Instruments in my Office when I did this web page
Upper
Right is
59501B Isolated DAC/Power Supply Programmer
This was intended as a way to add HP-IB programming to a power supply
that has provision for external voltage or resistance
programming.
It has a DAC with voltage output that I use to
control my SRS SC-10 ovenized crystal oscillator.
Left Top is
This is a very cost effective HP-IB or bench top multimeter and is my
standard
for many measurements. Below the 59501A is
HP
53132A option-012 option-030 Universal Counter
The -012 is the Ultra High Stability Crystal Oscillator and -030 is the
3 GHz BNC Chan 3 input. This is a nice HP-IB Universal
counter.
But is is difficult to use because the behaviour of the HP-IB commands
is not clear. The HP 53132 has been replaced by a . . .
This counter was designed for measuring many things, but it is very
good
for working with 1 PPS time intervals. I got the plane jane
version
and use my PRS10 Rb oscillator as the
external
frequency standard and the PRS10 1 PPS output as the A channel trigger
signal. The PRS10 is locked to the 1 PPS from a Motorola VP GPS
receiver.
Gibbs Manufacturing & Research Corporation Model 1047 - 5 MHz
Frequency
Standard (now SRS 10 MHz)
This is a 3U high rack instrument that contains a couple of series
connected
723 based power supplies. One to drop the AC line to 20 VDC to
charge
3 series connected 6 Volt (18 V total) lead acid batteries and the
other
to supply the double oven quartz oscillator that used a Bailey glass
bottle
rock. The problem was that the lead acid batteries were in the
same
rack chassis as the oven. When the acid fumes got inside the oven
they literally etched through the printed circuit board traces. I
repaired this a number of times but finally gave up. The box now
houses a Stanford Research SC-10 ovenized oscillator and a circuit that
divides it down to 1 PPS. The SC-10 has an input for a voltage to
fine tune the frequency. By comparing the GPS 1 PPS to the SC-10
1 PPS I can tune it to better than 1E-11 in about a half a day.
It
takes over 4 hours to measure the drift rate of an oscillator this
good.
See HP 59501B above for the source of the control voltage. The
control
and analysis is done with LabVIEW. Below the Gibbs is:
5328A-H99 500 MHz Universal Counter
These are available as surplus. They have time interval
capability
and are HP-IB programmable. The H99 option adds a nice
ovenized
crystal oscillator, but not as good as the SRS SC-10 or the option-012
in the 53132A. Below this counter, and out of sight is a
Tektronix 515 Oscilloscope
Although this tube type scope is old it is still very
serviceable.
One of these days I will get a DSO with an HP-IB interface.
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