[time-nuts] Modern Rb atomic reference vs classic Cs

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

As the price of these gizmos goes up, the likelihood of them only going into
something *necessary* also goes up. You simply can’t get the purchase 
approved otherwise. If you have to do a ship and return, you take that 
necessary chunk of the operation offline for (weeks / months?) while that
process works its self out. 

So - I wonder how well the device can project when it’s going to run out of
Rb? A scheduled shutdown is always preferable to an unscheduled one. 

Bob

> On Mar 19, 2020, at 5:52 AM, Paul Boven <p.boven at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
> Hi Attila, list,
> 
> On 3/17/20 9:51 PM, Attila Kinali wrote:
>> At those prices, I'd rather go for a µQuans or SDS Rb clock.
>> Those don't lose atoms like the Cs beam does and thus don't need
>> a refill. Their lifetime is more likely in the decades than just
>> a few years. Weakest link, as far as I know, are the lasers.
>> And yes, after the second, at latest after the third Cs tube,
>> these Rb devices are cheaper. And they are as much a primary
>> standard as the 5071 is.
> 
> We've actually looked into purchasing the muQuans Rb. We learned from the vendor that they need to be serviced and refilled every four years, which could possibly be stretched to five years. This entails sending your clock back to the manufacturer. Otherwise, it simply runs out of Rb.
> 
> Given that we were going to deploy these in rather remote locations, we decided that the repeated shipping and down-time was just going to be too difficult to deal with.
> 
> Regards, Paul Boven.
> 
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