[Back In The Saddle]

I have been thinking along the same lines. If PTS were erroneously picking up a whistle, it would stop the clock. You'd see very lengthy pauses as the clock remains stopped until somebody notices and restarts it.

Also, my understanding of PTS is that the switch on the belt pack only starts the clock. It will not stop it. So it shouldn't be anything like a nervous rookie fiddling with the switch.

Since the belt pack is capable of sending both the start and stop signal, it could still be something going on inside a belt pack that's starting to go south after a few years of being jogged around so much. But it would be remarkable indeed for it be sending a stop then start every time.

Could be in the PTS receiver. Could be in the clock itself. Could be in the timer's controller.

Could be the home school timer.

It could also be the case that all these timing issues we're suddenly seeing are merely a result of being aware of the issue and looking to find them where we never did before. Perhaps they are happening way more often than we think, but we have just never looked to see if the clock "lost" a second somewhere in the first half.