NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Ian Vaughn
Date: 2018 Sep 27, 17:47 -0700
Along the same lines as the post looking at the precision of a $6 wristwatch, here's some detailed test results comparing a high-end quartz oscillator with microsemi's shiny new CSACs:
https://web.whoi.edu/obslab/wp-content/uploads/sites/98/2017/10/Clocks-and-Timing-VerificationLEGAL.pdf
Having only casually worked with the CSACs, I'd solidly recommend the $6 wristwatch. Keeping CSACs cared for, fed (with power) and disciplined (correcting the static drift via constant comparison to a high-end GPS) is far more work than the $5000 per module pricetag suggests. Even then, word on the street is that Microsemi is having major quality control issues after acquiring Symmetricon. For a while Microsemi wouldn't even sell clock modules under warranty.
Meanwhile, my $15 wristwatch ($6 in 1982) has drifted all of "one horizon uncertainty" in the last two months with exactly no effort. Regular checks would reduce the error far lower.
--Ian
