A reference frequency is distributed through a packet-based network to remote elements in a system. Timing packets are periodically sent from a master timing element, to be received by at least one peripheral timing element. Echo messages are sent to the master timing element by each peripheral timing element after a unique delay, in response to the reception of a timing packet. Loopback delay measurements are included in each timing packet for each peripheral timing element. Each peripheral timing element locks a loop using only timing packets which incur a minimum loopback delay.