Re: [amsat-bb] July/Aug Amsat Journal Y2K article

[Roy Welch <rdwelch@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ron Dunbar asked:
>
> I just received the July/August issue of the AMSAT Journal yesterday and
> read all the Y2K (The Millenium Problem) material with great interest.  A
> related article on page 16, "A Common Date/Time Standard for Amateur Radio"
> was also a very timely piece, but this article contained two points which
> confused me:
>
> (1) On p-17, column 1, next to last paragraph:  "The ISO 8601 document also
> contains the correct definitions for Leap Years (2000 is, 1900 was not!)".
>
> - Is this correct?  The information I have indicates that just the
> *reverse* is true ... simplified, my information states that 'Leap Years
> are any year which is evenly divisible by 4 ...  EXCEPT when it is *also*
> evenly divisible by 400'.

Hi Ron,

For our purposes, any year evenly divisible by four is a leap year unless
it is a century year like 1900, 2000, 2100, etc.  However even the century
years are leap years if they are evenly divisible by 4 and also 400.  The
year 2000 is divisible by 4 and 400, so it is a leapyear.  There are other
further removed considerations, but they affect the years 3200, 4800, etc.
so we won't worry about them for a while.


-- 
73, Roy

Internet: w0sl@amsat.org
Home Page: http://home.swbell.net/rdwelch
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