[BCVHFA] Long New Year's Eve

[K8CM]

 From the ARRL Letter, Vol 24, No. 50 .............

Leap second to be introduced as new year arrives.

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) 
has announced the introduction of a "time step" at the end of 
December to add a "leap second" as 2006 arrives. Leap seconds are 
needed to keep clocks in step with Earth's rotation, which varies by 
several thousandths of a second per day. Slowing down the clocks 
every year or two keeps them in sync. As 2005 transitions to 2006, 
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) will be retarded by 1.0 second. This 
essentially means that the last minute in 2005 will be 61 seconds 
long: December 31, 2005, 23:59:59; December 31, 2005, 23:59:60; 
January 1, 2006, 00:00:00. This a
adjustment will affect UTC and all time scales based on UTC.

Loran-C and GPS will not be adjusted physically, however. Times of 
Coincidence for LORAN-C are available on the Time Service Web Page. 
For GPS, the leap second correction, contained within the UTC data of 
the navigation message transmitted by satellites, will change. After 
the leap second GPS will be ahead of UTC by 14 seconds.


Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Carl  &  Wanda
K8CM    W8WLM