The ultraAtomic clock for home
I was in a walmart the other day and noticed that there were numbers of
atomic clocks. Thought the fad had died off due to lots of reasons.
I was curious did those magical supa-dupa atomic clocks that screwed the
old phase tracking receivers ever arrive? Son of a gun they did. I must
have missed the 6 pm news story on this technology. Pretty sure we all did.
Anyhow humor aside at least one clock from La Crosse does exist.
404-1235ua for $79. Seems steep but then again these clocks do use the
phase code and do not care about the orientation. They have 2 antennas at
90 degrees and they select the best signal.
I suspect if there is one of these some other vendors and even perhaps La
Crosse may have other models at a lower cost. Will not comment on the
technical quality of these products.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL
Hi
Based on their web site, the model you saw is the one and only version that
does the new modulation. One very useful feature is the ability to set it to
any time zone world wide. I guess I missed the note on the WWVB coverage
area expanding to cover the entire planet …..:)
Bob
On Apr 4, 2017, at 4:54 PM, paul swed paulswedb@gmail.com wrote:
I was in a walmart the other day and noticed that there were numbers of
atomic clocks. Thought the fad had died off due to lots of reasons.
I was curious did those magical supa-dupa atomic clocks that screwed the
old phase tracking receivers ever arrive? Son of a gun they did. I must
have missed the 6 pm news story on this technology. Pretty sure we all did.
Anyhow humor aside at least one clock from La Crosse does exist.
404-1235ua for $79. Seems steep but then again these clocks do use the
phase code and do not care about the orientation. They have 2 antennas at
90 degrees and they select the best signal.
I suspect if there is one of these some other vendors and even perhaps La
Crosse may have other models at a lower cost. Will not comment on the
technical quality of these products.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL
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, paul swed writes:
I suspect if there is one of these some other vendors and even perhaps La
Crosse may have other models at a lower cost. Will not comment on the
technical quality of these products.
They're probably based around one of C-max chips:
http://www.c-max-time.com/products/showProduct.php?id=17
(This is the old Temic technology that has wandered all over the place...)
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
On 4/4/2017 3:19 PM, Bob kb8tq wrote:
Hi
Based on their web site, the model you saw is the one and only version that
does the new modulation. One very useful feature is the ability to set it to
any time zone world wide. I guess I missed the note on the WWVB coverage
area expanding to cover the entire planet …..:)
Bob
This feature is mainly so you can set the time zone for GMT/UTC.
Hopefully, there is a way to turn off daylight savings time as well.
Many previous atomic clocks covered only the time zones near Boulder
and could not display UTC.
Rick N6RK
I have been happy with the Casio Waveceptor watches. They can display UTC.
They seem to reliably set themselves between midnight and 3AM each morning
when I'm wearing them here in Maryland, more reliably than the (non-PSK)
WWVB wall clocks.
The Casio WV58A-1AVCR is a plastic LCD watch for $28 that lasts a couple
years. The face scuffs easily and the band only lasts a little more than a
year before needing replacement.
I upgraded to the Metal-body-metal-band Casio WVA-M640D-1ACR almost a year
ago and am very happy. Analog display for local time, and the LCD display
can show UTC. About $90.
Tim N3QE
Really can't say that its c-max or not. Since if you try to download
anything from the sight the links are dead. But I do believe its the true
wwvb bpsk decoder. If it is the cme 8000 that chip works impressively well
even in New England.
But this is the first time I have stumbled across anything that used it if
I am guessing correctly. Heck I seem to remember it was supposed to be out
some 2-3 years ago around Christmas.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 9:04 PM, Tim Shoppa tshoppa@gmail.com wrote:
I have been happy with the Casio Waveceptor watches. They can display UTC.
They seem to reliably set themselves between midnight and 3AM each morning
when I'm wearing them here in Maryland, more reliably than the (non-PSK)
WWVB wall clocks.
The Casio WV58A-1AVCR is a plastic LCD watch for $28 that lasts a couple
years. The face scuffs easily and the band only lasts a little more than a
year before needing replacement.
I upgraded to the Metal-body-metal-band Casio WVA-M640D-1ACR almost a year
ago and am very happy. Analog display for local time, and the LCD display
can show UTC. About $90.
Tim N3QE
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Paul, et al,
The La Crosse 1235UA does indeed receive the new WWVB PSK format. It was first brought to our attention by Brooke Clarke some months ago:
https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2016-November/101885.html
Prices vary from affordable to lets-see-how-much-we-can-charge, depending on the month and source. I bought a couple to measure and tear apart.
As advertised and predicted they set themselves within minutes, at all times of day, even under adverse reception conditions. Those of you new to the "enhanced" (and mostly backwards-compatible) WWVB format can look at hundreds of postings in the time-nuts archives in the past 5 years (google for site:febo.com wwvb psk) where we discussed this topic.
The La Crosse movement is made by U.T.S. -- the same German OEM (www.u-t-s.de/) that makes the guts of lots of MSF / DCF77 / WWVB / JJY wall clocks. This new WWVB-PSK version is quite a bit more complex than the traditional WWVB-AM version. Two orthogonal antenna tilted at 45 degrees is one clue; a few more CoB (chip on board) is another. It has two steppers; one for hours/minutes and one for seconds. Also the usual optical feedback sensor for alignment of gears & hands. It uses one or two C-cells and also has an "ECO-mode" switch. Given that most WWVB receivers use AA or AAA or even tiny watch-batteries, the need for two large C-cells and an optional ECO mode suggests maybe there's a power issue.
User manual: http://www.lacrossetechnology.com/media/catalog/product/4/0/404-1235ua-ss_1.pdf
I'll upload the tear down photos to: http://leapsecond.com/pages/ultratomic/
Note also these WWVB/PSK clocks are among the first WWVB clocks I have that handle a positive leap second correctly. During the most recent leap second (2016-12-31) they paused at :59 for an extra second. See the IMG_3126 video in the above directory. The audio track is a Heathkit WWV s/w receiver.
/tvb
HI
UTC I understand. I’ve used that feature on “atomic” clocks in the past.
I’m still a bit unclear on how many people will set up a wall of clocks running
on a dozen or so time zones. Obviously the people making clocks are
very much in favor of doing that :)
Bob
On Apr 4, 2017, at 7:56 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist richard@karlquist.com wrote:
On 4/4/2017 3:19 PM, Bob kb8tq wrote:
Hi
Based on their web site, the model you saw is the one and only version that
does the new modulation. One very useful feature is the ability to set it to
any time zone world wide. I guess I missed the note on the WWVB coverage
area expanding to cover the entire planet …..:)
Bob
This feature is mainly so you can set the time zone for GMT/UTC.
Hopefully, there is a way to turn off daylight savings time as well.
Many previous atomic clocks covered only the time zones near Boulder
and could not display UTC.
Rick N6RK
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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and follow the instructions there.
On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 7:30 AM, Bob kb8tq kb8tq@n1k.org wrote:
I’m still a bit unclear on how many people will set up a wall of clocks
running
on a dozen or so time zones. Obviously the people making clocks are
very much in favor of doing that
It's probably for flashy newsrooms, where they like to have clocks with the
time in London, Moscow, Tokyo, etc. It's nice to have all the second hands
jumping simultaneously!
The challenge there is to keep the clocks correct for summer time, which
changes on different dates in Europe and of course in the other direction
in the Southern Hemisphere.
--
--Jim Harman
Will say that is pretty interesting that it takes either 2 or 4 c cells. It
appears they parallel the C cells for more time. In eco mode 2 batteries 3
years or 4 batteries 6 years. Run time will vary depending on the batteries
leaking in 3.5 years. At least it seems that way today. (Not to trigger a
left turn in the discussion)
All in all looks like a nice arrangement.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL
On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 7:30 AM, Bob kb8tq kb8tq@n1k.org wrote:
HI
UTC I understand. I’ve used that feature on “atomic” clocks in the past.
I’m still a bit unclear on how many people will set up a wall of clocks
running
on a dozen or so time zones. Obviously the people making clocks are
very much in favor of doing that :)
Bob
On Apr 4, 2017, at 7:56 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <
richard@karlquist.com> wrote:
On 4/4/2017 3:19 PM, Bob kb8tq wrote:
Hi
Based on their web site, the model you saw is the one and only version
that
does the new modulation. One very useful feature is the ability to set
it to
any time zone world wide. I guess I missed the note on the WWVB coverage
area expanding to cover the entire planet …..:)
Bob
This feature is mainly so you can set the time zone for GMT/UTC.
Hopefully, there is a way to turn off daylight savings time as well.
Many previous atomic clocks covered only the time zones near Boulder
and could not display UTC.
Rick N6RK
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mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
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time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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