The best HP SmartClock so far

The HP "SmartClock" GPS Time & Frequency receivers have an internal metric called "predicted holdover uncertainty" which is shown in the SYST:STAT? display. As far as I can tell the prediction is a conservative measure of residual time error based on (drift-removed?) 1 day Allan Deviation frequency stability.

Now to be fair this metric has little to do with how stable the HP 58503A is in the short-term and it's probably useful only if one really anticipates keeping time during GPS loss (e.g., Telecom users). Still, it's a measure, I'm curious, and I've been looking for a HP 58503A (or HP 58503B, Z3801A, Z3816A, etc.) for years that would settle down well enough to display a predicted holdover stability of 1 us/day or better.

Two people I know have ones that get down to this level. I don't know if this is typical or not. I do know my two 58503A receivers don't get close and no matter what I do -- different cables, different antennas, different locations, days or months of warm-up -- I never see below about 5 us/day predicted holdover.

I now have a pile of surplus Z3801A receivers warming up and although they all meet spec the free-running oscillators vary considerably in their actual performance, from parts in ten to the 10th to parts in ten to the 13th. The very best one has an amazing short-term stability better than 5E-13 and is still 1E-12 at 10k seconds. So I'd expect that a few days after it locked to GPS that it would show a very good predicted holdover time. Sure enough, it is superb:


------------------------------- Receiver Status -------------------------------
SYNCHRONIZATION ............................................. [ Outputs Valid ]
SmartClock Mode ___________________________   Reference Outputs _______________
>> Locked to GPS                              TFOM     3             FFOM     0
   Recovery                                   1PPS TI +200 ps relative to GPS
   Holdover                                   HOLD THR 1.000 us
   Power-up                                   Holdover Uncertainty ____________
                                              Predict  300 ns/initial 24 hrs

ACQUISITION ............................................ [ GPS 1PPS CLK Valid ]
Satellite Status __________________________   Time ____________________________
Tracking: 5        Not Tracking: 3            GPS      06:05:28     14 May 2002
PRN  El  Az   SS   PRN  El  Az                1PPS CLK Synchronized to GPS Time
  1  75  90   37     4  12 268                ANT DLY  0 ns
  2  57  96   48    24  13 307                Position ________________________
 13  70 309   43   *27  Acq .                 MODE     Hold
 20  27 176   32
 22  41  63   42                              LAT      N  47:33:15.774
                                              LON      W 122:08:22.391
ELEV MASK 10 deg   *attempting to track       HGT              +309.30 m  (MSL)
HEALTH MONITOR ......................................................... [ OK ]
Self Test: OK    Int Pwr: OK   Oven Pwr: OK   OCXO: OK   EFC: OK   GPS Rcv: OK

/tvb