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Three and a half years passed since a leap second was introduced in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), it will happen again in summer this year. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) announced the matter in its Bulletin C 43 from 5 January 2012. In UTC on the 30 June 2012 the time reading will be 23:59:59, 23:59:60 before the 1 July, 00:00:00 is reached. This will happen at the same instant all over the world. Because of the two hours time offset between UTC and Central European Summer Time (CEST), legal time in Germany in June / July, in CEST the leap second will be introduced at the end of the second hour of the new day. The photo demonstrates how the devices for generating the DCF77 signal are prepared for the event.
Tasks
In PTB’s wide spectrum of tasks, dissemination of legal time is one of the most important service tasks performed for the public. Whereas atomic clocks a priori furnish only time intervals of extremely precise duration, the realization and the dissemination of legal time require a comparison and combination of the signals of the different PTB clocks. Moreover, the second marks must be brought into a well-defined relation to the international time system. This purpose serve international time and frequency comparisons via GPS and telecommunication satellites. The finally obtained national reference time scale UTC(PTB) forms the basis of legal time which is thus realized in a cooperation between PTB working groups “Time Standards” (4.41) and “Transmission of Time” (4.42).
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Contact
| Head of Working Group | Dr. Andreas Bauch Phone: +49-531 592-4420 Fax: +49-531 592-4479 E-Mail: andreas.bauch@ptb.de | |
| Office | Martina Bäumler Phone: +49-531 592-4419 Fax: +49-531 592-4479 E-Mail: martina.baeumler@ptb.de | |
| Address | Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Arbeitsgruppe 4.42 Bundesallee 100 38116 Braunschweig Germany |
© Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, last update: 2012-01-18, Webmaster Abteilung 4
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