9.1.5.10 NTP Leap Second Handling
The time base for mostly all the world’s local time zones is called Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, which is
derived from a several atomic clocks which are distributed in different countries all over the world. The rotation
of the earth is not constant and varies over time, while the mean earth rotation speed is decreasing slowly.
This is the reason why so called leap seconds are inserted into the UTC time scale, which compensate the UTC
time with the real earth rotation. A leap second is always inserted at 23:59:59 (UTC), either on 31.12. or 30.06.
(Other dates are theoretically possible, but practically have not been used yet).
Some protocols or methods for transferring the time information, e.g. GPS, NTP, PTP, DCF77 and IRIG can
pre-announce leap seconds to give a receiver the opportunity to prepare for a leap second in advance. The GPS
satellite system distributes the leap second announcement six months before the leap second event. Meinberg
LANTIMEs with GPS receivers receive this announcement automatically via the GPS signal. In the log file of
the LANTIME, the entry "Leap Second Announced" is generated when the date of the leap second is received.
Other synchronization methods do not offer this announcement possibility, which can lead to a one second
time jump. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the NTP leap second file up-to-date on these systems, so that a
leap second is correctly inserted at the midnight (UTC).
In the menu "NTP Leap Second Handling", you can view the currently stored leap second file, you can manually
upload the file or configure an automatic download from the following source pages:
Available Download Sources for Leap Second Files:
1.
NIST Leap Second File:
ftp://time.nist.gov/pub/ (directory listing)
ftp://time.nist.gov/pub/leap-seconds.list (current leap second file)
2.
IERS (Earth Rotation and reference systems Service) Leap Second File:
https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/ (directory listing)
https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list (current leapseconds file)
3.
Meinberg Leap Second File (Copy of the IERS Leap Second File):
https://www.meinberg.de/download/ntp/leap-seconds.list
https://www.meinberg.de/download/ntp/leap_second
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Date: 2nd July 2020
LANTIME CPU Expansion Shelf