[Laser] Reasonable Sensitivity Checks ?

TWOSIG at aol.com TWOSIG at aol.com
Wed Nov 16 20:14:15 EST 2005


A simple check for sensitivity is to point the instrument at a star  overhead 
and listen to the sound that the twinkle makes.   I apologize  to the person 
who suggested it, but I cannot remember where I read that it would  work.  It 
is supposed to sound like the wind blowing across a  microphone  -  I think 
that will depend on frequency response of  your system.  
 
You should be able to hear the drop in signal when the light path  is 
blocked.  The method has a lot of problems.  However, it might be  more "reasonable" 
if you go where an astronomy group goes to see the night  sky.
 
Ultimately, the checks you need to do should relate to how you intend to  use 
the instrument.  Not to put too much of a systems engineering spin on  it, 
but if you define what the requirements are (what do you want the system to  
do?) then you can define a way to test if it meets the requirements ( or if it  
does not, how well does it work?).  If it works, you are done and can go on  to 
the next project.  If it doesn't, you can change something, test it  again, 
and judge if the change helped or hurt the performance.
 
James
N5GUI


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