[time-nuts] Cable delay correction for Tbolt Cs substitude

WarrenS warrensjmail-one at yahoo.com
Sun Oct 16 19:41:54 UTC 2011


Sounds like its time to do some testing and see what the effect is on the 
actual hardware.

1) Heat and cool the Tbolt box and see if that effects THIS Phase delay, 
maybe by way of its internal GPS amp/BPF.
In the past I have not seen a need to use LH's temperature controller on a 
Tbolt that is driving an external Dual oven Osc or a temperature stabilized 
Rb like this Tbolt is.

2) Place an extra 50 ft of RG6 between the Antenna and the Tbolt inside an 
oven, then heat and cool it.

3) Put the Roof top antenna in an RF transparent box with a heater.

too much fun
ws

****************
Griffiths bruce.griffiths at xtra.co.nz wrote:

It's merely a calculation of the change in inductance due to the
temperature induced change in skin depth due to the resistivity  tempco
of the inner conductor which varies the inductance per unit length.
Since RG6 uses a copper plated steel inner conductor there may be
significant differences in the inductance tempco should the plating
thickness not be much greater than the skin depth (most likely at lower
frequencies). The thermal expansion of the inner conductor will also be
smaller than that of a copper conductor.
Thus the delay tempco of RG6 may differ somewhat from that of LMR400.

Bruce

***********************
John Ackermann N8UR wrote:

> I wouldn't think the cable type will make an order-of-magnitude 
> difference.
> Referenced in the Haystack note is another paper that goes through the 
> theoretical derivation that produced the "expected results" column.
>I think it's the same URL but 067.pdf as the file name.
>
> John
>
********************>
> On Oct 16, 2011, at 2:21 PM, "WarrenS" wrote:
>
>> Thanks John
>>
>> Any chance using 75 ohm cable (as suggested in the Tbolt manual) like 
>> RG6U, when used in a 50 Ohm system could be orders of magnitude worse 
>> than LMR-400?
>> Sounds like may be time to do some controlled cable experiments comparing 
>> different cables.
>>
>> I do know that Cheapie GPS timing antenna's can have a large Phase 
>> variation when the Sun hits them.
>> I had one antenna that changed 25 ns every day around Noon time.
>> That is when I changed over to a Symmetricom 58532A antenna and things 
>> improved 10 fold.
>> With the new antenna the phase error change is now down at least near the 
>> GPS noise level,
>> but it seems to still have some "antenna system" temperature effects.
>>
>> Maybe a silly question but how can a 1.5GHz preamp and filter change the 
>> phase over so many cycles?
>>
>> Does anyone ever add a temperature controller on the antenna? Maybe that 
>> should be my next test.
>>
>> ws
>>
>> ******************
>>
>> from John Ackermann N8UR
>>
>> I did some very rough measurements last summer with. Run of LMR-400 that 
>> was laying on the roof in the hot Georgia sun.
>> Using a network analyzer to "ping" the cable I found the day vs. night 
>> delay difference was pretty much in the noise.  I'll see if I can find 
>> the details and if so will post them.
>>
>> I found via google a brief paper from Haystack that measured LMR-400 and 
>> LMR-240 and found in the range of -11 to +17 ppm/K of the total cable 
>> delay.
>> They note that 9 ppm/K is about 3ps/degree in 100M of cable:
>>
>> http://www.haystack.mit.edu/tech/vlbi/mark5/mark5_memos/069.pdf
>>
>> However, there's another possible tempo contributor that I suspect could 
>> be a significant contributor, and that's the preamp up in the antenna, 
>> particularly if it has a bandpass filter.  It wouldn't surprise me at all 
>> if preamp/BPF tempo was noticeable.
>>
>> John
>>
>> ************************
>> On Oct 16, 2011, at 1:32 PM, "WarrenS"  wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone know what the propagation delay temperature coefficient is for 
>>> RG6U coax and how much it varies between different brands of cable?
>>>
>>> In my efforts to improve the Tbolt's performance to make it into a 
>>> better Cs substitute,
>>> test suggest that the temperature coefficient of the antenna lead-in 
>>> cable's propagation delay is contributing to diurnal errors.
>>>
>>> Anyone have a idea for a SIMPLE&  cheap voltage controlled delay line 
>>> that can be changed by a few ns as a function of the outside air 
>>> temperature?
>>>
>>> As an alternative,  Mark, want to consider adding another LadyHeather 
>>> feature that tweaks the Tbolt's cable delay value as a function of the 
>>> outside temperature?
>>> If interested, I have a couple ideas of how to get the outside 
>>> temperature to LadyHeather.
>>>
>>> ws
>>>
>>> __________________________________________ 




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