[time-nuts] homebrew H maser

Attila Kinali attila at kinali.ch
Sun Aug 29 15:30:30 UTC 2010


On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:05:05 +0000
"Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

> In message <4C7A6B01.3030908 at rubidium.dyndns.org>, Magnus Danielson writes:
> >On 08/29/2010 03:55 PM, Attila Kinali wrote:
> 
> >It's a complicated field and several traps to fall into on the way. It 
> >is a fairly sizeable project to attempt.
> 
> Well, as with so much else, it depends what the level of ambition is.
> 
> If you just want to be able to point to the resonance and say "I
> did that", it is not intrinsically hard and none of the materials
> are hard to get hold of or particularly poisonous.

True. But i don't think i'd get even that far considering my
knowledge in this part of physics, especially in actually building
such devices.
 
> Few of the problems Ramsey fought in the early 1950'ies are relevante
> today, for instance, the entire detection issue is trivially solved
> with USRP/GnuRadio.

Yes, all the electronics problems are basically solved these days.

> I would tend to think that $10k in materials would get you pretty
> close.

I think so too. Though, things like high vacuum pumps are quite
expensive, even used ones.

> I think the most recent H-maser design is Neuchatels design for
> the Galileo GNSS.

Yes, that one seems to be a very neat devices. And quite small too.
I wonder whether i should drive to Neuchchâtel and ask them for 
a tour trough their labs :-)

> Building a _good_ (ie: metrology grade) hydrogen maser, sounds like
> the last significant thing you did in your life, however many years
> you have left...


Being a time-nut might get you there ;-)
 
> PS: And if you even manage to build something which works half the
> time, and do not suffer from ethics, there is a finite but very
> profitable market for audiopholery, and I'm sure somebody is willing
> to eliminate the last traces of jitter in his CD-player for just
> under $100k...

ROTFL

			Attila Kinali

-- 
The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved
up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump
them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap
		-- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin



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