[Lowfer] Cheap up-converter kit?

Mon, 13 Oct 2003 06:23:50 -0400

Tim

Been using two of them for about two years now. One at home and one at work.
They are verrrrrry nice. The one at home is used for the Harris RF-590
receiver and HP-3586C receiver and the one at work is used for various test
equipment.

Bought mine from buylegacy.com and they were excellent to deal with.

John Andrews picked up a couple HP10811 high stab time bases at Hosstraders
(the famous New England flea market) for $50 each. These (or other variants)
are the high stab timebases used in various HP test equipment. I'm currently
using one for lowfer VD exciter and on an Argo screen it is
indistinguishable from the setup when I'm tied to GPS.

Jay Rusgrove, W1VD

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Timothy Brannon" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 10:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Lowfer] Cheap up-converter kit?

> In 1996 I never dreamed that LowFERs would need the degree of stability
demanded by QRSS 120........ what's a milliHertz ?!!!  ;-)    But several
evenings of looking for VA3LK a few years ago made the drift in my LO pretty
easy to see.
> In comparison to a converter its certainly not cheap, but is anyone out
there using a GPS-disciplined oscillator in any way for LowFER activities?
> I just did a quick web search, and found a source for a surplus HP Z3801A
GPS frequency standard with a 10 MHz, on sale for only $249 at
www.buylegacy.com.
> Also an article about using this box at
http://www.realhamradio.com/GPS_Frequency_Standard.htm
> This would eliminate your converter LO drift pretty handily! Of course
next there's the local oscillators in your receiver:  Bill Cantrell once
modified his TS-850 to be clocked entirely from his surplus rubidium
frequency standard.
>
> Tim Brannon  KF5CQ
>
>
> Message: 9
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 12:43:20 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Lowfer] Cheap up-converter kit?
> From: [email protected]
> Reply-To: [email protected]
>
>
> On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 01:10:59 -0400 "Bill Ashlock"
> <[email protected]>
> writes:
> > >Also have built the excellent low frequency converter as shown in
> > Lowdon,
> > >"A High Performance Low Frequency Converter for 1996" by Tim
> > Brannon,
> > >KF5CQ.
> > >Definitely one of the best I have used - right down to DC - but
> > again, I
> > >have had trouble stabilizing the oscillator for real QRSS.
> >
>
> I was really surprised to have the stability from a cheap clock Osc
> It square waved ( verb ) out at 4 Mhz and was on freq and no drift
> Mouser,, Digikey one of them as I forget. If anyone is really
> interested
> I can pull the converter apart . Problem is ,  I was either really
> lucky
> and is the same device still made by the same people.
>
> Bob  K3DJC
>
>
>
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