[time-nuts] What are people paying for Stanford PRS10 rubidium standards?

[David Kirkby]

David Andersen wrote:
> On Apr 26, 2005, at 7:55 PM, David Kirkby wrote:
> 
>> Just interested how much people have paid for them. At the minute 
>> there are several on eBay at $475 from the one seller. Is that a 
>> typical price, or am I likely to do a bit better than that if I wait?
> 
> 
> It's probably reasonable.  It's not a steal.  

Thanks. I decided I could wait no longer and so bought one. Before 
buying, I asked if it came with the plug, thinking to myself he must 
have them, and perhaps will throw one in. That worked.

> Unfortunately for you, 
> that seller (glossa7) knows what s/he's doing.   

Strange though s/he replied they would end the auction early if I bid, 
so it was effectively a "buy it now". Although it had more than a day to 
go. Perhaps he choses not to pay the buy it now fees, so just ends 
auctions.

> I've bid against him on 
> several items, and he typically bids immediately at a reasonable price 
> level on the items.  

I personally usually bid at the end, but

> It was very frustrating when I was buying old HP 
> counters to strip out their oscillators.  People kept wanting to 
> actually pay a reasonable price for them...

I know the feeling. My biggest hassle is shipping charges, which 
generally adds quite a bit. Luckily he is quite reasonable on that, but 
my time-interval counter was $150 or so just to ship.

> You probably won't regret paying $475 - they're about 3x that new - but 
> it's on the edge of what I'd pay for a surplus Rb oscillator.  

I have seen rubidiums quite a bit cheaper, but the Stanford is still 
sold new, compact, the manual looks good. It's said to have a design 
life of 22 years, which is twice some of the much older units on eBay.

I've bought several things from Stanford and never had a problem. 
There's a good possibility I will buy a 200MHz lock-in for work, if the 
UK dealer can find a sensible price for me.

> On the 
> bright side, that seller _does_ seem to know what he's doing, and I've 
> seen him on ebay for a long time, so I'd believe him when he says that 
> the oscillator is working perfectly.

Someone else has just commented he is not so good, but his feedback 
seems pretty good, so I guess there are not too many dissatisfied 
customers.
-
Dr. David Kirkby,
G8WRB

Please check out http://www.g8wrb.org/
of if you live in Essex http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/