[LEAPSECS] ITU-R SG7 to consider UTC on October 4

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <4C5AFAE9.4080507 at comcast.net>
            ashtongj <ashtongj at comcast.net> writes:

: I observe that the [U.S.] International Telecommunications Advisory

: Committee is part of the U.S. State department. The part of that

: committee discussed below is known in full as International

: Telecommunications Advisory Committee, Radiocommunications sector,

: Study Group 7: Science services, Working Party 7A (ITAC-R Study Group

: 7 WP 7A)

: 

: (Source: http://www.state.gov/e/eeb/adcom/itac/index.htm and

: https://www.ussg7.org/default.aspx)

: 

: I would speculate that the members of Congress who authorized the

: change change in basis of U.S. time from mean solar time to UTC

: presumed that it was a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo that could not

: perceived by ordinary voters. If the leap second is dropped, the

: change will become perceptible to ordinary voters, especially when

: there are several seconds difference in the seconds field of legal

: time in the U.S. compared to some other countries. When enough

: information about the position of the U.S. WP 7A becomes available, it

: might be appropriate to bring to the attention of members of Congress

: that an obscure portion of a State Department committee is trying to

: change the meaning of the language in legislation in a way that will

: be perceptible to voters.


It will take a decade or two before the difference between the
US-without-leap-seconds-UTC and other countries mean-solar-time delta
to accumulate enough for people to complain enough that people start
to notice, and another decade after that to fix (the fix may be for
those other countries to conform to the UTC rather than
mean-solar-time standard).  That's longer than the average term of
congress-critters, and if the other countries fix it, not even of
interest to the real old-timers in congress...

I mean, the issue of abolishing leap seconds has been proposed and
seriously talked about now for about at least a decade, and any
implementation of it is at least 5-10 years away.

Maybe I'm just too cynical...

Warner



: Gerry Ashton

: 

: On 2010-08-04 1:30 PM, Steve Allen wrote:

: > According to the ITU-R the next meeting of SG7 will happen in Geneva

: > on

: > 2010-10-04 and 2010-10-12.

: >

: > According to the US ITAC-R the issue of leap seconds in UTC

: > will be considered by ITU-R SG7.

: >

: > The summary from V.  Timofeev explains that last year ITU-R WP7A

: > decided that they could not reach consensus and that they had

: > addressed all the technical issues, so they advanced the proposed

: > revision of Rec 460 to SG7.  In the absence of approval from WP7A, SG7

: > could not approve, nor send it back to WP7A, so the draft has waited.

: >

: > Timofeev has released a questionnaire to the delegations along with

: > instructions that SG7 should only consider technical issues.

: > Technical issues would mean the draft is to return to WP7A.

: > Other-then-technical issues are to be referred to the

: > Radiocommunication Assembly.

: >

: > The 4 (technical) questions are

: >

: >      Do you support maintaining the current arrangement of linking UT1

: >      and UTC (to provide a celestial time reference)?

: >

: >      Do you have any technical difficulty in introducing leap second

: >      today?

: >

: >      Would you support the revision of Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6?

: >

: >      If it is agreed to eliminate leap second within 5 years after

: >      approval of the revision of Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6, would

: >      that create technical difficulties for your administration?

: >

: > The US draft answers from USWP7A Chairman Wayne Hanson are

: >

: >      no

: >      yes

: >      yes

: >      no

: >

: > The US SG7 will have a telecon on 2010-08-16.

: >

: > I expect that some of this content should appear at

: > https://www.ussg7.org/default.aspx

: > Other international delegations are presumably engaged in similar

: > review processes.

: >

: > --

: > Steve Allen<sla at ucolick.org>                 WGS-84 (GPS)

: > UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855

: > University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015

: > Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m

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