The actual receiver status is mapped into various synchronization states generally used by receivers. The driver is configured to interpret the time codes of Meinberg DCF77 AM receivers, DCF77 FM receivers, Meinberg GPS16x/17x receivers, Trimble SV6 GPS, ELV DCF7000, Schmid, Wharton 400A and low cost receivers (see list below).
The reference clock support in NTP contains the necessary configuration tables for those receivers. In addition to supporting several different clock types and up to 4 devices, the processing of a PPS signal is also provided as a configuration option. The PPS configuration option uses the receiver-generated time stamps for feeding the PPS loopfilter control for much finer clock synchronization.
CAUTION: The PPS configuration option is different from the hardware PPS signal, which is also supported (see below), as it controls the way ntpd is synchronized to the reference clock, while the hardware PPS signal controls the way time offsets are determined.
The use of the PPS option requires receivers with an accuracy of better than 1ms.
The ntpq program can read and display several clock variables. These hold the following information:
If PPS information is present, additional variables are available:
Currently, nineteen clock types (devices /dev/refclock-0 - /dev/refclock-3) are supported by the PARSE driver.
A note on the implementations:
Verified implementations are:
These variants have been tested for correct decoding with my own homegrown receivers. Interfacing with specific commercial products may involve some fiddling with cables. In particular, commercial RAWDCF receivers have a seemingly unlimited number of ways to draw power from the RS-232 port and to encode the DCF77 datastream. You are mainly on your own here unless I have a sample of the receiver.
These implementations have been verified by the Meinberg people themselves and I have access to one of these clocks.
The pictures below have been taken from and are linked to the vendors' web pages.
Meinberg PZF5xx receiver family (FM demodulation/TCXO / 50μs)
Meinberg PZF5xx receiver family (FM demodulation/OCXO / 50μs)
Meinberg DCF C51 receiver and similar (AM demodulation / 4ms)
This mode expects the Meinberg standard time string format with 9600/7E2.
Note: mode 2 must also be used for Meinberg PCI cards under Linux, e.g. the GPS PCI card or the DCF77 PCI card. Please note the Meinberg Linux driver must be installed. That driver emulates a refclock device in order to allow ntpd to access those cards. For details, please refer to the README file that comes with the Meinberg driver package.
ELV DCF7000 (sloppy AM demodulation / 50ms)
Walter Schmid DCF receiver Kit (AM demodulation / 1ms)
RAW DCF77 100/200ms pulses (Conrad DCF77 receiver module / 5ms)
RAW DCF77 100/200ms pulses (TimeBrick DCF77 receiver module / 5ms)
Meinberg GPS16x/GPS17x receivers (GPS / <<1μs)
This mode expects either the University of Erlangen time string format or the Meinberg standard time string format at 19200/8N1.
The University of Erlangen format is preferred. Newer Meinberg GPS receivers can be configured to transmit that format; for older devices, a special firmware version may be available.
In this mode some additional GPS receiver status information is also read. However, this requires a point-to-point connection. Mode 18 should be used if the device is accessed by a multidrop connection.
Note: mode 7 must not be used with Meinberg PCI cards; use mode 2 instead.
Trimble SVeeSix GPS receiver TAIP protocol (GPS / <<1μs)
Trimble SVeeSix GPS receiver TSIP protocol (GPS / <<1μs) (no kernel support yet)
Radiocode Clocks Ltd RCC 8000 Intelligent Off-Air Master Clock support
Diem's Computime Radio Clock
RAWDCF receiver (DTR=high/RTS=low)
WHARTON 400A Series Clocks with a 404.2 Serial Interface
RAWDCF receiver (DTR=low/RTS=high)
VARITEXT Receiver (MSF)
Meinberg GPS16x/GPS17x receivers (GPS / <<1μs)
This mode works without additional data communication (version, GPS status etc.) and thus should be used with multidrop, heterogeneous multiclient operation.
Note: mode 18 must not be used with Meinberg PCI cards, use mode 2 instead.
Gude Analog- und Digitalsystem GmbH 'Expert mouseCLOCK USB v2.0'
RAWDCF receiver similar to mode 14, but operating @ 75 baud (DTR=high/RTS=low)
Driving the DCF clocks at 75 baud may help to get them to work with a bunch of common USB serial converters, that do 75 but cannot do 50 baud at all, e.g. those based on Prolific PL2303.
RAWDCF receiver similar to mode 16, but operating @ 75 baud (DTR=low/RTS=high)
See comment from mode 20 clock.
Actual data formats and setup requirements of the various clocks can be found in NTP PARSE clock data formats.
The reference clock support software carefully monitors the state transitions of the receiver. All state changes and exceptional events (such as loss of time code transmission) are logged via the syslog facility. Every hour a summary of the accumulated times for the clock states is listed via syslog.
PPS support is only available when the receiver is completely synchronized. The receiver is believed to deliver correct time for an additional period of time after losing synchronization, unless a disruption in time code transmission is detected (possible power loss). The trust period is dependent on the receiver oscillator and thus is a function of clock type.
Raw DCF77 pulses can be fed via a level converter to the RXD pin of an RS-232 serial port (pin 3 of a 25-pin connector or pin 2 of a 9-pin connector). The telegrams are decoded and used for synchronization. DCF77 AM receivers can be bought for as little as $25. The accuracy is dependent on the receiver and is somewhere between 2ms (expensive) and 10ms (cheap). Synchronization ceases when reception of the DCF77 signal deteriorates, since no backup oscillator is available as usually found in other reference clock receivers. So it is important to have a good place for the DCF77 antenna. During transmitter shutdowns you are out of luck unless you have other NTP servers with alternate time sources available.
In addition to the PPS loopfilter control, a true PPS hardware signal can be utilized via the PPSAPI interface. PPS pulses are usually fed via a level converter to the DCD pin of an RS-232 serial port (pin 8 of a 25-pin connector or pin 1 of a 9-pin connector). To select PPS support, the mode parameter is the mode value as above plus 128. If 128 is not added to the mode value, PPS will be detected to be available but will not be used.
For PPS to be used, add 128 to the mode parameter.
If the PPS signal is fed in from a device different from the device providing the serial communication (/dev/refclock-{0..3}), this device is configured as /dev/refclockpps-{0..3}. This allows the PPS information to be fed in e.g. via the parallel port (if supported by the underlying operation system) and the date/time telegrams to be handled via the serial port.
Clock state statistics are written hourly to the syslog service. Online information can be found by examining the clock variables via the ntpq cv
command.
Some devices have quite extensive additional information (GPS16x/GPS17x, Trimble). The driver reads out much of the internal GPS data
and makes it accessible via clock variables. To find out about additional variable names, query for the clock_var_list variable on
a specific clock association as shown below.
First let ntpq
display the table of associations:
ntpq> as ind assID status conf reach auth condition last_event cnt =========================================================== 1 19556 9154 yes yes none falsetick reachable 5 2 19557 9435 yes yes none candidat clock expt 3 3 19558 9714 yes yes none pps.peer reachable 1
Then switch to raw output. This may be required because of display limitations in ntpq/ntpd - so large lists need to be retrieved in several queries.
ntpq> raw Output set to raw
Use the cv command to read the list of clock variables of a selected association:
ntpq> cv 19557 clock_var_list
The long output of the command above looks similar to:
assID=19557 status=0x0000, clock_var_list="type,timecode,poll,noreply,badformat,baddata,fudgetime1, fudgetime2,stratum,refid,flags,device,clock_var_list,refclock_time,refclock_status, refclock_format,refclock_states,refclock_id,refclock_iomode,refclock_driver_version, meinberg_gps_status,gps_utc_correction,gps_message,meinberg_antenna_status,gps_tot_51, gps_tot_63,gps_t0a,gps_cfg[1],gps_health[1],gps_cfg[2],gps_health[2],gps_cfg[3], gps_health[3],gps_cfg[4],gps_health[4],gps_cfg[5]"
Then use the cv command again to list selected clock variables. The following command must be entered as a single line:
ntpq> cv 19557 refclock_status,refclock_format,refclock_states,refclock_id, refclock_iomode,refclock_driver_version,meinberg_gps_status,gps_utc_correction, gps_message,meinberg_antenna_status,gps_tot_51,gps_tot_63,gps_t0a,gps_cfg[1], gps_health[1],gps_cfg[2],gps_health[2],gps_cfg[3],gps_health[3],gps_cfg[4], gps_health[4],gps_cfg[5]
The output of the command above is wrapped around depending on the screen width and looks similar to:
status=0x0003, refclock_status="UTC DISPLAY; TIME CODE; PPS; POSITION; (LEAP INDICATION; PPS SIGNAL; POSITION)", refclock_format="Meinberg GPS Extended", refclock_states="*NOMINAL: 21:21:36 (99.99%); FAULT: 00:00:03 (0.00%); running time: 21:21:39", refclock_id="GPS", refclock_iomode="normal", refclock_driver_version="refclock_parse.c,v 4.77 2006/08/05 07:44:49 kardel RELEASE_20060805_A", meinberg_gps_status="[0x0000] <OK>", gps_utc_correction="current correction 14 sec, last correction on c7619a00.00000000 Sun, Jan 1 2006 0:00:00.000", gps_message="/PFU3SOP-4WG14EPU0V1KA", meinberg_antenna_status="RECONNECTED on 2006-07-18 08:13:20.0000000 (+0000) UTC CORR, LOCAL TIME, reconnect clockoffset +0.0000000 s, disconnect time 0000-00-00 00:00:00.0000000 (+0000) ", gps_tot_51="week 1400 + 3 days + 42300.0000000 sec", gps_tot_63="week 1400 + 3 days + 42294.0000000 sec", gps_t0a="week 1400 + 5 days + 71808.0000000 sec", gps_cfg[1]="[0x9] BLOCK II", gps_health[1]="[0x0] OK;SIGNAL OK", gps_cfg[2]="[0x0] BLOCK I", gps_health[2]="[0x3f] PARITY;MULTIPLE ERRS", gps_cfg[3]="[0x9] BLOCK II", gps_health[3]="[0x0] OK;SIGNAL OK", gps_cfg[4]="[0x9] BLOCK II", gps_health[6]="[0x0] OK;SIGNAL OK", gps_cfg[5]="[0x9] BLOCK II"
The parse clock mechanism deviates from the way other NTP reference clocks work. For a short description of how to build parse reference clocks, see making PARSE clocks.
Additional Information