Time-Nuts — Precise Time and Frequency for Amateurs

Description

Time-Nuts™ is a mailing list for amateurs who are interested in
precise Time & Frequency. Topics include stability of quartz oscillators,
measurements of rubidium and cesium atomic clocks, using WWVB, Loran-C, and GPS
for long-term comparisons.

Most of the members are hams or electronics hobbyists. Topics also include
acquisition, repair, and operation of surplus electronic instruments related to precise time;
nanoseconds; picoseconds; results of homebrew hardware and software T&F
projects, etc.

Please join if you have questions or expertise to add to the group.

Getting Started with Amateur Time & Frequency

If you have an interest in precise time & frequency or are
getting the “time bug” here are
some suggestions:

• Join the time-nuts mailing list.
• Ask questions; do experiments; share your results.
• Get a feel for the instruments and test equipment used in this field. Search eBay for
  words like: cesium, rubidium, quartz oscillator, frequency counter,
  frequency standard, phase comparator, 1pps, etc.
• Look for surplus electronics by companies like: Austron, Bliley, BNC (Berkeley Nucleonics
  Corp), Datum, Efratom,
  FEI (Frequency Electronics Inc), FTS (Frequency & Time Systems), GenRad
  (General Radio), HP (Hewlett-Packard)/Agilent, Kinemetrics, Odetics,
  Oscillatek, Oscilloquartz, Ovenaire, Quartzlock, Spectracom, SRS (Stanford
  Research Systems), Sulzer, Symmetricom, Temex, Tracor, Trak, Truetime,
  Vectron, Wenzel, Zyfer




• Visit amateur Time & Frequency web sites:
  
  – LeapSecond.com (Tom Van Baak)
  
  – www.niceties.com/time.html (Doug Hogarth)
  
  – prc68.com/I/timefreq.shtml (Brooke Clarke)
  
  – www.febo.com/time-freq (John Ackermann)
  
  – www.rt66.com/~shera (Brooks Shera)
  
  – www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/PRECISION (Murry Greenman)
  
  – www.thegleam.com/ke5fx (John Miles)
  
  – www.ko4bb.com/Timing (Didier Juges)
  
  – phk.freebsd.dk/hacks (Poul-Henning Kamp)
  
  – www.efos3.com (Ole Petter Ronningen) “Time-nuttery 101”
  




• Find op/svc manuals: KO4BB’s Manuals Repository
• See Didier’s wiki: KO4BB Wiki Home Page
• Study John Vig’s Introduction to Quartz Frequency Standards
  
  – alternate location to John Vig Tutorial if ieee.org is broken:
  Vig-tutorial8.5.6.3-Oct2014.ppt
• Read some T&F books: www.LeapSecond.com/pages/books
• Have a quick look at the
  NIST Time and Frequency from A to Z – Glossary
• Read anything Bill Riley has written Hamilton Technical Services
• Read papers, presentations, books by Enrico Rubiola Enrico Rubiola Publications
• Browse NIST Time and Frequency Publication
  Database
• See the WIRED magazine article on
  Time Hackers
  and
  (photos)
• Enjoy historical information at Frequency
  Control History
• Find app notes at commercial T&F sites:
  CNS
  GPStime
  Symmetricom
  TSC
  CTS




• See government laboratory sites:
  NIST USNO NPL
  PTB JPL
  NRC IEN
  ITU BIPM
  IERS EFTF PTTI FCS

The Time-Nuts mailing list archive is located at:
http://lists.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts_lists.febo.com.

Most users simply use google to search the archives; do this by adding site:febo.com to your search word(s).

In the pre-web 1990s Tom Clark set up a gps-timing mailing list at NASA for those
interested in his pioneering work with the Motorola Oncore-series GPS
receiver. That list was an inspirational example of one man freely sharing a
wealth of experience and information with a group of interested GPS timing
newbies. The list was specific to his home-brew TAC hardware (now TAC-2)
and SHOWTIME software (now TAC32).
The list moved to TACGPS
and is still around but quiet (now hosted by TAPR).

However, there were other precise time & frequency topics not covered by tacgps.
Over the years several of us —
tvb, DougH, StanP, CorbyD, JohnA, BrookeC —
were exchanging private emails that I thought deserved wider audience, participation, and archiving.
So in 2001 time-nuts began.
It was once
cesium-nuts at Yahoo, then
time-nuts here at LeapSecond.com, then
John Ackermann graciously offered to administer and host it on his site so that’s where it is today.
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