[time-nuts] What time is it anyway?

Steve Rooke sar10538 at gmail.com
Sun Mar 28 11:53:24 UTC 2010


Eventually you get there:

http://www.bipm.org/en/scientific/tai/time_server.html

and find out that these folks have signed to it:

http://www.bipm.org/en/convention/member_states/

Think I'll skip the research as to how much of the World this covers.


On 29 March 2010 00:36, Magnus Danielson <magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org> wrote:
> Chris Cheney wrote:
>>>
>>> I think that is the BIPM (http://www.bipm.org/en/home/) in association
>>> with the IERS (http://hpiers.obspm.fr/)
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
>>>
>>> On 28 March 2010 10:29, Steve Rooke <sar10538 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> What puzzles me is who is the keeper of "legal time" for the other
>>>> 93.4% of land mass and 95.5% of population of the World other than the
>>>> US.
>>>>
>>
>> _By definition_ (ITU-R-TF.460-4, Annex 1), the keeper of UTC is BIPM with
>> assistance from the IERS. But "legal time", being a national matter, is
>> something quite different and might or might not be aligned with UTC,
>> depending on the individual nation state.
>
> ITU gets its authority from being an UN organisation. The reason they have
> TF.460-4 is because there are radio transmitters for time. Nowadays that
> document should be handled differently than ITU-R.
>
> BIPM gets its authority from the signature nations of the metric convention,
> which then meet in the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) and
> International Committee for Weigths and Measures.
>
> http://www.bipm.org/en/convention/
> http://www.bipm.org/en/convention/cgpm/
> http://www.bipm.org/en/committees/cipm/
> http://www.bipm.org/en/convention/member_states/
>
> In addition to all that, there is a number of related organisations for
> related calibration, traceability and accreditations. ISO is also a part of
> the mixture.
>
> Just go to BIPM and the above links and read for yourselves. With a little
> curiosity you will eventually figure out how everything connects.
>
> It all boils down to nations signing a number of binding agreements. That
> creates a common reference system, mutual recognition, same procedures etc.
>
> Cheers,
> Magnus
>
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-- 
Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
A man with one clock knows what time it is;
A man with two clocks is never quite sure.




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