[time-nuts] Three subjects.

Dennis O'Keefe okeefed at newpaltz.edu
Tue Jan 3 20:32:23 UTC 2006


A leap second project that I was working on ended this morning, too early to 
be useful. A while back there were comments regarding the handling of leap 
seconds by the electric power frequency and if electric clocks would take the 
change into effect.

On December 1, I started making a daily recording (by eye, ear, and ink on 
paper) of what seconds an electronic digital clock displayed at 08:00:00 
Eastern Standard Time from WWV or CHU. I missed only one morning since then. 
This morning the electricity went off for several seconds and that clock now 
shows 88 88 88. Lots of heavy snow on trees and wires here today. The clock is 
a Heathkit I made in 1973 and counts power line frequency. Of the data I got 
the latest was 08:00:13, and the earliest was 07:59:57. Even if the power had 
stayed on through the end of January, I think the variation would be too 
random to pick out a leap second. Wait until next time!

----

My Ultralink 333 did not update until 17 hours after the event, and still has 
not come up with a value for the DUT1 correction, although shows a "+" where 
it had been "-6" before.

----

I was looking at some old calendars last night and noticed that I did a watch 
calibration during July of 1972 (Yes I am a Time Nut from way back.) by 
writing each day how many seconds my watch was off compared to WWV at the end 
of the day. One interesting thing is that the 0-error start of the month-long 
series is just a few hours after the first leap second.

I don't know if this is a coincidence or not. By 1972 my 1968 Accutron was 
already not new and I had access to and knew about WWV several years earlier, 
so I don't recall why I would have chosen that month to do it. I think I was 
not aware of leap seconds then.

The Accutron was advertised to be accurate to a minute a month. Mine was +47 
1/2 seconds at the end of the month. I no longer have that watch.

Dennis O'Keefe
New Paltz, New York USA




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