I have just recovered the old hardware that had been used for the GB3WES 5.29MHz beacon. I built this beacon in 2004, or thereabouts, using a Motorola Oncore to determine the timing for the transmission. The beacon ran flawlessly and was taken out of service a couple of years ago where the hardware then sat in the beacon keeper's loft. Firing it up, I fully expected the ancient GPS module (ICs on it are dated 1997 and 1998) to throw a wobbler and fail to lock up. To my surprise it was up and running with a valid fix showing on the NMEA output after about 30 seconds. Which is appreciably better than all the Ublox modules I use when turned on from cold. The Oncore did hae a battery back up which had dropped to 1.5V - so perhaps this was sufficient to keep the essential stuff alive. But after being turned off for two years ...? Anyway, I was going to chuck it out, being so ancient, but may hang onto it in case an old Oncore is of use to anyone for legacy maintenance perhaps. What I haven't checked and must do so, is to see if the date/time are valid, or 1024 weeks old. The controller for the beacon only uses time and GPS status on the NMEA stream, not the date. Andy www.g4jnt.com

1.5V is probably enough to have kept data alive but how much use the data would have been after 2 years I don't know. Having said that, I recently powered up a couple of U-Blox modules that had been packed away for a similar length of time, the Neo 7 locked in under a minute using a cheap ceramic patch antenna (the inch square type rather than the pathetic, tiny rectangular thing) but the Neo 6 took an awful lot longer and was flaky even when locked (though I have my doubts about that unit, it's got signs of heat damage and has 2 labels, both U-Blox but one covering another which suggests to me it's a reclaimed part rather than new). On Tue, 11 Oct 2022 at 20:37, Andy Talbot via time-nuts < time-nuts@lists.febo.com> wrote: > I have just recovered the old hardware that had been used for the GB3WES > 5.29MHz beacon. I built this beacon in 2004, or thereabouts, using a > Motorola Oncore to determine the timing for the transmission. The beacon > ran flawlessly and was taken out of service a couple of years ago where the > hardware then sat in the beacon keeper's loft. > Firing it up, I fully expected the ancient GPS module (ICs on it are dated > 1997 and 1998) to throw a wobbler and fail to lock up. To my surprise it > was up and running with a valid fix showing on the NMEA output after about > 30 seconds. > Which is appreciably better than all the Ublox modules I use when turned on > from cold. > The Oncore did hae a battery back up which had dropped to 1.5V - so perhaps > this was sufficient to keep the essential stuff alive. But after being > turned off for two years ...? > > Anyway, I was going to chuck it out, being so ancient, but may hang onto it > in case an old Oncore is of use to anyone for legacy maintenance perhaps. > > What I haven't checked and must do so, is to see if the date/time are > valid, or 1024 weeks old. The controller for the beacon only uses time > and GPS status on the NMEA stream, not the date. > > > Andy > www.g4jnt.com > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com > -- Clint. M0UAW IO83 *No trees were harmed in the sending of this mail. However, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.*