Hal, The words "insert a pulse" is what causes the confusion in conjunction with leap seconds. There is no extra or missing pulse; no double pulse, no early or delayed pulse.
The 1PPS output continues to give a pulse at a 1 Hz rate regardless if there is leap second or not. There is never any ambiguity with TAI or UTC with respect to the pulses themselves. The confusion with terminology arises from the fact that the implicit or explicit time-of-day string associated with a UTC time scale does its funny thing around a leap second. If there is a negative leap second the "23:59:59" label is missing. If there is a positive leap second the "23"59"60" is present. You'll also see some GPS receivers or timing systems use the unofficial trick of labeling "23:59:59" or "00:00:00" twice rather than using "23:59:60". No matter how it's done, it's just the label. The pulses still come once a second. Does that help clarify the situation? /tvb _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
