[time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, aka HP/Symmetricom Z3812A

[Arthur Dent]

There are a number of oversights or mistakes in the previous post.

First, I had an RFTG-u REF1/Z3812A modified and running as a stand-

alone unit in 2010 four years before anyone else showed any interest

in them. Here are the posts, below, that I made in the forums at

that time to describe what I had done.



So the RFTG-u REF1 (or at least one) were available long before 2014

and also modified long before 2014. After the RFTG-u REF1 started

becoming widely available at a low price, others became interested

in getting them and several other people used what I had done and

found better ways to utilize and talk to/control them than I had.

I still have my original RFTG-u REF1 that is still working just

fine. I also have an HP Z3822A-A that looks like it was made in 1998

that I haven’t seen elsewhere and a modified EBSCTM that responds

like a Trimble with an added built-in display and power supply. That

was a very tight squeeze to get everything inside the small case.







+++++++++++++++++++

Fri Jun 11 12:48:43 EDT 2010



“One of the GPSDOs I've had running for some time is an HP Z3811

with a a 1998 date code and a MTI 260 OXCO. Before you say I'm

crazy, Z3811 is what the labels on the chips say. The name on

the outside of the unit is Lucent RFTG-u REF1.  Another similar

Lucent unit had a clone of the 260, same size and pin out, but

I have no idea if the specs are close, and that OXCO was an OFC

MC895X4-015W with a 1999 date code. Both these OXCOs are

5.000000Mhz.



Like most Lucent units the RFTG-u REF1 was made to run with

Another back-up unit for redundancy, needed an interconnect cable,

and has no information available. I managed to figure out a way

to make it work as a standalone unit and ran the 5Mhz from the

OXCO thru a QBits amplifer to give me 5Mhz output instead of the

Lucent standard of 15Mhz. I haven't carefully checked it against

the other GPSDOs I have running but with the modifications I made

to allow it to work solo, it seems to be a pretty good

plug-and-play unit.”

                                              -Arthur

++++++++++++++++++

*Wed Oct 22 13:59:48 EDT 2014*



“This was kind of my thinking on trying to use this Lucent unit

as well. Way back on Fri Jun 11 16:48:43 UTC 2010 I posted about

using one of these units I had modified but at the time there

wasn't a single person who was interested. I have been using the

RFTG-u REF1 since then and it is a nice unit. The modifications

I added (including a power supply -see photo) allows the lights

to cycle through their normal secquence on warm-up and the second

unit isn't needed at all. I can't give you any reason why I used

the general purpose transistors instead of a single IC quad inverter

which might have worked as well or how I stumbled upon why I did

what I did back then but it does work. Here's what I posted to

Time-Nuts 4 years ago. …”