I was buying a frequency counter on the ebay and I got Effratom 1003018 as an easter egg inside the enclosure. Someone tried to connect it internally to the counter but gave up/failed or whatever other reason. Wires were never connected, it was just bolted to the chassis.
So I got working freq counter with crappy oscillator and rubidium standard.
I have no experience with rubidium standards so I dont know what is normal behaviour. What I am seeing with this unit is obviously not in spec.
I would assume this unit was not running for awhile and it is an old unit(9515 date code), so not sure if I need to leave it running for several days or ?
Unit seems to lock as I am getting lock signal correctly, lamp voltage is around 8.7V which also seems to be in spec, but the frequency output is all over the shop. We are talking about +- 100Hz. It drifts between 9.999902-10.000090. It is very slow drift. It toggles within 2Hz for awhile and then jumps on the next value, then its stable for few mins and start toggling again. Goes to one range and then slowly to other range ...
Is there anything that can be done with the unit or is it a rubbish ?