[time-nuts] Lassen IQ receiver

[Morris Odell]

Hi Mike,

The Lassen IQ is a little PCB mounted 12 channel receiver about half the 
size of a matchbox, which is intended for OEM applications. It's not easy to 
open to see what's inside. It uses tiny surface mount connectors to get 
signals in and out but there's no access to the oscillator if you want to 
use an external osc.  It doesn't have a built in antenna so the performance 
depends on the external antenna connected to it. It seems to handle 
constellation changes quite well as far as I can see. The application info 
says it can be used for navigation as well as timekeeping.

It has 2 serial ports as well as a 1 pps output. One serial port is used to 
control and read it using Trimble's TSIP binary protocol. There is free DOS 
and Windows software available from Trimble to do this. The other port can 
be configured to use TSIP, NMEA or Trimble's own ASCII protocol called TAIP.

I paid AU$70 about 2 years ago, which at the time was equivalent to about 
US$60. You could probably do better these days. I bought a bunch of old 6 
channel VP Oncore receivers about a year ago on ebay for AU12 each. They are 
ideal for timing aplications and clocks.

HTH,

Morris

>
>  These units look interesting. Do you mind if I ask some questions?
>
>  1. What kind of non-time keeping uses have you found for them?
>
>  2. How  well do they work indoors? Do you have to be near  a window?
>  What about inside a multi-story building?
>
>  3. How well do they handle constellation changes? Is there an abrupt
>  shift in position?
>
>  4. Have you ever taken the shield off and looked inside? If  so, can
>  you see the crystal oscillator and tell whether it is a bare crystal
>  or a complete oscillator module?
>
>  5. How  much  do  they  cost? Do you know  of  any  others  that are
>  cheaper?
>
>  Thanks for your help!
>
>  Best Regards,
>
>  Mike Monett
>
>