Quote:
Originally Posted by [1ponders]
3. selected ntp0.cs.mu.OZ.AU & ntp1.cs.muOZ.AU & tick.usno.navy.mil (which is what I normally sync my laptop clock to)
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tick.usno.navy.mil, being located across the Pacific, will get you a lot of "jitter" or instability within your time source, due to differences in routing between subsequent network packets. The Australian servers mentioned are technically stratum 1 (or rather, top level, highest authority) and use a GPS reference clock, as is my server at home. I've spoken to the person who originally was responsible for setting up and maintaining those servers, as we know each other from a separate pursuit, and he has suggested that they may be of some questionable stability at this time, due to being hand rolled and using aging hardware. It was suggested that one not become too reliant on the existence of those UM servers due to a number of reasons, these included.
The CSIRO operates a number of time servers around the country, but access to them is by private individual agreement as they have been abused in the past. There are also many servers in the NTP "pool" which provide public access, but most of them are just referencing the UM and CSIRO server time anyway. I would also be willing to open my server up for queries from the astronomical community, once I relocate my GPS antenna.
In the short term, I would recommend using one of the recently updated AU servers from this list:
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Serv...TwoTimeServers
Specifically, Brisbane area people would be well served by ntp.wfsltd.com.au and ntp.sjkwi.com.au
If you are on Internode, ntp.on.net is also available. It is generally sub-ms accuracy.
A number of the servers which I have tested against across Australia are of dubious time accuracy, being off by anywhere from 2 to 17 milliseconds. This includes many top level (Stratum 1) servers, which are supposed to be accurate to the microsecond level. We don't really have a good time infrastructure for public access, unfortunately.
Regards,
Eric