[time-nuts] new year crashes

[Kiwi Geoff]

Will Kimber <zl1tao at gmx.com> wrote:
> If you listened to Radio New  Zealand National news New Year's day
> morning you would have heard then stating there will be 7 pips at 1:00pm.
>
> However there were only 6 !!! So what happened?

I was listening to both of the above events too, and agree with your
comments Will.

The following is just my "observations" over the last few years as a
keen RNZ listener, and so may not be correct to those in the know.

To my ears, there are two "types" of Time Pips:

The "normal" time pips sound like reasonably pure sine-waves of 1KHz,
and are always correct to my house standard, and would be derived from
the atomic clocks at:

Measurement Standards Laboratory
Callaghan Innovation
PO Box 31 310
Lower Hutt 5040
New Zealand

https://www.msl.irl.cri.nz/services/time-and-frequency

The "other" time pips sound different, they appear to be shorter in
duration and more like a square-wave at 1KHz than a sine-wave. I
assume they are locally generated at RNZ and are used when the
land-line to Lower Hutt is broken by road-works, earthquakes, or a
digger driver with a careless hand !

In the past I have detected the "other" time pips drifting by about
half a second per day, so I assume it's a relatively simple XO that is
used rather than a GPS which I thought would have been a better option
for a standby reference.

So my guess as to what is currently going on (for RNZ time pips) is
that they are using the backup system , which appears to be manually
set - and is yet to be manually set by a man!

Maybe someone who knows someone in RNZ engineering, can give a more
accurate picture than just my conjecture.

Regards, Geoff ( Christchurch, New Zealand ).