[time-nuts] What is NIST "official time" ?

Christopher Quarksnow cquarksnow at gmail.com
Thu Aug 4 18:08:50 UTC 2011


Actually I was in Seattle yesterday looking at a SkyScan "atomic" clock, and
it agreed with NIST time.gov applet, yet I was thrown off by some
Android-based applications such as Sidereal or TAI Clock and Converter, that
display "UTC", whereas it is apparently Android system time.
Whereas Android system time has been GPS-disciplined for about two years
(bug 5485), very few "smart" phones overcame the issue. Also most Android
ntp-based applications that I used until recently under Android 2.2 did not
work with 2.3 and that's the reason I used Sidereal or TAI Clock and
Converter. I finally resorted to UTC time, that truly retrieves UTC via ntp,
and now back in NY last night, all seems fine, except that Google, OHA and
other parties involved (who were informed of the Android bug way back)
should make sure that no one displays "UTC" in any Market application unless
it's derived from a relevant source.
It's dangerous enough that a good portion of Android phones are 15 seconds
fast, even though a carrier like Sprint is sending a pretty accurate UTC
stream even to basic phones.

Thanks to all,

Christopher

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 12:02, Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 7:16 AM, Christopher Quarksnow
> <cquarksnow at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Wondering whether anyone can clarify what discipline the Boulder, CO NIST
> > facility is broadcasting (or showing on time.gov) and qualified as "The
> > official U.S. time".
> > It appears to be about 20 seconds slower than UTC
>
> I think something must be wrong with the way you are measuring.
> Propagation can't time add 20 seconds  Can you explain exactly what
> how you are measuring.
>
> Chris Albertson
> Redondo Beach, California
>
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  I was actually in Seattle looking at a SkyScan clock that concurred with
NIST and now back in New York today, seems I had an issue with Android
Sidereal software that claimed UTC, yet derived such UTC value from Android
system clock. Whereas I thought that the Android system clock was right
(namely Android bug 5485 was offset in the phone I was using), it actually
was not. I have alerted the author of sidereal software.
There seem to be a transition issue


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