Time Standards

Customer story: NZ Police

NZ Police help to make our roads safer whether it’s through education, compliance, or enforcement of the traffic laws. As part of their enforcement efforts is a specialist group, Police Calibration Services (PCS)(external link), who are responsible for maintaining the calibration and certification of all speed, weighing, and distance measuring devices used by Police.

The connection between PCS and MSL has existed for more than 30 years. MSL’s role is to provide calibrations and references for all of the tools they use in their labs, “everything from frequency counters to tape measures,” says Bruce Behrent, Manager of Police Calibration Services.

“The relationship we have with MSL is about trust and traceability,” he says. “It gives us the confidence that the equipment being used for enforcement is accurate and reliable. And the benefits of that are ultimately passed onto the public – they rightly demand that those measurements be correct.”

Frequency meters

1 Hz to 40 GHz

0.001 Hz to 1 Hz (period)

Counters

1 Hz to 40 GHz

0.001 Hz to 1 Hz (period)

Time interval meters

10 ns to 86400 s

Clocks and watches

5 ns to 1 s

Frequency standards

100 kHz to 10 MHz

0.001 Hz to 1 Hz (period)

Time measurement

Time scale difference – Local clock vs UTC (MSL)

-1 s to 1 s

Time scale difference – Local clock vs UTC

-1 s to 1 s

Waveform Measurement

Frequency characteristics

1 Hz to 20 MHz

0.001 Hz to 1 Hz (period)

Waveform Measurement

Input characteristics

1 V and 3 V

(frequency, f = 1 MHz to   100 MHz)

Pulse risetime (T>5 ns)

(10 mV to 10 V)

0.005 µs to 1.00 x 10⁶ µs

Pulse amplitude (pulse length > 200 µs) (10 mV, 100 mV, 1 V, 10 V)

0 V to 10 V

Waveform Measurement

Timing characteristics

10 ns to 100 s

(time difference)