Lucent KS-24361 (REF 0 & REF 1 units), and would like to have them both connected to the same antenna. I know that the KS-24361 puts out a dc feed on the TNC to power an active antenna, but am not sure whether the Thunderbolt does the same...
> So, can anyone who knows a little more about these two units recommend an antenna that will be suitable for both?

Almost all GPS receivers output DC power for the antenna. On some
there is a way to disable this, many times by removing a jumper.  What
you need is an antenna splitter that blocks DC on one side and passes
it on the other.  Many splitters do this.   A little surprisingly, an
antenna splitter made for cable TV works.

Many peoples a more expensive solution where the GPS antenna drives a
distribution amplifier and then that drives the GPS receivers.  Or
they use specialized GPS bad antenna spitter's.

I'd like the know if the more expensive methods really do perform
measurably better.   What I'd do is start with a cheap cable TV
splitter that blocks DC on one side and then upgrade later if
required.



-- 

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California



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