[time-nuts] crystal oscillators & TPLL

[Steve Rooke]

Bob,

On 23 June 2010 15:13, Robert Benward <rbenward at verizon.net> wrote:
> Steve,
> It is admirable that you stick up for Warren.  Part of Warren's problem is

Now, let's please get this straight, I have been trying to act as a
facilitator in all of this because I believe that I know what the ral
problem is here and perhaps we will touch upon that a bit later.

> his disrespect for some of the other commenters of his work.  The name
> calling and put downs just does not endear him to anyone.  Saying to someone
> that they made a dumb mistake, and if they can't see the obvious then, that
> is their fault and he doesn't care, just not the way to get people on your

OK, but this is not entirely his own fault, it's just a symptom of the
illness that has been going on here for some considerable time now,
again, more on this later.

> side.  And as for my comments, well, you weren't the one getting the private
> emails from him.

And I have also not been privy to any emails you may have sent to him.

> The crux of Warren's problem lies with your comment,  "It's not easy for
> anyone to share their hard work for peer review".   All he has submitted is

Indeed, now read that statement very carefully as there is more to it
than meets the eye.

> verbal claims, he has really not submitted anything for peer review.  This

Well, this may be the the real crux of the problem here. From Warren's
point of view, he has submitted what he not only thinks is what is
required, it's also mostly all that he has to submit. More on that in
a minute but I guess that you really need to define to him what should
be submitted to enable a peer review of this. Do you see what I'm
getting at here, he does not know exactly what you need and I suspect
you are going to ask for something that he cannot supply.

> is what everyone has been asking for.  We are just supposed to take his word
> for it.  I asked him a question and all I got was obfuscation and obtuse
> analogies.   I really don't think he understands the underlying concepts,
> but if he does, then he certainly chooses incorrect words to describe them.
> In my vast experience in the engineering field, if someone can't explain

Right, now you have answered the main point here when you say "In my
vast experience in the engineering field" because Warren is not in the
same boat as you so how do you really expect him to be able to
communicate in your language, using your terms correctly, which a lot
of you seem to be bullying out of him.

> simple concepts, then they probably don't fully understand them.  I am

Well, maybe he does not have the deep concepts of engineering theory
BUT that does not mean that he has not come up with something useful
here. Your statement above usually comes before the technical buff
totally dismissing the less technical buff just because he cannot talk
in the correct terms and concepts. I have repeatedly said that there
is a difference between professional and amateur engineering here,
especially as this was developed experimentally, IE. it was not fully
designed on paper before it was tested, it was worked out practically
and with a lot of logical thought. That doesn't degrade from the
effort or make it second best.

> certainly not an expert in this field, but I can tell when someone is
> groping.  He makes statements that are factually misleading, sort of like
> saying the power in the coax is 70V.  The use of inappropriate units is
> direct indication of a lack of understanding.  Saying his oscillators are
> within femtoseconds of accuracy to each other is fundamentally incorrect,
> and is not the same as saying the fractional frequency error is in
> femtoseconds.  Loosely swapping units back and forth is due to that lack of
> understanding.

OK, so he does not have the depth of theory that you have but have you
even wondered why someone would seemingly BS (don't take this wrong
Warren, I'm working on a point here) to a bunch of people who can
state "In my vast experience in the engineering field" without it
being spotted. He is not stupid but has been put in a difficult
position, do I just drop this thing and let those technical snobs just
go on and believe they know everything there is to know or shall I try
to get this over as I believe a lot of people here would benefit from
it, perhaps not the professional engineers but the quantity of
amateurs who are looking for a tool like this. IN fact, given it's
limitations, it seems to give very good results in all the tests that
it has been given. Warren is not saying that you should dump your TSC
whatever and just use his "$10" as it is better, try getting that past
your boss, "well this result must be correct as the $10 tester said
so".

Now, you, and many others on this list, are very good at communicating
in a very technical way but you seem to be lacking the ability to
communicate at a simpler level that would resolve this situation. You
may, of course, consider this below you and a waste of time, but
that's your call. I would suggest that before we get into the deep
technical analysis, perhaps we HELP Warren describe has implementation
in ways that he can understand. I tried to start this process off in a
previous posting but that has not been replied to as yet. I'm sure
that some of you could work out the theory behind this provided that
you take the right approach. A lot of you have claimed that members of
this list have tried to help with this, well that's exactly what is
needed but historically when this was first published there was some
considerable negative responses from some quarters and it is that that
has made Warren less than happy to do a show and tell. Some people
have asked for a published component level schematic but I know what
will happen if that occurs, some parties are bound to pick holes in it
in a negative way and that will get us nowhere. Heck, I don't have a
component schematic and I'm probably closer to Warren than any of you
BUT I can see how it works logically as it is so so simple. Sure, I
don't know the transfer functions, the noise floor, the whatever, but
I don't necessarily have to know that to understand it. You feel
otherwise and your help would enable Warren to put some number limits
around it so he could quote some sort of accuracy and limitations. Are
you in?

If it comes down to it, I will reverse engineer the block schematic
that Warren posted, it's out there so it's public. You can then deal
with me if that would help.

> Warren has dug himself into his own hole and he is just wallowing in his own
> verbosity.

I think he was just trying to dig the hole to try and hide from the onslaught.

> In any case, I'm staying away from this thread from now on, it's going
> nowhere.

Well, that's a shame, but it's your call.

Best regards,
Steve

> Regards,
> Bob
>
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: Steve Rooke
>  To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>  Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 9:04 PM
>  Subject: Re: [time-nuts] crystal oscillators & TPLL
>
>
>  Poul,
>
>  I can see that you are somewhat frustrated with all of this but let's
>  please try to understand what is going on with the design and not get
>  bogged down with interpersonal issues.
>
>  On 23 June 2010 09:35, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>  > In message <415E11EFEC7B46FFB05A790F4F4A4D4D at Warcon28Gz>, "WarrenS"
> writes:
>  >>Poul-Henning posted
>  >
>  >>So is there some part that is not obvious to you?
>  >
>  > Yes, it is painfully obvious to me, that you are so in love with
>  > your idea, that no argument will ever penetrate your defensive
>  > shield.
>
>  This fact is painfully obvious to all of us but that does not mean it
>  is a bad thing, it's just that Warren is very passionate about what he
>  has done and he is obviously going to be defensive against anything
>  that he feels attacks his baby. It's not easy for anyone to share
>  their hard work for peer review and it really depends on the reactions
>  of the peers as to how the original submitter takes the feedback.
>
>  > Please look up the proper scientific response to your
>  > results in the following handy table:
>  >
>  > Observation Action
>  > ==========================================================
>  > Results worse than expected Find out what went wrong.
>  > ----------------------------------------------------------
>  > Results as expected Find out what went wrong.
>  > ----------------------------------------------------------
>  > Results better than expected Find out what went wrong.
>  > ----------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Interesting table. Maybe you would have been more constructive in
>  saying that any experimental method has limitations and errors. These
>  need to be noted along with any results as they form part of the
>  answer.
>
>  Let's kick this off. The R/C filter which feeds off the PLL loop and
>  onto the ADC has a BW that limits measurements below 0.1s. The effect
>  of drift in the reference oscillator will affect the results of the
>  longer tau and test results show that the upper limitation seems to be
>  in the order of 100s. Now the reference oscillator could have it's
>  drift analysed over a period and so the effects of this could be
>  mathematically removed from the measurements thereby improving the
>  results and possibly extending the upper limitation.
>
>  One thing that we have to bear in mind is that any drift in the DUT,
>  say, if it is an xo, will result in "distortion" of any results for
>  long tau anyway as ADEV is not suited to handle oscillator drift. This
>  will cloud the measurement of some times of noise, like random-walk,
>  and this should be born in mind with any ADEV measurement
>
>  > Please do not reply to this email, I have no desire to
>  > have further correspondence with you.
>
>  Does that include me too?
>
>  Steve - another 'nix nut
>
>  >
>  > --
>  > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
>  > phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
>  > FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
>  > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by
> incompetence.
>  >
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>
>
>  --
>  Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
>  The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
>  - Einstein
>
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-- 
Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Einstein