[time-nuts] Galileo funding (bailout)

[Tom Van Baak]

> On the positive side: there could be some very nice stuff on the surplus
> market post-mortem.

An interesting feature of surplus timing gear is that while quartz,
cesium, and rubidium clocks still count seconds when they are
surplused, time transfer systems such as those based on Omega,
Loran-C, GOES, WWV, CHU, WWVB, ACTS, NTP, GPS,
GLONASS, and Galileo are only useful when the complex and
expensive transmitting infrastructure behind them is still operational.

Earlier forms of Loran are gone. Omega is gone. I watched the
last bits as GOES died a few years ago and now all the GOES
receivers in my collection are effectively silent. I suspect, over
the decades, as budgets and technology changes, that the same
will eventually occur to all timing systems that we know today.

/tvb