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STATUS UPDATE: March 25, 2005
Termination of the distribution of the GOES NIST Time Code Service has been
extended to July 31, 2005, due to requests from some users who could NOT be
switched over to GPS by April 21, 2005.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT IF THE
EQUIPMENT USED BY NOAA FAILS, IT MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE TO REPAIR IT, BUT NOAA
WILL MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO KEEP IT RUNNING UNTIL THIS DATE.
TERMINATION OF GOES TIME CODE SERVICE
Since 1975 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
has rebroadcast the time code distributed by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) through our Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellites (GOES). During the thirty year period that has
followed, thousands of users from very diverse industries have used the
service. Some examples are power companies, transportation industries,
and meteorological systems. Neither NIST nor NOAA has a complete knowledge
of all of the users of this anonymous service.
NIST discontinued their involvement with the GOES Time Service on January 1,
2005 as previously announced, and the time code was
completely removed from the GOES broadcasts on that date. However, NOAA was
contacted by several facilities still using GOES time
code receivers, and at their request, restored a unmonitored, reduced-accuracy
time code to the GOES broadcasts on January 13, 2005.
This was done to provide these users with additional time to transition to
alternative timing systems. This reduced-accuracy time code
service was intended to be temporary, and NOAA now plans to permanently remove
the time code on April 21, 2005. If you are a user of this
service, please plan to upgrade your systems by April 21, 2005. If you have
difficulty meeting this deadline, or have any questions, please
email Kay Metcalf, GOES DCS Program Manager at kay.metcalf@noaa.gov. For informational
purposes, if you are still a user of this
service, please also send an email to notify us of this fact. Please put the
phrase “TIME CODE SERVICE” in the subject line of your email.
If you need assistance with transitioning from GOES to another timing system,
please contact Michael A. Lombardi,
at NIST, at telephone +1 303 492-3212. You may visit the NIST web site at <http://www.nist.gov>
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