Comment by tvb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tvb | Hacker News Reader

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Look for any vintage caesium clock made by National, Varian, Hewlett-Packard / Agilent / Symmetricom / Microsemi / Microchip, FEI, FTS / Austron / DATUM, Oscilloquartz, and maybe others. None of them are a restricted item because of a "radio-isotope". Again, cesium 133 is not a radioactive isotope. Atomic timekeeping is based on ultra-precise quantum mechanics, not random nuclear radioactive delay.

Just take your time. Some of us look for months and even years before we find one worth the eBay risk.

There is one fact to consider. I have heard that the 5071A clock is still ITAR classified. It's not because of "atomic" or "cesium", but because the internal design is so advanced that the US decided it was essentially like a military weapon.

If in doubt look for vintage models like 5060, 5061, 5062, or 4050, 4060, 4065 instead of the still current model 5071.

Please tell me more about your atomic clock. Which one did you eventually buy, how much did it cost, and how do you use it?

As a patient hobbyist collector I try to buy one of each. My goal was to learn the history and theory of each one, explore the magnificent design, measure the actual timing accuracy, read as many old books or articles about them, and in some cases meet the designers of the clocks. Atomic timekeeping, like computing, is a new enough field that a few of the old timers are still around.

For the valley-mountain gravitational time dilation experiments that I've done I use 5071A cesium clocks. Even though 25+ years old, no commercial clock works better for this portable application. That is to say, rubidium clocks and older model cesium clocks are not quite good enough to detect these tiny relativistic effects with confidence.

Others here have mentioned prices. Surplus rubidium atomic clocks can be found for as low as $100 on eBay. Surplus cesium clocks range from $1k to $10k, depending on model and condition. Factory new 5071A are close to $100k so no one I knows is crazy enough to do that. If you are very patient and lucky on eBay you will find 5071A for as low at $2k to $5k once every couple of years.

Thank you for your reply! I didn't realize you were the author of the blog until now.

Out of curiosity, do the output formats of the different models differ? With output format I mean the way that the (current) time is represented.

Not being familiar with atomic clocks, my hope and expectation is that the output is something different than a single large integer (compare unix timestamp). :)

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