[time-nuts] Low-Cost Rubidium Performance

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Fri Feb 10 02:12:27 UTC 2012


On 02/10/2012 02:31 AM, Bob Camp wrote:
> Hi
>
> To add another wrinkle to this.
>
> Correcting ADEV for systematic errors and then not mentioning you did so strikes is something I find a bit problematic. If say you decide to take out 13th order drift, you should say you did so. The discussion of what to correct and how is older than ADEV. Since there is no "standard" set of corrections, one should be clear about what was done.

Agreed, but even if we know that system bandwidth affects low-tau 
noise-forms, when did you last see the bandwidth given? Confidence 
bounds is another issue.

But my main point is that you still look at the same damn plot rather 
than looking at some other plot for the other effects. The point is to 
separate them in order to clearer see each of them. For short-term, 
noise dominates, and depending on where we are on the spectra the ADEV 
or phase-noise plots serves us best. TIE curves is interesting, but MTIE 
curves adds a certain aspect, drift analysis curves another aspect etc. 
For jitter, separation of random noise and deterministic noise is am 
important to properly engineer the system. MTIE is another of those.

I love my ADEVs, but as my suppliers know, it's not the only thing I ask 
for in an oscillator.

How does my phase shift as the temperature cycles? ADEV won't tell me, 
but I bet the guy in the next cubicle can enlighten you if needed.

This is all about understanding the limitations of the tools we have, so 
we use them for what they do best. ADEV is a great tool, just don't over 
use it. Whenever someone use their favorite tool (say ADEV, FFT or 
Object Oriented programming) for everything and everything needs to be 
answered by it, then the big warnings-bells goes off in the back of my 
head. As great as it ever is, know the limits of what you use...

Cheers,
Magnus



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