I was surprised a few years ago when I calibrated a URQ-10 double-ovened crystal freq standard against WWV and then checked it against my HP and GR freq counters. They were a bit off so I decided to calibrate them. To my surprise I found that their crystals were just sitting out in free air. But hey, they had digits reading down to 0.1 Hz so they *looked* really accurate.

I need to revisit this issue some day and get everything slaved to the URQ-10. The proper procedure for calibrating it involves a chart recorder so you get the beat against WWV down to less than one cycle per week….

On Tue, Oct 4, 2022 at 3:16 PM Ray Fantini <RAFANTINI@salisbury.edu> wrote:

Lot to be said for having everything run in the background from an external reference of known accuracy. Been doing manual calibration with the WWV thing for years but these days people expect crazy degrees of accuracy. Along with things like being able to look at a display and not have to do any thinking.

For $200 I will be getting something that’s will keep everything accurate well below the resolution of my equipment and when I have people in the shop wont have to put up with stupid “ this is my new BoFang that I paid $35 for and its got to be more accurate then your old stuff” statements.

Ray F/KA3EKH