[time-nuts] Meinberg or T/Bolt for PC time?

David J Taylor david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk
Mon Aug 11 14:51:13 EDT 2014


I have 4 windows based PC's on my home network, for years i have used
Meinberg or an equivalent to set the PC time. I was wondering if I
could, or should, use my permanently on Trimble Thunderbolt to set the
PC clocks? Any advantages or disadvantages. I believe there's a way to
use Lady Heather to interface with a PC for setting the time, is that
true? Thanks. My main desire for accuracy is amateur radio digital
modes.

       Best Regards,
                   Chris Wilson.
=============================================

Chris,

If you are using NTP, then you can add a pulse per second signal for 
improved performance, send over the DCD line of the COM port.  Here are some 
Windows PCs using such a PPS signal and NTP:

  http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/performance_ntp.php#windows-stratum-1

Further down the same page you can see how well various versions of Windows 
perform using local stratum-1 servers with a maxpoll of 5 (i.e. one poll 
every 32 seconds).

An alternative is to lock to a local UNIX server, which could be as simple 
as a Raspberry Pi with an on-board GPS unit.  They work very well in this 
mode, as you can see from the performance graphs:

  http://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/Raspberry-Pi-NTP.html

  http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/performance_ntp.php

NTP will set the clock rate as well as the time, I don't know whether the 
Lady Heather software does that.

73,
David GM8ARV
-- 
SatSignal Software - Quality software written to your requirements
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
Email: david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk 



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