[time-nuts] HP 117/10509a...

[J. Forster]

IMO, a better way to provide the service would be to just turn a couple of
LORAN-C stations back on.

But that would be a tacit admission of another stupid government screwup.

This WWVB scheme can possibly be spun as an 'improvement'- hence
politically less distasteful, even if more expensive for the users.

YMMV.
,

-John

================



> To be very clear here.
> There is not a box coming from NIST.
> They do not want the responsibility to maintain what ever it would be.
>
> The reason to make the change to the format is for better frequency and
> time distribution by this channel.
> It seeks to improve overall system gain and attempts to negate
> interference from MSF at least in regions of the east.
>
> Whats very interesting is that the silicon would in some way recover a
> carrier to recover the data. If that carrier happened to be on a pin of
> the chip then you might take advantage of this new method and it could
> then be used perhaps to drive the old equipment. I certainly have no
> problem with such an approach.
>
> But suspect the rcvr will be multi-$$$$ and have to saythats not in the
> ole budget.
>
> Further
> wwvb has not been a great way to distribute frequency for 20 years.
> We time-nuts all have done far better with GPS. Granted no way to check
> it against anything else.
> So I simply do not understand the why of all of this. Not throwing
> stones here.
> Its just thats one big electric bill every month and there has to be a
> bit more clever alternate national freq dist method that would be far
> more economical and deliver better coverage and interference rejection.
> Think about it, this new modulation method with say 5 transmitters at
> lower power. Central site to control stability though at that point lots
> of other approaches come into play. Oh thats LORAN C sorry.
>
> Just very curious as to why the two approaches, especially since we also
> know eloran is also being explored.
>
> All of this is getting wayyyy off topic.
> Regards
> Paul
>
>
> On 7/8/2012 6:50 AM, Bob Camp wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>>
>> On Jul 8, 2012, at 1:17 AM, David J Taylor wrote:
>>
>>> As an observer from across the pond:
>>>
>>> - presumably, the vast majority of users would not be affected.
>> Yes, the wall clock and wrist watch people (I use both) would not be
>> impacted according to NIST. I have seen no reports of, and not observed
>> any impact on my stuff.
>>
>>> - is there a technical solution which would be compatible with both old
>>> and new methods?  Some alternative modulation scheme?
>> The whole format of the change has been under the guise of a government
>> investment in a technology company. That's taken the whole debate about
>> modulation formats out of the public eye. The goals of the new
>> modulation scheme are a bit unclear, so it's difficult to evaluate
>> alternatives. One would *assume* that the cost of silicon to demodulate
>> the new format is a major part of the decision on the new approach. That
>> said, yes there has to be another way to do this that does not nuke the
>> old gear.
>>
>>> - is there not a testing period, where results can be fed back as to
>>> the compatibility or otherwise of the new scheme?
>> There have been tests. There is no official / formal feedback mechanism
>> for the tests. It's not totally clear what any of the testing results
>> are. One would *guess* that they are testing a silicon implementation of
>> their receiver in the field. One would also *guess* that nothing
>> "important" is impacted by the modulation.
>>
>>> - has there been any official response to your comments that the new
>>> scheme stops existing equipment working properly?
>> The response has been: Yes we know this breaks your stuff. They have put
>> that in writing. There is a somewhat vague promise that a box that
>> "translates" the new format to one the old gear can use could / would /
>> might be developed. No idea at all what such a box would look like or
>> cost. Also no idea how well it would perform.
>>
>>> - can you involve your members of the legislature, or would the be
>>> either inappropriate or a waste of time?
>> Based on past experience - waste of time, even in an election year. The
>> subject is to hard to understand and not enough voters are impacted.
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> David
>>> --
>>> SatSignal Software - Quality software written to your requirements
>>> Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
>>> Email: david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk
>>>
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