* It seems to me we could minimize this problem by writing a small
program that would tune an over-the-air frequency standard (like one
of the WWV broadcasts) and compare it to the local oscillator. The
resulting frequency offset could then be stored as a default setting
for subsequent GNU Radio runs, so that e.g. if your program asked to
tune to 250.000 MHz and the USRP's LO was slow by 50 kHz (0.050 MHz)
then internally it would know to tune to 250.050 which is probably
closer to where the real signal will be. Of course the LO would shift
slightly based on temperature, but if you measured and stored the
value after warm-up, it would probably be relatively stable.
John
Probably reasonable as a first-order approach. That assumes that
frequency errors are more-or-less linear.
Further, you want to store the result as a PPM estimate, rather than an
absolute frequency offset. For some
cards, the difference won't matter, but for something like the WBX, with
a very-wideband synthesizer, it
does matter.
FM radio stations also tend to use very-high-quality LOs for their
transmitters, although the wideband nature of their
signal makes it somewhat awkward to do fine tweaking. Hmmm, I wonder
about the audio carrier of a TV signal, that
might also be reasonably stable.