[time-nuts] Trimble TB replacement options???

[Bob Camp]

Hi

All of these gizmos come on the market cheap when they are being scrapped out. Once that process is over for a generation of parts, the pieces climb. There are only a few working strategies:

1) Buy several when they first come out. 
2) Pay the going rate many years later. 
3) Switch to other gizmos with other cost / feature tradeoffs. 

In this case the likely tradeoff is to one of the Nortel / Trimble units or to one of the later HP boxes. The Nortel / Trimbles are in the sub $150 price range delivered. The later HP's are a bit more expensive. The Nortel / Trimble's come mainly from RDR Electronics on the e-place. The HP's come from the other side of the Pacific Ocean. 

One other option - before I'd pay $300 for a possibly broken TBolt (I've got a few of those), I'd do an email to find out what a brand new GPSDO (with warranty) from Jackson Labs would cost me. 

Bob

On Oct 11, 2013, at 8:51 PM, Paul <tic-toc at bodosom.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 7:24 PM, Frank Hughes <hp_ciscovss at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Does it seem like the Trimble Thunderbolt units are becoming scarce, and commanding prices accordingly?
> 
> The "inexpensive" used Thunderbolts predate my interest in GPSDOs so I
> can't speak to relative prices but if your budget is ~ $300 they're
> still readily available.  The various 2PPS Trimble GPSTM boxes/boards
> seem to occupy the < $200 Thunderbot-like niche and some work
> (somewhat) with Lady Heather if you're fond of that program.
> 
> Various Z38xx devices are also candidates if you just want an
> inexpensive GPSDO in-a-box with 1 and 10M Hz (some with multiple
> outputs) if you are willing to deal with  it's-not-quite-a-Z3801
> behavior.
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