2012 Leap Second

The last minute of June 30th 2012 UTC will be 61 seconds long, the extra second being a "leap second".
Leap seconds are introduced to maintain synchronisation between atomic clocks and more traditional time scales such as Greenwich Mean Time. These leap seconds are introduced approximately every 18 months, at the end of June or December, usually to give the Earth's rotation a chance to catch up on our clocks. In Ireland and the UK the leap will take place close to 1am local time.

This leap second represents a chance to record the leap second by DXing an international time signal (e.g.
Rugby on 60kHz, Moscow on 4.996 MHz). As the future of leap seconds is under discussion at the ITU, this could be the last chance to have a QSO with a leap second!