[time-nuts] Loss of NIST transmitters at Colorado and Hawaii

Mon Aug 13 23:23:06 UTC 2018

Hi

One of the many reasons the world has GPSDO’s is to “smooth out” various sorts of GPS outages. Performance in holdover varies 
as does the “what’s in the box” part. As Time Nuts we tend to ignore the holdover features and just use GPSDO’s as running filters.
That’s reasonable, mainly because it’s been shown to work for several decades. 

Solar flares do not go on for days or weeks. They are relatively brief events compared to the 1 to 10 day holdover targets for most 
GPSDO’s. The satellites themselves (for various reasons) are quite happy to run all by themselves for weeks. I’m sure there’s some
“aw shucks” degradation in timing and navigation accuracy. How much it is …. who knows. What is known is that both timing and 
nav are “good enough” for practical applications. Bottom line - you have to have a *really* crazy event to even get a hiccup. To get
a full up failure this way …. it’s a mega event. 

At the levels required to really take out sat systems for a while, solar flares also interact with the power grid. Higher energy flares 
mean greater risk to the grid. Get into the mega region and big chunks of electrical distribution gear get fried. My guess is that once
you loose the power grid (and can’t get it back up), the issues of cell signals being wonky will be very small tick way down the list. 

Bob

> On Aug 13, 2018, at 11:15 AM, Scott McGrath <scmcgrath at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This has ‘empty suit’ written all over it ,’move it to the $BUZZWORD 
> 
> Yes the LORAN shutdown was more impactful from a time transfer PoV but the NIST transmitters provide a crude backup and valuable scientific data with a long baseline
> 
> In NH we’ve had an unusually severe summer WRT weather events I normally have FIOS based 1gb internet connection which has now been down for 6 weeks.   It might be restored this week because new poles have been installed.
> 
> So Wife still has TV only because I maintained our satellite/Terrestrial system in readiness.
> 
> As for internet well I’m still running on a couple of Cradlepoint LTE gateways with yagi’s pointing at nearest tower and available bandwidth ranges from 100kb to 5mb with wild swings.
> 
> Putting all ones technical eggs in one basket is a bad idea from an operational and technical point of view.
> 
> What happens if a solar storm makes civillian GPS unavailable,   Hmm. Cell networks start going down as the GPSDO’s start drifting,  Kerberos authenticators begin to fail as wide area networks depending on GPS derived timing begin to drift (servers have CHEAP oscillators).
> 
> The rush to GPS based network timing is not a good idea,   We should be adding more wide area frequency sources not taking them away.
> 
> The NIST transmitters are very useful in calculating propagation and some sites have decades of data on this so its worth having them around for purely scientific reasons even though the technology of time and frequency transfer have moved forward.
> 
> Content by Scott
> Typos by Siri
> 
> On Aug 12, 2018, at 9:55 PM, John C. Westmoreland, P.E. <john at westmorelandengineering.com> wrote:
> 
> I hope this does not happen.  I get questions from new Hams that ask, 'How
> can I check my antenna easily?' - the quick reply is to check for WWV on
> 2.5, 5,0, 10.0, 15.0 and 20.0 MHz.
> Also, from my days in the Merchant Marine until now, I for one will truly
> miss this service if it is discontinued, and this isn't the first time it
> has some up.
> 
> I also tell new Hams - if you can understand the message from WWV that
> gives out the number in Colorado - your antenna should be in pretty good
> shape for HF (and or VHF/UHF at least to verify
> it can receive ok).  At least it's an easy rule of thumb and an easy check
> for most.
> 
> 73's,
> John
> AJ6BC
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 6:46 PM, paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> What bits I have read do seem to indicate its NIST that wants to cut the
>> service. Since technology has moved beyond the services value which is kind
>> of true. Just think what they can get for the land the sites on.
>> Microsemi's comments were interesting in that in some manner there might be
>> a NTP based solution that could be far more accurate then what we typically
>> see today for NTP. But it also seemed to hint it would be a fee service. I
>> think thats very very early.
>> 
>> Regards
>> Paul
>> WB8TSL
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 8:37 PM, Wes <wes at triconet.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Comment in the link about visiting WWV reminds me of my experience.  Many
>>> years ago my late wife and I were roving around Colorado and I telephoned
>>> WWV and asked if I could get a tour. I mentioned that I was a ham, an EE,
>>> blah blah. This had worked before at other installations (not NAA
>> however)
>>> including the Apollo tracking station at Guaymas Mexico a day after a
>>> splashdown.
>>> 
>>> The fellow I talked to was somewhat taken aback and said that they didn't
>>> give tours.  I expressed some dismay and was about to hang up when he
>> said,
>>> "Actually, we have some contractors doing some work here and the gate is
>>> unlocked.  If you were to come in you could look at the antennas, but
>>> please stay in your car."  So we did.
>>> 
>>> Wes
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 8/12/2018 4:05 PM, Bill Hawkins wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Group,
>>>> 
>>>> This subject needs some additional detail.  I found an article with
>>>> comments at
>>>> 
>>>> https://swling.com/blog/2018/08/nist-fy2019-budget-includes-
>>>> request-to-shutdown-wwv-and-wwvh/
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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