[time-nuts] PC Time Servers

[Eamonn Nugent]

Hiya!

My first contribution to the list, maybe I can be useful in my software dev ways.

Localhost is your computer. On all computers, the name “localhost” is used as the name to “loop back” (it’s actually called the loop-back address) to the same computer. So, when you query localhost, you’re querying yourself. As to the application that serves that data, it is likely either Windows time service, ntpd on Linux, or Faros itself.

38ms or latency is fairly typical for over-the-Internet routing. A rough way of telling the latency between two locations is to take the distance, divide it by the speed of light, and then multiply it by two because of all the hardware in between that switches the signals.

Hope this helped, feel free to email back if you have any more questions or I can answer further!

Thanks,
Eamonn

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 30, 2019, at 9:52 PM, Richard Mogford <rchrdm at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> I have not been on this list since 2016 and have some new time questions.
> 
> I am using a program called “Faros.”  It is for ham radio.  It controls a radio receiver and automatically checks 18 transmitting beacons around the world.  It displays the signal strength of each beacon.  This gives the radio operator some idea of whether they could contact someone in that area.
> 
> Faros depends on an accurate time source that has consistent delays.  I guess “delay” here means the time it takes for the time signal to get to the PC and Faros.
> 
> There is an editable list of time servers in the software.  There is also a test function that checks time source availability and delay.  The only one that has very low delays (e.g., 1 ms) is called “localhost.”  All the other servers have larger delays, such as 38 ms or more.
> 
> Can someone tell me what “localhost” is?
> 
> I have a simple GPS receiver (from Adafruit) connected to the PC that sends data to Lady Heather.  Is there a way I can use the data from the GPS in Faros?
> 
> Richard
> 
> 
> 
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