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

[Magnus Danielson]

Hi,

It defines the expected target environment. VLBI stations and similar
tends to have two Hydrogren masers, so that service can be done in house
or even ship it for service, while maintaining operations. This seems to
be the type of operations that these would fit into until they figured
out how to do longer operational runs. For more expensive equipment,
field serviceability becomes more important, such as replacing ion pumps
etc.

I only recall some passive masers that might have long operational life,
but it seem it always comes with a performance hit.

Cheers,
Magnus

On 2020-03-19 13:06, Bob kb8tq wrote:
> 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.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at lists.febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com
>> and follow the instructions there.
>
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at lists.febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com
> and follow the instructions there.