Ken Johnson writes:
>There is a very good frequency "standard" in most homes, in the humble
>colour tv. The colour burst crystal is phase locked to the stations master
>oscillator, and (at least here in Australia) that can be traced back to a
>very accurate standard. IIRC, here it is a rhubidium standard, I guess it
>is the same in most countries.

        I read in "QST" that this was once true in the United States,
but not so much any more.  Television stations now use digital frame
synchronizers to make up for small timing differences so that the
color burst signal you get now is locally generated and not
phase-locked to the network's rhubidium standard.  It is probably
still good, but not as close to perfect as it used to be when it was
tightly coupled.


Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK
OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group