Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!tcp-ip From: tcp-ip@ucbvax.ARPA Newsgroups: fa.tcp-ip Subject: The night the clocks stopped (again) Message-ID: <8462@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Tue, 25-Jun-85 01:57:36 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8462 Posted: Tue Jun 25 01:57:36 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Jun-85 05:13:00 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 29 From: mills@dcn6.arpa Folks, A violent electrical storm wandered by our offices late this afternoon about 21Z and killed several traffic lights, an Ethernet board, two radio clocks and an unknown number of erroneous timestamps hiding all over the Internet. Our WWV secondary clock began ticking again after the static crashes died down several hours later about 02Z, but our old faithful WWVB primary clock didn't tick until late evening after 03Z. Even now the GOES tertiary clock in our next-door neighbor net remains unreachable (due dead Ethernet board). It was a bad day for clockwatching. Once again, my apologies to all our ICMP, UDP and TCP clockwatchers. Turns out the only UPS in our building runs the cypherlocks and security monitoring system. We are considering pilfering a few watts from it to run at least the primary WWVB radio reference. The irony of such a heist from such a source is too yummy to resist. Pun intentional. From the DCN-GATEWAY log it is apparent that a good clock service is moderately important to this community. However, our recent experience with primary-power disruptions suggests other sites may wish to share their clocks with the rest of us. All it takes is a WWV receiver (Heath GC-1000 - about $300), a dipole slung over the nearest tree (out of the near-field radio hash from the computers), a spare serial port and a cup of software. Season with UDP and serve on your nearest gateway. Dave -------