[time-nuts] National Standards labs worldwide - specifically Australia

[Brian Inglis]

On 2014-06-29 04:33, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
> I know of NPL in the UK, and NIST in the USA, but is anyone aware of
> other "standard labs". In particular I am looking for the Australian
> equivalent. A Google search came across "Standards Australia"
>
> http://www.standards.org.au/
>
> but I don't know how "authoritative" this is. There is basically
> nothing stopping any body here setting up a web site claiming to be
> the countries leading non-government standards labs. I have a very
> healthy skepticism of calibration laboratories in general
>
> NIST for example does have a ".gov" domain, which gives it a bit more
> credibility than a typical .com.
> NPL does not have a .gov, despite we use it in the UK.
>
> I found the The National Measurement Institute (NMI)
> http://www.measurement.gov.au/
>
> which is probably the one I am looking for.
>
> There are people on this list who I would trust to produce a list of
> national standards labs more than I would from a Google search or
> Wikipedia.
>
> There are a couple of things I am looking to find out - neither of
> which are very time-nut related, but both are to some extent as they
> they involve measuring the phase difference between two signals.
>
> 1) There was some work done somewhere (I believe an Australian lab),
> which showed that calibrating a VNA with 1/8 and 3/8 offset shorts is
> superior to a flush short and 1/4 spacer. Both give the desired 180
> degree difference in reflected signal, so at first thought they are
> equivalent. I do know the reason the 1/8 and 3/8 are superior, but I'd
> like to find a reference.
>
> 2) Who in Australia would be best at measuring the reflection
> coefficient of a 50 Ohm termination?

BIPM lookup for NMIs - practical information > useful links > metrology institutes
http://www.bipm.org/en/practical_info/useful_links/nmi.html
AU -> NMIA http://www.measurement.gov.au

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis