I just heard that the UTC time and the GPS time are about 15 seconds 
different.

I subscribe to the NewScientist magazine and in the 17 Dec 2011 
issue, p. 27 was a report One minute with Felicitas Arias, who is the 
director of the time department at the International Bureau of 
Weights and Measures in Paris. She was discussing how the UTC time is 
'adjusted' in 1-second intervals for a closer match to astronomical 
time while the clocks in the GPS satellites need a continuous time 
scale and do not use the 'adjusted' seconds and so the GPS and the 
UTC are slowly drifting apart!

If true, this could have major implications for the amateur stations 
that rely on a GPS receiver for the correct time. Maybe the receivers 
adjust the time before outputting it to us, I don't know.

Does anybody else know about this and if it is a problem to us?



I just heard that the UTC time and the GPS time are about 15 seconds
different. 


I subscribe to the NewScientist magazine and in the 17 Dec 2011
issue, p. 27 was a report One minute with Felicitas Arias, who is
the director of the time department at the International Bureau of
Weights and Measures in Paris. She was discussing how the UTC time is
'adjusted' in 1-second intervals for a closer match to astronomical time
while the clocks in the GPS satellites need a continuous time scale and
do not use the 'adjusted' seconds and so the GPS and the UTC are slowly
drifting apart!


If true, this could have major implications for the amateur stations that
rely on a GPS receiver for the correct time. Maybe the receivers adjust
the time before outputting it to us, I don't know.


Does anybody else know about this and if it is a problem to us?


George