The dreaded time change Featured

I'd blame either WWV reception problems or weak batteries for the problem with 2/3 of your "atomic" clock issues. That assumes that both of them have handled previous time change cycles correctly. If they didn't, I'd wonder about their firmware. I've got 3 "atomic" time keeping devices, 2 of which are about 20 years old. All 3 continue to deal flawlessly with the time changes despite my condo being in a steel girder building and in located in rooms with screens on all the windows. I'm located in the mid-Atlantic in an urban/suburban neighborhood with many nearby high rise buildings.

Could be but I have had problems with them before. I know sometimes when time changes I might need battery changes. They are old. The watch must be 20 years old and is solar charged. I keep it under the lamp near my computer and it is still running. I don't use it anymore. Also have three watches that can be a PITA to change so the hell with them. They will all be fine when we go back to DST.

Yeah, one of my old atomic devices is a Casio Wavecepter Tough Solar. The rechargeable battery doesn't hold nearly as much of a charge as when the watch was new even though the charge level still shows "hi". I too need to keep it well lit unless I'm wearing it. Otherwise, it unexpectedly goes into low power mode. Not convenient. Apparently from what I've seen on the web, it's very tricky to change the battery and not permanently screw up the watch. I priced the installation of a replacement battery it at a jeweler and it cost almost as much as a new Wavecepter Solar plus the jeweler said because of the danger, he wouldn't offer any guarantee. Sounds like a non-starter to me.

No kidding ! You'd think that Dumbold J. Trump would have solved this by now .. .. perhaps he's too busy with White House renovations - * * ding * ding * * * Warning * Warning * * * On Topic reference * * .. ... White House renovations in alt home repair ! .. Tsk Tsk what is this group coming to ? John T.

with the advent of GPS the "smart clocks" can now tell exactly where they are and what the local time is to the decimal fraction of a second - - -but they do need to be able to "see" the sky to set themselves.

Did you see the bathroom he did? Nice big window right by the toilet so you can look out at the peons when you take a dump.

I don't see any advantage of using GPS vs. radio signals to keep clocks and wrist watches properly set in almost all areas of the continental US, Japan, or western Europe where there are time calibration radio signal transmitters. No lay citizen needs to have their timepiece set with the accuracy of a fraction of one second. No unobstructed view of the sky is required with radio signal calibration. My "atomic" wrist watch and clocks are kept in locations that no view of the sky and they receive the radio signals despite screens on the windows, steel girder building construction, and my condo unit on a lower floor where surrounding buildings at all points of the compass are far higher. That feature makes radio signal calibration much more practical for the lay citizen, especially those who live in urban settings with many tall buildings that are likely to prevent a clear view of the sky. Where GPS comes into it's own is in locations where time calibration radio signals are not available, or for applications where maximal precision of timekeeping is essential. Ideally, the timepiece would include the ability to switch between radio signal reception and GPS reception at the discretion of the user. Bulkier and more expensive, but with essentially total planet capability for automatic, accurate time keeping.

Would it matter where the signal comes from? What if you live near the border of a time zone?

My GPS for navigation knows where I am within about 10 feet, the local radio station can be tuned for miles.

See:

Where I live in Europe, my radio clocks do not manage to sync every day, and they do so only during some nights. And if the battery is low, it may not sync in a month. Actually, sometimes is shows a time that is, for example, 4 hours 22 minutes off. A random amount off. I simply can not trust it.

So my clocks would have to be WiFi or GPS. Not because I need GPS precision, but in order to have any sync and automation.

My car radio has has RDS, which means my car can get the time automatically. It is useless, the stations have wrong time by hours and minutes.

I have a desktop RDS receiver. It says it is now 18:43, when it is actually 23:17. On one of the important national wide radio networks.

The shortwave radio time standards (like CHU in Canada) only broafcast "co-ordinated Universal Time" signals (which I believe are "Greenwich Mean Time) and are not location specific and do not handle daylight savings time. Local time and DST must be handled by programming in the recieving device - entered by the operator and not "portable" across time zones. GPS based time is fully portable and can determine if DST is applicable based on date and location - but would still require "updates" if DST was repealed in any geopolitical area.

I use a computer program called Atomtime to keep my computers synchronized . The cell auto-syncs , as does the landline . I haven't worn a watch in many years , my wife only wears one when we're out and about . The only times I care about are dinnertime and beer-thirty .

Yes, I can accept the clock in the radio having a different time zone. Easy to explain. But not when the minutes are 17 and it says 43. The minutes must match.

It obviously has not synced for a while - - - The last one I had had a terrible time connecting to CHU - and was TERRIBLE at actually KEEPING time. Within a couple minutes a day was doing good. Trashed it a LONG time ago. Not like my old Seiko "little running man" watch that was accurate to less than a minute a year - like WAY less. The original battery lasted over 3 years and it was never out a minute spring or fall - and when I left it in my drawer for 2 years it was virtually dead on whe n I took it out to use it.

The station has *never* synced.

That's the point, that the station is not synced at all. Not that my radio is wrong. My radio is "correct".

The guys that installed the station or the entire network never bothered, or the bosses did not paid for it, to have the clock in the RDS computer synced to some hardware to keep it accurate. So the station transmits a very wrong time. Which in a way is better than have a clock that "seems" correct. It is obvious that it is not adjusted at all.

And all the stations I tried in Spain transmit the wrong time.

Ok, the main network in Spain says now it is 12:41 hours, which is approximately correct. Today.

My Sangean desktop weather alert radio uses RDS to set time. Works perfectly, including changes from daylight saving to standard time and vice versa.

I haven't needed to buy a watch battery in about 20 years. My 2 watches and my wife's watch are all solar. We always leave them by a window when not being worn.

My windows PCs time setting is taken from the wifi signal my modem/router gets from our internet service provider. Same story for our cable TV set top boxes, our Roku set top box, and for the time displayed on our "smart TV". No No supplemental programs required for any of those devices.