[time-nuts] Agilent 53220A and TimeLab

[Timothy Schaffer]

Thanks John, that sounds like a great project. I've been wanting to get
experience designing circuits for a long time, but have never had a
specific project to work towards.  When I was a computer programmer I
discovered it was a lot easier to learn a new language if you actually had
a reason to need it.

Thanks again for referencing the pages in the TimeLab manual. I suppose it
would do be well to read it a little more thoroughly than I have previously
;)

Side note, I checked into the 3120s today at work and you're pretty much
spot on. Running about $8k from one local distributor. That may very well
be GSA pricing too, I should know by tomorrow. I agree though that concepts
and theory of operation are more well understood by actually designing and
building things... at least for me.

Cheers,
-Tim


On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 1:06 AM, John Miles <john at miles.io> wrote:

> Hi, Timothy --
>
> > I've had an Agilent 53220A for some time, and recently discovered the
> > wonderful TimeLab software, but I've hit a bit of a snag trying to run
> some
> > ADEV measurements on a Rb clock.  The problem is that the graph doesn't
> > line up with the amount of data TimeLab says is collected. I ran an
> > acquisition for 100 seconds, but according to the chart it only shows
> data
> > collected for 20 seconds....
>
> See page 31-32 of the manual (
> http://www.miles.io/TimePod_5330A_user_manual.pdf).  I think you'll find
> it anticipates that very same question. :)
>
> > On a side note, I was disappointed to find out that I missed the boat on
> > the semi-affordable TimePod. Is there anything remotely in the price rang
> > (sub 5K) that can do stability AND phase noise measurements? It seems
> like
> > the Wavecrest DST "might" be able to, but from what I read in the
> time-nuts
> > archive I wasn't able to get a clear picture.... there's an app note
> > floating around about making phase noise measurements with it, but
> > nothing
> > solid.
>
> The Microsemi 3120A's price has come down a bit over time, so I'd suggest
> checking with them to see what the current pricing is like.  (Obligatory
> disclaimer: I have no current financial/professional involvement with the
> 3120A.)  I suspect it's still well north of $5K, depending on options, but
> I know they've stepped back from the initial prices they were quoting.
>
> I'd encourage you to build something, though, given that you're not doing
> this stuff for your day job.  There's a reasonable amount of literature out
> there on both quadrature PLLs for PN measurement and the related tight-PLL
> topology that's well-suited to stability measurement.  They can both return
> very high-quality results for very little money, if you're willing to put
> in the necessary "sweat equity."  This approach is much more educational
> than simply throwing money at hardware, and (speaking from experience) more
> fun as well.
>
> -- john, KE5FX
> Miles Design LLC
>
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