Abstract We present an analysis of the timing observations on 27 radio pulsars, collected at Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), with time spans ranging between ~ 9 and 14 yr. Our results show that the measured pulsar frequency second derivatives are non-stationary. Both the magnitude and the sign of the values depend upon the choice of epoch and data span. A simple statistical analysis of the observed second time derivative of the pulse frequency (obs) of a large sample of 391 (25 HartRAO and 366 Jodrell Bank Observatory) pulsars reveals that is only marginally correlated with both the pulsar spin-down rate () and the characteristic age (τc). We find correlation coefficients of ~ 0.20 and -0.30 between the measured braking indices and, respectively, and τc. This result reaffirms earlier conclusions that the braking indices of most radio pulsars, obtained through the standard timing technique, are strongly dominated by sustained random fluctuations in the observed pulse phase.
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