[time-nuts] Leap seconds now showing on GPS satellites

Hal Murray hmurray at megapathdsl.net
Sun Feb 12 06:49:43 UTC 2012


tvb at LeapSecond.com said:
> So one has to be careful how you handle this information. There is always
> that awkward time, which we are now in, between when  a future leap second
> is announced and the actual month in which it occurs. It never fails that
> some user or software misinterprets the IERS or GPS leap second announcement
> and adds a leap second at the end of one or more months prior to the correct
> one. 

I just checked the user manual for the Z3801A.  I didn't find anything about 
when the leap second will happen.

Last time we had one, I fixed the NTP driver for the Z3801A so it would 
ignore leap-pending except if the current month was June or December.  I 
considered doing something more complicated, but that seemed more likely to 
introduce bugs.

I predict things will get "interesting" when the IERS announces the first 
leap second in March or September.  Anybody want to guess how many Z3801As 
will still be running then?

That driver also works with the HP/Agilent 58503A.  They will probably be 
around longer.  Symmetricom didn't drop the 58503B until  2008.




-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.






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