[time-nuts] TimeNuts Assistance Request

Baragwanath, Chris (TSG) ChrisB at tsogosun.com
Fri Jul 18 05:42:45 EDT 2008


Hi all Time Nuts,

I am a 'side line' member of the mailing list, ex Broadcast engineer
whose principle fascination is accurate pendulum clocks and as one who
has been lucky enough to have been in the presence of the ultimate
"Clock" here in South Africa, the SAST (South African Standard Time)
cluster.

We do not have a "free to air" telephonic Time and Freq service in SA as
the NIST does and our principle RF source (ZUO_ has long been
discontinued for economic reasons (Other than the distant low power
coastal stations the transmit a few mins a day for shipping purposes).
The former Govt Labs and Standards Authorities are now privatised to
lessen the burden on the fiscus and supposed to be self supporting, so
charge and arm and a leg for access to their facilities, that our tax
money paid for in the first place)

At present, radio propagation conditions are so poor that and of the
NIST and other stations are unusable as a tone reference or 1 pulse per
second reference, and so have to call the NIST land line number, which
is an expensive call from South Africa.

As a voluntary / community service, we are trying to establish a freely
accessible tone and pulse service and are looking for a donation of any
unwanted equipment that will help us get a more stable 440hz and 1 PPS
reference running. (The current oscillator is a good old uncompensated
crystal British Ferrograph Test Set from broadcast days interrupted by
another uncompensated xtal osc which interrupts the tone to prove the
PPS output).

Any donation of unwanted equipment, especially of more stable equipment
or the ultimate, a GPS Rx board with 1 PPS output would be greatly
appreciated.

If anyone is prepared to help, I would be most grateful and would cover
the shipping costs to SA.

The mains in SA is 220v 50hz, but do have access to a 120v 60hz sinewave
inverter unit to safely power US spec equipment.

Many thanks in advance,


Kind regards,


Chris D Bagwanath
"Its About Time"

chris at baragwanath.co.za
Tel +27 83 700 5057
Fax: +27 11 792 166

 



 





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