[time-nuts] HP5071

Richard (Rick) Karlquist richard at karlquist.com
Sat May 21 22:11:01 UTC 2016



On 5/21/2016 11:25 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:

> I'd give a lot to read the design documents of the 5071.
> There must be a lot of knowhow and techniques in them.

Read papers by me and my colleagues at the 1992 Frequency
Control Symposium.  There is nothing else in the public
domain.
>
>
> What reference did you use to measure its absolute accuracy?
> Did you have access to the NIST standards?
>
> 			Attila Kinali

At that time, HP had an ensemble of 5061B's that they
compared to LORAN and it was somehow traceable to NIST.
It was claimed to be the most accurate clock on the
west coast at the time.

Also, one of the first pilot production units was
actually taken to Boulder and compared directly with
NIST's frequency reference.  I remember that it was
off by a few parts in 10^13, after correcting for
the gravitation effect of Boulder at 5000 ft vs
Santa Clara at sea level.

Over time, customers like NIST and the Naval Observatory
accumulated data on 5071A's to establish their accuracy.
At one time, 85% of the weight of the TAI (International
Atomic Timescale) consisted of 5071A's. Jack Kusters said
that, as a group, the 5071A's were accurate to around
10^-14, because there were no significant systematic errors.
Hard to argue with that.

Rick




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