Accurate Computer Timing Through GPS System

The global positioning system (GPS) is a combination of many number of orbiting satellites. The basic objective of this is to provide precise positioning information that is useful for the navigation purposes. To calculate the positioning it uses the accurate timing information and triangulation. The accurate timing system is also used for the computer network time synchronization purposes. The orbiting satellites have onboard atomic clock that provides highly precise time. The GPS timing information is used to get the network timing with the help of GPS NTP servers. There are different types of equipments that are needed to process GPS signals for time and frequency applications.

Time remains same world wide and does not vary with the time zones and hence is referred to Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). The time send by the GPS satellite is not affected by the time zones and hence it continuously transmits precise time information. The GPS time is not affected by the leap seconds and is ahead of UTC time. That’s reason for which you can adjust the GPS time to get the UTC time for the computer network time synchronization.

However, the GPS satellites broadcasts very weak low power radio signal with two frequencies, L1 and L2. The first frequency is intended as a civilian GPS band broadcast at a frequency of 1575.42. The later frequency L2 is intended to provide stronger signal transmission for the future. The signals can pass through glass, plastic and clouds and always move in a straight line though they can not pass through the metals and brickwork. That’s why it is imperative to place the antenna in a place where it can face the clear sky. There are some ideal locations for it such as on the roof top and if it is impractical to place it on the roof top then you can place it in the side of a building or near a window.

As the GPS system provides subscription free accurate timing resource, many computer networks use this as an accurate timing reference for computer synchronization. The GPS reference clocks are utilized by precise GPS NTP server as an external synchronization source. The accuracy by the GPS system is enough for the computer network timing applications. The time and positioning information by the GPS servers is according to the standard NMEA protocol and usually they are transmitted as sentences of character strings. This is how the GPS system is used to provide the accurate timing for the computer networks.

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