Got my gps unit in. First step was to make some spare arduino chips. I used the adafruit bootloader with zip slot. That was pretty easy and will be a good tool in the future. I then bent up the clock prongs and soldered on some leads. Installed a crystal and loaded up the blink program and volla.
See the attached photo. Gonna cal my thermistors and then attach them to a crystal. I'll have one for crystal temp and another for ambient temp. I can't imagine the crystal heats up too much and would like to be able to temp compensate separate from the crystal.
I hope I can read PPS, mark time, analog read some temps, verify 4 satellite, and record in array on SD card within 1 second.