[Amps] Cal Lab

[Will Matney]

Bob,

You know I never did think of that, but your exactly right! A person could make a circuit up to do that using a color burst crystal and connecting to the cable, but that would be a good size project. Using a small, cheap TV with a jack on the back, picking up the color burst signal would be the cheapest way. 

I actually have two OCXO's in two pieces of equipment I already have. I have a HP 5328 counter with an internal 10 MHz OCXO standard, and a Racal-Dana RF generator with an internal OCXO standard. The one I'm building is using a HP 10 MHz OCXO from a counter that was calibrated the other day. The standard has the OCXO, a power supply, and a buffer amp in the cabinet. Not hard to build at all. The rubidium one I'm going to build is the same setup. You can buy the rubidium modules off ebay at a good price. All they really need is a power source, and a buffer amp as an option. There's a guy selling the kits on ebay to build a GPS disciplined OCXO too. He has both the kit and the OCXO's for sell which together cost about $150. I could buy the kit for $75 and finish it. I may do that on another project, or modify this one later on. The 10 MHz OCXO I'm getting, I want to use to check my counters and generators with first thing where it has been calibrated. I was looking at one similar built by a ham on the net showing in detailed photos what he did. He built a box inside the chassis for the OCXO, and lined it with styrofoam insulation. He said it helped stabilize it tremendously from room temperature fluctuations. The rest he did the same as me, using a regulated PS, and a buffer amp.

Best,

Will



>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
>On 4/23/06 at 2:37 PM BIRCHWAY at aol.com wrote:
>Will:
>If you need a quick and easy source for accurate frequency, you can run a
>probe from your freq. counter to the back of a color tv set and pick up
>the 3.58 color burst signal, which is phase locked to WWV
>nationwide...Bob...W0PQX....