[LEAPSECS] h2g2

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <7A21EAEC-BB0A-4966-A8DB-86B084DF0963 at batten.eu.org>
            Ian Batten <igb at batten.eu.org> writes:

: > do we

: > have enough of a community of |DUT1| < 1s to justify the costs to the

: > rest of the world, or is it time that this crowd shoulder the costs of

: > the raw data they need?

: 

: Of course, one issue is that it's not a matter of |DUT1|<1s, but

: having DUT1 at all.  The formats by which DUT1 is propagated in time

: signals deeply assume <1, so if it became >1 it couldn't be propagated

: in those signals.  Which means that any and all equipment that

: consumes it is instantly broken, as it can't recover UT1.  Even if the

: format could accommodate >1, of course, one assumes that almost all

: sane implementations would sanity check the value of DUT1 to confirm

: it's <1, so would reject the larger value anyway.

: 

: You could modify the format, but you'd have to do so in a way which

: didn't then break all the equipment that wants UTC but pokes around in

: the extra data to recover the date, or the summer time indicator, or

: whatever.  And it would involve replacing all the UT1 equipment

: anyway.

: 

: I don't know, and I suspect the ITU don't either, how much (if,

: indeed, there is any) equipment is currently consuming the DUT1

: portion of the national time standards, and why.


I think that this is why the leap second proposals say they won't
disseminate DUT1 anymore.  All they really mean by that, I think, is
that we'll measure it, we'll pubish it, but the time broadcasts will
reset it to '0' and users should note that it isn't available that way
anymore.

I lump all the gear that (a) needs to know about it and (b) does
something with it in the same boat.  There is a danger here, however
if the (b) is display it to the user who then doesn't know that
something is amiss and believes '0'.

Warner