Time and Frequency Transfer Using SABCTV

Abstract

A brief review of the recent history of South African precise time-keeping is followed by a description of novel equipment recently developed by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (SA CSIR). This device, based upon the line scan frequency and 2T pulse transmissions of the SABC Television Service, enables time transfer within the service areas of a television transmitter to be performed to a precision better than ten nanoseconds, and consequently enables frequency comparisons to be made to a precision approaching 1 part in 10¹³ in 24 hours.