Centerclick NTP-220 finally arrived and in use

[Bas]

Hi all,

The Centerclick NTP-220 finally arrived after in the mail for 20 days, not they’re fault as I requested normal postage service because of poor delivery by private companies (they often don’t deliver at all!)

The device: CenterClick NTP Series GPS Based NTP Server Appliances

It’s very simple to setup, hook it up, wait a few minutes and go to it’s IP-address that is assinged by DHCP.

Login as ‘admin’ and the default password is printed on the box.

Or http to the IP-address and you nice overview of what it’s doing, and it’s really good too.

Don’t worry about the high jitter warning, the GPS has to be moved outside, not done yet.

It does have only a 100mbit-port, but that’s fine for me, my upload isn’t 30mbit max anyway.

The SSH-interface is quite simple…type ‘help’ and you have all the commands in front of you, no need to write them out every time.

NTP220> help
NTP220 documentation at https://centerclick.com
Console Commands:
help This Help
show config Show entire configuration
show info System Info
show acls ntp NTP Access Control
show acls ssh SSH Access Control
show acls http HTTP Access Control
show acls snmp SNMP Access Control
show ntp NTP Status
show ntp peers NTP Peers
show ntp stats NTP Statistics
show ntp clients NTP Clients
show ntp bcast NTP Broadcast/Multicast
show ntp backup NTP Backup Servers/Pools
show gnss GNSS Status
show network Network Status
show services Show Services
show localization Show Timezone, Units and Hostname
conf acls ntp Configure NTP Access Control
conf acls ssh Configure SSH Access Control
conf acls http Configure HTTP Access Control
conf acls snmp Configure SNMP Access Control
conf network Configure Network
conf services Configure Services
conf ntp bcast Configure NTP Broadcast/Multicast
conf ntp backup Configure NTP Backup Servers/Pools
conf localization Configure Timezone, Units, and Hostname
conf gnss Configure GNSS
stream nmea Show live GNSS NMEA data
stream json Show live GNSS JSON data
stream ntp Show live NTP packet data
ping [-4|-6] host Ping a host with ICMPs
traceroute [-4|-6] host Traceroute to a host
ntppool validate {-4|-6} Complete a NTP Pool validation
reboot [hard] Reboot
shutdown Shutdown
no conf Reset settings to defaults [reboots]
upgrade [URL] Upgrade software
exit Logout

Few minor things, it has client DNS resolving enabled by default, you probably want to turn that off.
And it has pool-servers added as backup by default, you really want to replace those with your own trusted peers.
Set your timezone, could be handy.

Haven’t done much configuring yet, let’s see how it goes. Nice and tiny little PPS timeserver.

Didn’t read the manual yet, as don’t know what ntppool validate is

Anyway, it’s a very cool box…I love it already.

[ccb056]

Any specs on the crystal?

XO, TCXO, OCXO?

[Bas]

TCXO according to the specs.

[ccb056]

Source? I couldn’t find any info

[Bas]

I’m pretty sure it has it, see how good it really is after running 24 hours:

Name/IP Address            NP  NR  Span  Frequency  Freq Skew  Offset  Std Dev
==============================================================================
PPS0                        7   5    25     -0.000      0.085     -0ns   236ns
GPS                        18  11   274     +5.487      4.028  -3047us   376us
145.238.80.80              10   6  155m     -0.008      0.021    -72us    34us
194.94.95.123               6   5   69m     +0.014      0.022    -54us    11us
139.143.5.30                9   6   69m     +0.007      0.027    +19us    19us
193.11.166.8               12   9  190m     -0.016      0.025   -568us    62us
193.190.230.106             9   5  137m     +0.056      0.074   -112us   120us
**185.142.225.68             13   7  206m     -0.002      0.082   +976us   244us**

Mine it the last.

other of my peers:

Name/IP Address            NP  NR  Span  Frequency  Freq Skew  Offset  Std Dev
==============================================================================
GPS                        64  38   504     -0.222      1.586   +242us   440us
PPS                         7   7    48     -0.023      0.074   -108ns   497ns
**heppen.be                  18  11   21m     -0.025      0.606  +1276us   292us**
time1.esa.int              53  31   63m     -0.154      0.088   -262us   216us
ptbtime1.ptb.de            20  13   24m     -0.122      0.130   -241us    68us
ntp0.rrze.uni-erlangen.de  53  27   72m     -0.156      0.043   -241us   109us

This time the third server.

It’s frequency is spot on.

If you want to see: server ntp1.heppen.be

[Bas]

Ok, there was a problem with it, the jitter warning.
Turned out the antenna was bad, it died this morning.

But still giving good time.

Luckily I had a spare, and it’s ok now, no jitter or anything anymore.
I did notice there was a big dip in the earth magnetic-field this morning, so it might have caused it.

Anyway, it’s back up and better then before.

[StrawberryMew]

Nice, congrats on getting it locked in! Glad the antenna swap sorted the jitter.

One thing first — heads up your Main page screenshot has your exact GPS fix visible (lat/long to ~7m, plus altitude), which is precise enough to locate the install. If you want to hide it, on my NTP270 (same CLI family) I toggle location display via SSH:

ssh -t admin@<device-ip>

conf services

location privacy

exit

(I’ve actually only run the reverse — no location privacy to reveal mine for a public status page — so if location privacy alone doesn’t hide it, try ? at the conf services prompt to see the exact toggle for your firmware. Also note -t matters — my NTP270 refuses non-interactive/scripted SSH sessions without a real TTY, likely true for the 220 too. Otherwise the quick fix is just cropping/blurring the Location row before posting screenshots.)

A few other thoughts, from running a NTP270 with a PPS refclock feeding a downstream chrony box (stratum 1, ~800ns std dev).

Sky view matters more than just “outdoor” — multipath off nearby obstructions (roofline, walls, trees) shows up as noisy offset/jitter even with a clear-ish view. Highest point with the widest unobstructed view of the sky you can manage is worth the extra effort if you can get it.

If you extended the antenna cable to get it outside, worth double-checking cable quality/gauge on that run — voltage drop or loss over a longer/thinner run to the 3.3V active antenna can quietly degrade signal before it ever shows up as a clean “no lock” problem.

Worth checking the GNSS constellation selection in the config — it supports GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou (not all combos at once), and enabling more than GPS-only generally helps fix quality and time-to-lock if your sky view isn’t perfect.

Your ntpq numbers (244us std dev) look decent for a GPS-disciplined stratum 1 source. If you ever want tighter sync downstream, both the 220 and 270 expose a PPS out on the 4-pin terminal block on the back — feeding that into a chrony refclock on a Linux box gets you sub-microsecond std dev. Way overkill for most uses, but there if you want it.

If you end up joining pool.ntp.org with it: keep an eye on your firewall/NAT path if you’re behind a router that doesn’t auto-generate the DNAT rule for the forwarded port. Score will silently degrade from timeouts even though the server itself is fine — the pool monitor history is the ground truth to check, not local ntpq/chrony output.

[Bas]

Your SSH-tip does nothing for me. I access ssh ip -l admin works fine.

I can put the antenna outside but Dave assured me the reception is very good.
Won’t matter for time if I put it outside, it receives enough sat’s to very accurate.

Maybe someday…who knows.

As for the location, I’m not worried about it.

And it’s in the pool, replacing the old one with the Garmin puck.

[Bas]

Latest work on it…

Link to spec’s etc… http://tijd.heppen.be

And it should show this:

Have a look, as this time-device is pretty good.

If the link doesn’t work, please tell me, have been fighting https and dns for a while