Tests of the BIPM Portable Calibration Station - METODE: MEasurement of TOtal Delay

Abstract—The dominant part of the total uncertainty budget in the UTC time transfer is from the time transfer link calibration. To improve the calibration, the BIPM is developing a standard calibration procedure in which we use a portable calibration station. It is composed of a 10 MHz distributor, a PPS distributor and two GNSS geodetic systems each including a set of an independent receiver and an antenna. The station is integrated and pre-cabled. The visited laboratory should provide the 10 MHz signal and the 1 PPS signal with a known delay to the laboratory reference. The goal is to provide a link calibration with a 2 ns type B uncertainty for UTC time transfer. In this paper, we outline the first experiments carried out on the common-clock zero and short baselines at the BIPM.