[time-nuts] GPSDO for my rubber duckie

Chris Stake stake at btinternet.com
Tue Aug 2 21:33:14 UTC 2011


If you live your life on a timescale that is anchored to mean solar time,
what happens on February 29th?
Chris 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On
> Behalf Of Michael Sokolov
> Sent: 02 August 2011 20:33
> To: time-nuts at febo.com
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] GPSDO for my rubber duckie
> 
> Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > NTP software can keep system time within a few  milliseconds of UTC.
> > No custom hardware, no FPGA or PCB.
> 
> But I _*REFUSE*_ to do it that way.  You've mentioned UTC: that's one
> thing I'm taking great care to avoid in my solution.  I want my system
> to be completely insulated from whatever evil things the ITU may do to
> UTC and leap seconds.  By starting from GPS time coming *directly* out
> of a GPS receiver via its native EIA-232 port, I can take untampered GPS
> time in the week number + time-of-week format, convert it to TAI by
> adding a constant 19 s offset, and then convert from TAI to UTR.
> GPS time -> TAI -> UTR; there is no UTC involved at any intermediate
> step.
> 
> Standard NTP software is another thing I wish to avoid like the plague
> in this project.  That software has been touched by the hands of people
> like PHK and Warner Losh, the same criminals whose handprints are on the
> axe that is about to sever most of the world's civil time from the
> millennia-old tradition of mean solar time.  Those people are criminals
> of the highest degree in my book, and I do not want to use any software
> that has been touched by them.
> 
> > If the requirement were for nano second level accuracy [...]
> 
> I don't care for that level of accuracy, but I do very much care about
> the philosophical puriry of the system, end to end and at every
> intermediate step.
> 
> > but software using Internet pool servers is OK for Milliseconds
> 
> I have no idea / don't want to think about what will happen to those NTP
> servers when/if leap seconds are killed.  I wish to *insulate* myself
> and all computer systems under my care from that insanity.  And even now
> while the leap seconds are still with us, NTP does an utter mess in the
> vicinity of one.  Once again, I wish to insulate myself from it.
> 
> Although my rubber duckie will never act as an NTP client, i.e., will
> never ask another NTP server for the time, it *will* act as an NTP
> server itself, i.e., it will serve my UTR timescale to the public
> Internet.  For as long as the leap seconds are still with us, UTR will
> agree with UTC except in the immediate vicinity of one.  However, if and
> when the ITU/PHK bastards kill the leap second, the NTP timescale will
> fork.  My NTP servers will serve UTR, linked to Earth's rotation just
> like the current leap-enabled UTC is.  Don't know / don't care about NTP
> servers operated by muggles.
> 
> I hope this clarifies a little better what I am after.
> 
> MS
> 
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