[time-nuts] Yet another GPSDO project.

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

Ok, *if* you phase lock the OCXO to closely follow the GPS PPPS, the OCXO will be every bit as noisy
as the GPS. Actually it will be worse since you now have 1Hz noise running around that needs to be
taken care of ( = the output of the phase detector is a series of pulses at a 1 Hz rate). 

Net result is that you still need a a long time constant loop to do any good. There also will 
be some interesting “analog” issues in trying to deal with the ouput of a normal phase detector at this 
slow a rate (leakage, giant capacitors, weird noise issues …).  Bottom line - it’s going to be an
exciting design in a number of ways. 

You might say - up the output rate of the GPS. That’s fine, but the correction information you need only
comes out once a second. The rest of the time you are running with (noisy) uncorrected pulses.  You 
took one step forward and two back ….

========

The normal way the lockup issue is handled is via software and by “cheating” a bit while the device 
locks up. Just how you do this depends a *lot* on how your system is set up. With a pure PLL you 
don’t have quite as many choices as with a phase sampling ( TICC counter-like) setup. With phase samples, 
you can look at frequency and lock to that early on. Then switch to a true phase lock later on. Most
high performance GPSDO’s go through multiple steps before they are in their final lock condition. 

========

Stepping back a bit - Whats good? 

A $100 telecom Rb off of eBay will hold 0.1 ppb for a very long time with very little help. Yes you might
buy two or three to get one good one. You also can do a bit of digging and improve the odds. Second
to second wise they should hold 0.01 ppb.

An fairly good ( = double oven) OCXO might hold 1 ppb for a month after it warms up for a 
while. If you buy it on eBay. Second to second wise it should be around 0.002 ppb

A low cost OCXO might struggle at the 50 ppb level over a month. Second to second wise ….
who knows … maybe 0.1 ppb (yikes …). 

A GSPDO (while locked) will have zero net frequency error (it’s phase locked).  It’s short 
term frequency can / will / yikes wander. The net will be zero. Second to second wise it should 
be about the same as it’s “core” device (Rb or OCXO). 

Based on all this, I’d suggest that a GPSDO needs to be in the < 0.1 ppb range in terms of
“how good" to beat out the unlocked Rb. 

0.1 ppb is a nanosecond over 10 seconds. It is a phase error of 360 / 1,000,000,000 degrees
at 1 Hz over that time period. That’s a pretty small phase change and not a very big time change.
At 100 seconds you are up to 10 ns (so a bit easier to spot). You are also at 10X the degrees, 
still pretty tough. 

To turn the phase into other units:  if your phase detector has a 1V / radian slope (not uncommon on
an analog phase detector), you are after 2*PI / 1,000,000,000 volts on the output. That’s just a bit over 
6 nV. Ideally you would want your detector drift to be < 20% of this (or about 1 nV) to get the job done
…. yikes ….

Lots of fun !!

Bob

> On Mar 19, 2019, at 4:43 PM, Tobias Pluess <tobias.pluess at xwmail.ch> wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the replies so far.
> Unfortunately I used digest mode for this mailing list, so perhaps my answers are not well-formed - please excuse; I have changed my settings to non-digest (even though this is perhaps a bit less convenient).
> 
> @Jim Harman
> Indeed I know Lars' GPSDO. Can you tell what performance you achieved with one of those?
> 
> @ Bob
> wow. That's quite a pile of information you put in your post!
> Indeed I have some fun with the GPSDO topic, but not yet particularly with my unit, its performance is, in my oppinion, currently way too poor. So I need a better one ;-) Cs or Maser would be awesome, but I don't even have a Rb. I once thought of buying one from the 'bay, but they are often of doubtful pedigree and nobody knows how much life is perhaps left in the Rb valve, if I am unlucky it will only last for a few months, so I think I will not risk that.
> 
> Of course I know the PPS from the GPS module is jittery. This is why we want to synchronize our OCXOs, isn't it ;-) 
> However the STAR4 GPSDO I have here has also an 1PPS output, which is derived from the OCXO. I used this PPS on my HP 5335A. I am looking for a HP 53131A or 53132A since months for a decent price - this would allow for higher resolution.
> I have made an ADEV plot for my GPSDO, but I didn't save it because it was disappointing.
> 
> By the way, this is the unit I built:
> 
> https://hb9fsx.ch/wordpress/index.php/2018/11/14/my-own-gpsdo-part-i/
> 
> I have also a homemade antenna for it, since I read somewhere that the quadrifilar helix antennas are better than patch antennas, I made one by myself. A choke ring antenna would perhaps be even more awesome, but this is for a later project!
> 
> 
> @ Achim.
> Yes indeed, I encounter the problem that my measurement resolution is only 100ns. So it takes ages until the frequency locks and it takes longer and longer, the closer the frequency is... and I exactly assumed what you have pointed out: perhaps my steering becomes so sparse in time, that the OCXO's aging rate is faster.
> 2e-11 at 1s is not bad, but hoped for something with e-12 or even better - I think this should be possible, not?
> 
> 
> So I think I would really like to go the PLL route, I hope to achieve faster lock time and a bonus would be that the PPS pulses derived from my OCXO would be aligned to those of the GPS module.
> But how to interface the PFD to a microcontroller and implement the loop filter is still a mystery for me :-)
> 
> Thanks for all your hints
> Tobias
> HB9FSX
> 
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