[Elecraft] Measuring eBay KTCXO-3 PHASE NOISE

[Andy Durbin]

"I just bought one of these Chinese knock-offs on eBay.  I haven't opened it
- it arrived today.  Is someone willing to try it out and measure the phase
noise in their otherwise properly working K3s?"

I don't know if you are familiar with Mark, W7MLG's, measurements on the Kenwood TS-590 TCXO.  If not, you can find his results here:  https://sites.google.com/site/markstcxomeasurements/

You don't need any fancy test equipment to get an idea of how bad these Chinese "TCXO" may be.  My simple test produced results that were in good agreement with Mark's data.

My report documents my test method as follows:

"Test conditions and method:
TS-590S (B1B00046 with various oscillators) transmits 88 W CW to dummy load with sniffer port
TX at 14.100 CW with "k3wyc"
TS-590S (B4500305 with various oscillators) acts as receiver of sniffer port via step attenuator
RX at 14.115 (+15k) with various DSP bandwidths to force up or down conversion
Start with low attenuator setting
Increase attenuator setting until CW noise signature is not readable (CW noise signature is at RX noise floor).
Record attenuator setting as Att dB"

73,
Andy, k3wyc