Most of you here have at least involved yourself with the frequency counter. However, how well do you know about this electronic component?

The frequency counter is an electronic component that is used for measuring frequency and it’s usually measure the number of oscillations or pulse per second in a repetitive electronic signal.

Most of the frequency counters work by simply using a counter that accumulates the number of events occurring within a specific period of time. After a present period, the value in the counter is transferred to a display and the counter is reset to zero. If the event being measured repeats itself with sufficient stability of frequency and this frequency is considerably lower than the clock oscillator being used, then the resolution of the measurement can be greatly improved by measuring the time required for an entire number of cycles!

Furthermore, the accuracy of a frequency counter is strongly dependent on the stability of its timebase. A highly accurate circuit will be used to generate this for instrumentation purposes, and it’s usually using a quartz crystal oscillator within a sealed temperature-controlled chamber, which it is known as crystal oven or oven controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO).