I tried splitting up the data into two testbenches of roughly 300 samples, but it still seems to die on the second test bench when it hits the 496th sample (my block that is).

In fact, the kid would die from heart disease brought on by Cholesterol of many, many hundreds long before any radiation impact was seen. Best, -John

Components in them may die like with any electronics, but the lamps should last as long as you :^) They are a lot more reliable and accurate than the small newer Rb standards for sure. I am sure mine will outlive me. Dan

I'll likely get a heavy die cast box for my thunderbolt at some point.

Who will throw it in the dumpster when you die? If you are completely new to this, where would you like to start? Something cheap from an "auction" site or a new hydrogen maser? Don't mind me, I've been around too long.

Many of them also have PLLs on the die that are intended for clock generation but can often be abused for other purposes :)

I really don't > understand what's happening here as the receiver is on the roof and sees > plenty of satellites: Even if there were zero satellites the GPS receiver should report zero, not just stop and die. Are you certain that both PPS and NMEA data both stop? If just one of them, then I'd suspect a bad connection, a loose cable or something.

Hi Looking at the picture of the die, I suspect their radio has a VCO on it that they lock up through a (noisy) low frequency PLL. That would mean they really don't care a lot about phase noise of the reference.

. > Heck, for my application it could be as simple as QBASIC REM Open serial port OPEN #1, "COM1:" REM Read next three messages FOR I=1, 3 LINE INPUT #1, A$ B$ = B$+A$ NEXT I REM Close Serial port CLOSE #1 REM Look for $GPRMC message and parse k = INSTR(B$, "GPRMC") if k = 0 then die a miserable death with an error message else finish parsing.. end

Of course it is difficult to provide a good reference and pass transistor on the same die, but it was worth asking. Bert, The thought of temp control of the regulators crossed my mind. Not planning on going there unless I need to. But it was a thought, maybe if all else fails... Bob, > There are more modern parts with lower close in noise.