[LEAPSECS] h2g2

[Steve Allen]

At the open meeting of US SG7 last week the participants responded
that GPS time was a "pseudo time scale".  They indicated that
documents issued by an international regulatory agency trump any and
all other reality, so it is not their problem if any system has had or
may have problems from not implementing the regulation as written.

Sometime around 2008-09 the United States Department of State gave
approval for US WP7A to support the draft revision of ITU-R TF.460-6
which would abandon leap seconds in the international broadcast time
scale while retaining the name UTC.  In conjunction with the statement
issued from NASA, the ambiguous memo from DoD, and a lack of
objections from the AAS it seems as if the US delegates find that
due diligence has been satisfied.

My impression is that little short of a declaration from Hillary Clinton
will affect the position of the US delegation at the next ITU-R SG7 meeting.

On 2007-09-04/05 the BIPM contributed a document 7A/51-E for the ITU-R
WP7A meeting regarding Question ITU-R 236/7.  The final sentence of
the BIPM document reads:

    In the case of a redefinition of UTC without leap seconds, the
    CCTF would consider discussing the possibility of suppressing TAI,
    as it would remain parallel to the continuous UTC.

Nothing is safe from redefinition.

R.I.P. Douglas Adams

--
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