[time-nuts] 60 Hz measurement party

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Sat Jun 25 20:33:41 UTC 2011


On 06/25/2011 09:34 PM, Tom Van Baak wrote:
> We are more a group of experimenters than lamenters, so
> here's an open invitation to all of you in the US to join me
> on a 60 Hz measurement party, starting as soon as you
> can and lasting as many weeks or months that it takes to
> get interesting plots.
>
> There's no agenda; we measure because we can. Anything
> about precise time is fun. There hasn't been a leap second
> to watch for a while so this is the next best thing.
>
> The last time I carefully measured 60 Hz was in 2004. See:
> http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/mains/
>
> To overcome some questions about that data set, last year I
> collected 60 Hz data using a GPSDO PIC that time-stamped
> each zero crossing (yes, it's excessive but since when has
> that stopped me). I'll restart that now and let it run all summer.
>
> Anyway, you're welcome to use any 60 Hz monitoring method
> that you can think of, whether seriously technical or just plain
> humorous; clever or Rube Goldberg. Actually, the greater the
> variety of methods used the more fun the group project will be.
>
> It could be as simple as noting AC wall clock time once a day
> and making a summer plot on the back of an envelope.
> Or as weird as integrating the hum of a sound card on a PC
> running NTP making MRTG plots. Let your imagination flow.
>
> Please consider contributing to the effort. It seems the last
> time anything interesting happened with mains frequency was
> when Los Angeles changed from 50 Hz to 60 Hz in 1936.

Great idea Tom!

I'm safely on my 50 Hz grid over here, so I let you guys play around in 
your end.

Maybe we should do something on our grid, we are a few time-nuts on the 
nordic grid.

Cheers,
Magnus




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