1. NTP Network Time Protocol What is NTP and to what extent is it currently useful for Video Occultation Observations? By Dave Gault Presented to 8 th Trans-Tasman Symposium on Occultations Monday, 21 st April 2014 Melbourne, Australia

2. What is NTP? Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data network. Source= Wiki

3. NOT the Windows Clock for Occultation Timing While the windows system clock uses NTP technology, it is only good for “every-day” use, like system file maintenance records. Not suitable for occultation work. Shown here is a 0.4442 second delay after a recent re-sync operation. UT supplied by IOTA-VTI.

4. For NTP to be accurate: It needs to cope with asymmetric speed and network latency. Network latency depends on network load This cheap and nasty speed test can be found at… http://www.auditmypc.com/broadband-speed-test.asp Network speed is asymmetric

5. BeeperSync Designed to synchronise a BeeperBox – OK for Visual Occultation Observations. Designed to synchronise it’s own clock using NTP and then to synchronise a BeeperBox using a parallel port. Does not attempt to synchronise the PC clock. Reports on timing accuracy; essential to gauge quality of NTP fix. Distant server versus local server

6. OccuRec and NTP

7. OccuRec and NTP testing Reference Time OCR’d IOTA-VTI display Red = Windows clock Green = OccuRec clock

8. Raspberry Pi + GPS with 1pps = Stratum 1 NTP Server?