[ntp:questions] times are not matching up

[none]

Hi,

I am trying to synchronize a network of linux machines that sits on a local 
lan. I have one bridge machine that has access to an external computer which 
has a GPS (I think) based NTP server running on it. If I run ntpdate by hand 
it always says it has an offset of a couple hundred microseconds. All the 
local machines sync using ntpd to the bridge machine. When I run ntpdate on 
them manually I see offsets of about 50 microseconds. Given the numbers 
above it would seem like all the clocks should be almost exactly the same 
but when I do a 'date' on the bridge machine and one of the local lan 
machines the time is always different by about 7-8 seconds. Am I 
misunderstanding something or doing something wrong here ? I would expect 
the date to come up with a second of each other if they are synced 
correctly...

thx

M