WWV vs. The Naval Observatory Clock -- Who's Right ?

[Petty System God]

There have been several programs posted recently to allow one to have
his system call the Naval Observatory clock and have the time set 
all without human intervention.  Having decided that this is a good 
idea I coerced some code into working only to discover that there
appears to be a discrepancy between the time reported by WWV and
that reported by the dial up number at the Naval Observatory.  The
difference is about 12 seconds which I consider significant since both
these guys are supposed to be time standards and should do better than
my Timex.  I noticed, after spending a couple of hours hacking code to
call the Naval Observatory and set the clock, that the time reported by
the Naval Observatory was not the time I expected.  I was expecting something
close to the drumming that WWV was producing in the corner but to my surprise
the Naval Observatory was reporting time about 12 seconds behind WWV.
To confirm the observation I called back the Naval Observatory with cu and
let it report while WWV was reporting over the shortwave -- sure enough when
WWV hit 124900 the Naval Observatory was reporting about 124848.

OK, I give up, who's right ?

----
Gilbert B. Andreen  -  bruce at petro.UUCP 
cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!petro!bruce