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Date:      Thu, 16 Dec 1999 21:45:57 +0100
From:      Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
To:        nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams)
Cc:        mjacob@feral.com, Ollivier Robert <roberto@eurocontrol.fr>, "FreeBSD Current Users' list" <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: HEADSUP: ntp4 to replace xntpd 
Message-ID:  <17662.945377157@critter.freebsd.dk>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 16 Dec 1999 11:10:45 MST." <199912161810.LAA19919@mt.sri.com> 

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In message <199912161810.LAA19919@mt.sri.com>, Nate Williams writes:
>> Between the two of us Dave Mills and I have managed to get the
>> "nanokernel" to act sensibly in the domain inside +/- 1usec which
>> the old one didn't.  (See http://gps.freebsd.dk for what kind of
>> performance this can result in, given appropriate hardware).
>
>You may not know the answer to this, but it's worth a shot.  Wht kind of
>accuracy can we expect using 'cheap' off-the-shelf GPS receivers?

I think there are several classes of GPS receivers:

"What is a PPS signal ?"

	Typically handheld/boat naviation stuff.  The NMEA or other
	serial timecodes are at best in the 1msec class.

"VP Marketing to VP engineering:  Everybody else has a PPS signal
make sure our product has one too at no extra cost or schedule changes."

	You don't want to know.  As bad as 1msec have been seen,
	jitter as bad as 200nsec.

"Straight PPS"

	Derived from the internal clock, typically in the "a few usec"
	class.

"Position hold PPS"

	State of the art 1 band GPS does a stddev of about 35nsec.  The
	Motorola Oncore UT+ is considered the leader of the pack I think,
	other vendors have similar devices.

"Postion hold PPS + OCXO"

	OEM products doing basically what the HP 58503A does.
	We're into cesium like (or better!) quality here.

I have *not* heard some rumours about carrier phase tracking low cost
receivers, and I was *not* told that they can practically uwiggle
the S/A when in position hold mode and I was *not* told to expect them
on the market in 1H2000 :-)

--
Poul-Henning Kamp             FreeBSD coreteam member
phk@FreeBSD.ORG               "Real hackers run -current on their laptop."
FreeBSD -- It will take a long time before progress goes too far!


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