Tagged “traceability”

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Topics In Timekeeping

Choosing a GNSS timescale for syncing datacenter clocks

You are not choosing a receiver so much as choosing whose timescale you end up on. There are three ways to do it, they differ by a factor of a hundred in cost, and most datacenters should take the cheapest.

Can I build my own link to UTC(NIST)?

The data you would need is public, free, and better than most people realize. You can build the measurement in a weekend. What you cannot build is the one thing that turns it into a number somebody else has to accept.

Comparing distant clocks

You cannot run a cable, and neither clock can be the source for the other. So you both watch a third clock in the sky — which drags its error into your answer. Every technique here is a different way of removing it.

Is my clock right?

Timing failures are usually quiet, and nothing inside a wrong clock knows it is wrong. The only detector is a second clock — and the boundary between what the two share and where they are independent decides what you can learn by comparing them.

Questions to ask a clock vendor

Nine questions whose answers tell you whether a vendor understands their own product — no test equipment required.

How does GNSS time relate to UTC?

Not one relationship but two: a whole number of seconds you can look up, and a sub-nanosecond prediction that two control loops — one running in minutes, one in weeks — spend their lives maintaining.

What does "traceable to UTC" actually mean?

It means an unbroken chain of comparisons back to UTC, each with its uncertainty stated. Not a logo, not a certificate, and not a GPS antenna — which is why most systems that claim it do not have it.