Time and Frequency Transfer

Time and frequency transfer describes mechanisms for comparing measurements of time and frequency from one location to another. The technique is commonly used for creating and distributing standard time scales such as International Atomic Time (TAI).

Examples of time and frequency transfer techniques include:

  • Simultaneous observation methods:
    • Simultaneous carrier phase observation of GPS signals
    • Time transfer by simultaneous observation of TV transmissions
    • Time transfer by simultaneous observation of radio astronomy signals
  • Two-way transfer methods:
    • Two-way satellite time and frequency transfer
  • Network methods:
    • Network Time Protocol
    • Precision Time Protocol

Famous quotes containing the words time and, time, frequency and/or transfer:

    The daily arguments over putting away the toys or practicing the piano defeat us so easily. We see them coming yet they frustrate us time and time again. In many cases, we are mothers and fathers who have managed budgets and unruly bosses and done difficult jobs well through sheer tenacity and dogged preparation. So why are we unable to persuade someone three feet tall to step into six inches of water at bathtime?
    Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)

    when this life is from the body fled,
    To see it selfe in that eternall Glasse,
    Where time doth end, and thoughts accuse the dead,
    Where all to come, is one with all that was;
    Then living men aske how he left his breath,
    That while he lived never thought of death.
    Fulke Greville (1554–1628)

    One is apt to be discouraged by the frequency with which Mr. Hardy has persuaded himself that a macabre subject is a poem in itself; that, if there be enough of death and the tomb in one’s theme, it needs no translation into art, the bold statement of it being sufficient.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)

    I have proceeded ... to prevent the lapse from ... the point of blending between wakefulness and sleep.... Not ... that I can render the point more than a point—but that I can startle myself ... into wakefulness—and thus transfer the point ... into the realm of Memory—convey its impressions,... to a situation where ... I can survey them with the eye of analysis.
    Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)