They sell these Rubidium Frequency Standard Oscillators (FE-5680A) on auction sites now from decommissioned cell phone towers.
I want to use one of these to make my own homemade Atomic Clock.
They produce a super stable 10Mhz sine wave (modifiable to a square wave)
From what I understand a clock made with one of these should be stable enough to only be off by about 1 second every 1000 years, or 1 millisecond per year.
My question is can say an Arduino Mega 2560 handle a 10Mhz signal on one of it's input pins? Or do I need a frequency divider (perhaps a PIC) first? I assume because the Arduino Mega 2560 has a 16Mhz clock speed it should be able to handle a 10mhz input as long as it doesn't exceed the current limitations of the input pins but perhaps I'm wrong, so I'm checking with you experts.
Haven't started yet, just thinking it through first. Developing a plan.
Thanks for help with my new project!
Edit: P.S. Here's a video of this (to me) exciting Rubidium Frequency Standard module: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I55uLRRvLCU