Network Time Servers and the National Physics Laboratories

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• Radio Referenced NTP Servers Using a long wave time and frequency transmission is perhaps the simplest and most efficient way of receiving an accurate and secure UTC timing reference (coordinated universal time). Dedicated NTP servers are available that receive a time code this way and distribute the timing information to a network. Often these time servers are referred to as radio clocks, although this title is a little misleading. The long wave transmissions are usually broadcast at 60 khz but are not available everywhere. Only certain countries have these broadcasts and most come from their country of origin’s national physics laboratory. In the UK the signal ...
  
  
• The Radio Referenced NTP Server Using a long wave time and frequency transmission is perhaps the simplest and most efficient way of receiving an accurate and secure UTC timing reference (coordinated universal time). Dedicated NTP servers are available that receive a time code this way and distribute the timing information to a network. Often these time servers are referred to as radio clocks, although this title is a little misleading. The long wave transmissions are usually broadcast at 60 khz but are not available everywhere. Only certain countries have these broadcasts and most come from their country of origin’s national physics laboratory. In the UK the signal ...
  
  
• UTC – A global Timescale Coordinated Universal Time (UTC - from the  French Temps Universel Coordonné) is an international timescale based on the time told by atomic clocks. Atomic clocks are accurate to within a second in several million years. They are so accurate that International Atomic Time, the time relayed by these devices, is even more accurate than the spin of the Earth. The Earth’s rotation is affected by the gravity of the moon and can therefore slow or speed up. For this reason, International Atomic Time (TAI from the French Temps Atomique International) has to have ‘Leap seconds’ added to keep it in line ...
  
  
• Using MSF as a Timing Reference for NTP Servers Atomic clocks are incredibly expensive and generally they are normally only to be found in large scale physics laboratories such as MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology (Colorado) or the National Physical Laboratory in the UK. Fortunately many national laboratories broadcast the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time from their atomic clocks via a radio broadcast. In the UK the national timing broadcast is called MSF and is broadcast by NPL (National Physical Laboratory) in Cumbria. The MSF broadcast is used by throughout the UK and parts of Europe to synchronise consumer electronic products like wall clocks, ...
  
  
• Radio referenced time servers explained. Atomic clocks use an atomic resonance frequency standard as their timekeeping element and are by far the most accurate chronometers possible with the latest Strontium based atomic clocks boasting a precision of a less than a second lost in several hundred million years. The clocks maintain a continuous and stable time scale called International Atomic Time (TAI). However, for civil time, another time scale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)which  is derived from TAI, but synchronized using leap seconds to UTC, to keep it based on the rotation of the Earth. UTC is a global timescale that is commonly used to synchronise the clocks ...