[time-nuts] PTTI 2012

Tom Van Baak tvb at LeapSecond.com
Sun Dec 2 01:09:35 UTC 2012


I just returned from PTTI (Precise Time and Time Interval), the annual conference hosted by USNO, NASA, JPL, etc. Those of you unfamiliar with PTTI can read more (http://pttimeeting.org/). Many of you know this site by the fantastic collection of 40 years of archived (and free) technical papers (http://pttimeeting.org/archivemeetings/).

There are other annual professional conferences related to time & frequency: FCS (IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium), EFTF (European Frequency and Time Forum), and ION GNSS (Institute of Navigation). There is also the excellent NIST Time and Frequency Metrology Seminar in Boulder. I've heard of but have not attended: Asia-Pacific Workshop on Time and Frequency, and Inter-American Metrology System (SIM) conference. There may be more.

You are fortunate if your employer sends you to one of these conferences. Depending on your location, time, budget, and level of interest, I believe most of these are open to individuals in case you are drawn more by hobby and passion than by profession. Or simply read the conference technical papers which are usually available on the web.

About 50 papers were presented over 3 days at PTTI this year (pttimeeting.org/ptti_advanceprogram.pdf). The papers appear in the PTTI archives in a few months. Given that this is a professional conference and most of the attendees are affiliated with national metrology laboratories, it's not surprising that about half the papers cover state-of-the-art (i.e., not yet on eBay) subjects like optical clocks and national or international time transfer over satellite or fiber. Still, there are always a number of talks of more general interest to us time nuts. In the next few postings I'll give more details on a couple of topics:

    - Neutrino time-of-flight update
    - UTCr/Rapid UTC
    - USNO rubidium fountains
    - WWVB/Xtendwave
    - Loran/UrsaNav
    - Vendor presentations/Symmetricom/Miles
    - M12/uBlox GPS board
    - Quartz in space
    - ION/PTTI 2013 in Bellevue, WA (!)
    - The state of Time-Nuts

/tvb


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