[time-nuts] So what’s inside that Cs Beam Tube anyway?

Tom Van Baak tvb at LeapSecond.com
Thu Nov 3 09:36:19 UTC 2016


> Never heard that story.  You gotta love it:  a hot rod atomic clock.
> 
> Rick

A well-written, very readable version of the story is in here:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/publications/measure/pdf/1977_04.pdf

and the technical paper with all the details of the experiment is here:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19820012654.pdf

Another story about the 5071 is "turbo" mode which hp/Agilent briefly touted at PTTI 10 or 15 years ago. Do you remember that? It was a firmware upgrade that would boost stability even above the high-performance level. Of course it would burn Cs like there was no tomorrow, but for a brief time you'd get another couple of dB. Hard to say if that was a Jack idea or a Len idea. But it reminded me of "Spinal Tap". I wish I had kept a copy of the flyer or the ADEV plots. Maybe you know?

See, these are all the kinds of things Attila could play with and tell us about if he decided to build his own cesium clock ;-)

/tvb




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