[time-nuts] What's the best Windows 10 ntp client?

[Chris Albertson]

The best NTP program to run is the reference implementation at ntp.org
This is the one all the experts are looking at and fixing when problems or
improvements are found.   ftp.org also on their download page as a link to
third party parts and re-implementatons for those who for whatever reason
can't use the official release from ntp.org.  This is the same software
that almost all of the NTP servers out on the Internet are running.

You are right about using just one NTP server for time.  I'd suggest a
minimum of three but it cost not more to use five.  NTP will figure out
which of them are "best" from the set you get it.

What kind of accuracy do you need?   I assume if the computer is running
Windows 10 all you need is the nominal time to maybe 1/10th of a second at
best.    That is 100 milliseconds and is dead-easy such that even MS
Windows with a poor internet connection can work at that level.   You
should be able to get to tens of milliseconds.

With effort the above software from ntp.org can run at the few micro
seconds level.  That should be within the means of any radio club but you
may not need it.   It would involve putting up a GPS antenna, running coax
to a GPS receiver.  Nothing a bunch of hams could not handle but you may
only need 30 to 50 millisecond accuracy and Windows can do using poll
servers on the Internet.

All that said,  You MAY already have a good NTP server running at your
site.  Many home routers run NTP inside and are left on and running 24x7.
The router uses ntp just to get the time of the log files correct and
likely does this bater then MS Windows.   If you have a local ntp server
then using just one server (the local one) is fine.



On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Dr. David Kirkby <drkirkby at gmail.com>
wrote:

> At my amateur radio club we have Internet access via a WiFi dongle with a
> Pay As You Go card. A Windows 10 PC is only powered up while we are there,
> so on around 2-4 hours per week.
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts on what might be the most suitable software
> to run on our Windows 10 PC to set the time correct?
>
> Someone installed "Dimension 4"
>
> http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/
>
> As far as I can see, this takes the time from one single NTP server, which
> I believe is not a good idea.  However,  given we only run the PC on 2-4
> hours per week,  maybe no ntp client will work well,  but I would have
> thought using multiple servers being better than one.
>
> I am wondering if anyone has any better suggestions for software. .
>
> Dave.
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-- 

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California