[time-nuts] Thunderbolt - Hardware Versions & Performance Differences

TheInfamousFlavio at hotmail.com TheInfamousFlavio at hotmail.com
Thu Feb 15 12:41:51 EST 2007


John Miles wrote:
>People with Z3801As tend to fiddle with them until the
> cows come home in my experience, and that's fine if that's what you're 
> into,
> but... wait, what list is this again? :)

I put my info and experience with Thunderbolts out there for the NUTS in 
this mail list. I have a few and I see people are looking for the info.

I'd hate to see people spend $250 on something they might think is as good 
as a Z3801A (or its Trimble clone) or might misread the Thunderbolt webpage 
and think they are getting a Double-Oven AND in a few months will cost less 
than $100 ( I say this only because there is no market out
there for a "few of hundred", used $250...actually now I see $375?!?!? 
mediocre 10Mhz GSPDO's. ( and I say mediocre from the NUTS perspective 
;-}  )

Anybody who is the least serious about 10Mhz is going to run across the mail 
list in a Google search.  If the list group by gets to 100 people, that 
still leaves a couple hundred left over. I doubt that the price is going to 
stay above $100 let alone $200 after the initial rush, it doesn't make 
sense.  Supply and demand.  The market has now been flooded, demand will 
recede after the initial "ooh look!!" crowd rushes in, the price point will 
drop.  My opinion of course (and Alfred Marshall's).

Anyway, you're right. The commercially available Thunderbolt is good enough 
for a plug-n-play 10Mhz source, but if you want to be a "NUT" about it, get 
one of the industrial boards like the Nortel version if you can find it. 
Like I said, I'll wait till the price drops to under $100 bucks, that way I 
could, without fear,  fiddle with it till the cows come home.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Miles" <jmiles at pop.net>
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" 
<time-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:58
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Thunderbolt - Hardware 
Versions -PerformanceDifferneces


>I guess it depends on whether you are after a frequency reference or a 
>phase
> reference.  My (commercial) Thunderbolt has no problem delivering 1E-10 or
> better over 1 second (usually MUCH better).  Jitter has never been a 
> problem
> for me, and I couldn't care less about holdover performance, since I don't
> run my own cell site.
>
> If all you want is a reliable, plug-and-play source of 10 MHz, there are
> literally no drawbacks to these boxes.  They just work, and $200-$250 is a
> fair price for them.  People with Z3801As tend to fiddle with them until 
> the
> cows come home in my experience, and that's fine if that's what you're 
> into,
> but... wait, what list is this again? :)
>
> -- john, KE5FX
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com]On
>> Behalf Of TheInfamousFlavio at hotmail.com
>> Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 7:35 AM
>> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>> Subject: [time-nuts] Thunderbolt - Hardware Versions -
>> PerformanceDifferneces
>>
>>
>> I'm lucky enough to own a couple of Thunderbolts as well as some of the
>> different telecom versions and they DO NOT have the same
>> performance.  The
>> commercially available Thunderbolt (the one comes in the little
>> red box) has
>> the least favorable performance when compared to the industrial versions.
>>
>>
>
>
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