[time-nuts] Bicentennial GOES satellite clock

[Lester Veenstra]

Used to work with Wayne on two time transfer via satellite
Great guy


Lester B Veenstra  K1YCM  MØYCM  W8YCM   6Y6Y
lester at veenstras.com

Physical and US Postal Addresses
5 Shrine Club Drive (Physical)
HC84 452 Stable Ln (RFD USPS Mail)
Keyser WV 26726
GPS: 39.336826 N  78.982287 W (Google)
GPS: 39.33682 N  78.9823741 W (GPSDO)


Telephones:
Home:                     +1-304-289-6057
US cell                    +1-304-790-9192 
Jamaica cell:           +1-876-456-8898 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at lists.febo.com] On Behalf Of Tom
Van Baak
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2018 10:19 AM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Bicentennial GOES satellite clock

Tim,

Thanks for posting that photo. That space age 1976 GOES clock caught our
eyes when the paper came out in 2005 (see also pages 11, 12, 13):

https://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/2013.pdf

There was quite a bit of traffic on time-nuts around 2005 when the GOES
satellite time service was turned off (and back on, and off, and on, and
finally off for good). That left many of us with piles of 468 MHz GOES
receivers, antennae, clocks and led to efforts to re-create the RF signals
in-home so that GOES clocks would still work. There was even a commercial
G2G (GPS to GOES) translator.

Anyway, I asked around about that one-off bicentennial clock in the photo
and neither the authors, NIST, or Smithsonian knows where it ended up.
There's tons of information on the GOES satellite system and GOES clocks in
the NIST T&F archives:

https://tf.nist.gov/general/publications.htm

Best to search title for GOES, or search author for Hanson. It's a
fascinating glimpse into the recent past. Yes, it's sad that GOES (and
Omega, and Loran-C) aren't operational anymore, but GPS does such a better
job. Plus we now have cable, WiFi, cell phones, the internet, Iridium, etc.

If you wanted to build your own Bicentennial GOES Clock, the design was
published, including source code -- for its i4004 (!!) CPU. If you have even
one minute to spare, see attached image and click on these two PDF's:

"Satellite Controlled Digital Clock System (patent)"
https://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/1791.pdf

"A Satellite-Controlled Digital Clock (NBS TN-681)"
https://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/452.pdf

/tvb


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Shoppa" <tshoppa at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
<time-nuts at lists.febo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2018 7:29 PM
Subject: [time-nuts] Bicentennial GOES satellite clock


> See the groovy picture at
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4847573/figure/f9-j110-2lom/
> 
> If anyone knows the whereabouts or history of the bicentennial GOES time
> clock display, please let me know!
> 
> Tim N3QE