[time-nuts] Bicentennial GOES satellite clock

Scott McGrath scmcgrath at gmail.com
Sun Aug 12 14:29:41 UTC 2018


And with dependence on GPS we have created a serious vulnerability as too many critical pieces of infrastructure are dependent on a SINGLE precision timing and positioning system.

I can use a sextant and have a copy of Bowditch.    But they only work on clear days and nights.

if GPS goes down for any reason.   Whats the backup solution?


On Aug 10, 2018, at 2:25 PM, Lester Veenstra <m0ycm at veenstras.com> wrote:

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


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

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-----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



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