[time-nuts] OSA 8600 Oscillators

Tom Van Baak tvb at leapsecond.com
Wed Mar 15 13:48:33 EST 2006


Hi Brian,

I think your summary is correct. I have a couple of
8600's here (from eBay some years ago) and they
do as well as a cherry-picked 10811A. There are
several versions in the 8600 family, though, so you
have to be careful about the specs. The best BVA
as far as I know is the model 8607 and the very best
of those are called option 08. You can see the
performance of a OSA 8607 /08 here:

http://www.leapsecond.com/museum/osa8607/

I'll see if I can dig up measurements I made of a
regular 8600 and post them for the group.

/tvb

----- Original Message -----
From: <wa1zms at att.net>
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
<time-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 10:42
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] OSA 8600 Oscillators


> From what I have read, BVA technology is about as good as it gets for the
best close-in phase noise in a quartz crystal.  It was once desribed to me
as having the lowest "quartz-to-crud-ratio" since the elctrodes are not
plated on to the quartz.  A limiting factor can be that less RF power can be
coupled through the crystal due to the series capacitance effect of the
spaced elctordes. Close-in noise is great but far-out noise could be poorer
than typical SC-cut plated xtal due to S/N effects with a lower xtal drive
power.
>
> Maybe someone here on this list with more first hand experience can give
us more details about the subject.
>
> -Brian, WA1ZMS






More information about the time-nuts mailing list