Quote:
Originally Posted by kalee20
I'm a bit puzzled here! If you build a caesium beam frequency standard, why does it need a calibration certificate?
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I'd like to shake the hand of the private individual who builds a caesium beam standard from scratch and offer him a bottle of Champagne. The offer is limited to the first who presents himself in the UK, but the Champagne would be a good one (IMHO).
Caesium beam standards can either be primary, or secondary like the el-cheapo commercial units which sell for 20 grand.
The point here is that Robin is dealing with officialdom, which could be reasonable and assume that as a qualified engineer who has been maintaining glider tranceivers for years, he knows what he's doing and using an off-air standard for calibrating his equipment is perfectly good. OTOH, it could prescribe that all frequency standards used for such work shall bear a valid test certificate issued by a lab qualified to standard XYZ. That would, ridiculously, include a caesium beam standard, unless he had the time and patience to negotiate an exception.
Given an off-air standard was acceptable, even that might have to be checked periodically by a test house against their, err, off air-standard. Having them verify that a Quartzlock or Advance was behaving itself would be one thing. Having them verify a homebrew job, could involve negotiated prices.
The powers that be might allow that as a qualified engineer, experienced in the field, he could calibrate other test gear against his accepted standard. They might insist that it all had calibration certificates and unbroken, valid seals.
All I'm saying is that in his position, I'd be very careful to investigate the requirements of the powers that be and get it in writing that what I was doing was acceptable.
Pete.