The Naval Observatory clock is alive, well, and kicking in Washington D.C. As for the question regarding delay from the atomic clock to your PC, yes, there is a delay. There would be a delay if you were connected to the clock via a LAN and sitting 10 feet away. However, unless you are running a time dependent system that needs accuracy measured in 1 nanosecond increments, then the delay is negligable.

Tom, thanks for your reply. If I understand correctly, then, it is my request for a time signal that is delayed a second or two by the routing to USNO and that their computer response takes only nano seconds to return to me- effectively being the correct time at the moment it displays on my screen?My gosh, what Samuel Morse hath wrought!!Now if only I could compare USNO with the BBC World TV time signal each hour- from Greenwich, I presume?Alex Reid(I was brought up in the era when it was a sin to be late for school- if I recall correctly, there was capital punishment for boys who were late for the bell!)

For those who may be interested in such esoteric matters, the time displayed by USNO on my computer screen appears to be identical to that of BBC World TV. I wonder what the latency time is between Retina and Brain? Perhaps I've missed a few nano seconds.Alex Reid

there was capital punishment for boys who were late for the bell!

:( Good grief. How old are you???I'm nearing my half century and even my old public school only had corporal punishment.D

Bit off-topic, perhaps, but I've noticed that the forum's CSS and JS are sent with no-cache headers (i.e., they're redownloaded every time you open a new page), slowing the user experience, and it's a huge bandwidth waste.

:( Good grief. How old are you???I'm nearing my half century and even my old public school only had corporal punishment.D

Let's say I'm at the age where every morning is, by definition, a Good Morning. Your school must have been a small one- mine had "sergeant major" punishment for lateness!Alex Reid