[time-nuts] Jim Miller simple GPSDO
jimlux
jimlux at earthlink.net
Fri Sep 16 19:57:08 UTC 2016
On 9/16/16 12:07 PM, Lars Walenius wrote:
> Interesting. Maybe not the optimum oscillator for a GPSDO.
>
> Lars
>
>
>> Från: Tim Shoppa<mailto:tshoppa at gmail.com>
> Skickat: den 14 september 2016 14:39
>
>
> There are special "wide-pull-range" VCXO's where a 10MHz unit will indeed
> have sensitivity of 600Hz/V or more. e.g.
> http://www5.epsondevice.com/en/products/vcxo_standard/vg4231ca.html
>
> I don't know exactly what Epson does inside that particular unit, but a
> trick to get wide pull range with discrete circuits is to put two or more
> crystals in parallel.
>
> Tim N3QE
>
>>> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 4:40 AM, Lars Walenius <lars.walenius at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The VCXO sensitivity given is strange as it indicates a far to wide span
>> so I guessed 30ppm and if it is higher it still needs the damping from
>> R2-C2.
>> For the OCXO I used the figures given. With 2Hz per volt and 8 Volt span
>> you have 16Hz of span. 16Hz divided with 10MHz is 1.6ppm (parts per
>> million) can also be said as 1.6us/s.
>>
At JPL, we tried with middling success to build a DRO with two
varactors: one loosely coupled with low tuning gain (for phase locking),
one tightly coupled with high tuning gain (for coarse frequency selection).
The idea was to get away from "individually hand crafted" oscillators
for deep space transponders. Right now, you need to know your channel
assignment a couple years in advance so you can get the DRO tuned for
your channel (puck movement, tuning screw, etc), as well as getting the
reference crystal cut/selected for the right base frequency to multiply up.
This raises a problem when you want to use a spare transponder from
Mission A (which has already launched) for Mission B. Aside from having
multiple spacecraft at the same frequency, it raises a big issue if you
have a dual string architecture.. you'd like the prime and redundant to
have the same channel assignment.
We were able to do it, sort of, but we were still subject to all the
ills of a DRO in a mechanical cavity. Microphonics, for instance. Not
an issue in space, which is very, very, very quiet, but a real pain on
the ground when you're testing.
As it happens, NCO/DAC technology has advanced to the point where we can
lock a wider band VCO well enough. And NCOs let you be "crystal
frequency independent".
Now we can buy a really high quality rock at 10.00000something MHz (or
use a spare USO from another mission) and use it to lock a wider band VCO.
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