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.

• To subscribe to the mailing list send a blank email to: time-nuts-join@lists.febo.com
  – Within ~10 seconds you will get an email confirmation. Reply to it.

• To unsubscribe send a blank email to: time-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com

• To post to the 1800-member mailing list, send email to: time-nuts@lists.febo.com
  – Note that you need to have subscribed before your first post.

• For admin issues, suggestions / questions / problems, send email to: time-nuts-owner@lists.febo.com
  – Note the private admin time-nuts-owner@ help email is different from the public time-nuts@ mailing list email.
  – We'll help your subscription, ISP, email formatting, attachments, digest mode, etc. problems.

• The list archive (2004-present) is at: https://febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts_lists.febo.com

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

Searching the archives

History of Time-Nuts

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. [1] [2] [3] [4]