Cost effective time servers

Mel Beckman mel at beckman.org
Thu Jun 20 15:42:49 UTC 2019


Warren,

I like the cheap price of the LeoNTP. The only reason I prefer the Tm1000a is that it has an embedded web server, which lets me monitor the satellite constellation visibility. Otherwise, except for oven-controller time clocks, it seems obvious that the $2000+ GPS NTP servers are overpriced overkill :)

-mel via cell

> On Jun 20, 2019, at 8:31 AM, Warren Kumari <warren at kumari.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 11:00 AM Mel Beckman <mel at beckman.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I use the $300 GPS-based TM1000A from TimeMachinesCorp.com. Gets Stratum-1 time from GPS satellites and distributes it. Usually I relay this through a handful of local time servers to spread out the load, but it can handle hundreds of queries per minute, so it’s reasonable to use as a primary source even in moderate-sized data centers.
>> 
>> I’ve put in a ton of them, and in most installations I buy two for redundancy. The GPS antenna works from a window in most instances .
> 
> I recently fell down the high precision time rabbithole, and now have
> 3 GPS units (a Truetime, a Symmetricom S250 and a LeoNTP), 3 Cesuim
> Primary Reference sources (an FTS4060, and 2 PRS-50s), and an
> assortment rubidium units.
> 
> One of the "standard" solutions is one of the Microsemi (Symmetricom)
> SyncServer's, but these can be expensive -- I've been much happies
> with the LeoNTP (
> http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=272
> ) -- they are small, they are cheap, and they fast, they are "accurate
> enough", and they just work. I've got one on my desk, with a cheap
> (car) GPS antenna dangling out the window, and it syncs and runs
> happily. A friend of mine has stuffed one in an IP68 box and it's
> hanging happily on the side of a TV tower in the elements with no
> issues...
> 
> I get mine from airspy.us - $349 + antenna.
> 
> W
> 
> 
>> 
>> -mel beckman
>> 
>>> On Jun 20, 2019, at 7:53 AM, David Bass <davidbass570 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> What are folks using these days for smaller organizations, that need to dole out time from an internal source?
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
> idea in the first place.
> This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
> regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
> of pants.
>   ---maf


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