Old radio controlled clock

[Harry Bloomfield]

In the loft/come shack I spotted a radio controlled clock I had bought maybe a decade before - so I thought slap some batteries in and try it.

I think it was an Aldi/Lidl purchase, most likely Aldi....

It made several attempts to receive the time data, but consistently failed downstairs. On moving it to a better reception position upstairs, it again made several attempts, but must have got some reception, because several times it at least showed seconds in the display, then eventually got a full data set and displayed an 'S'. I'm wondering if it might be trying to receive the German time signal, hence the troubles syncing itself? MSF is usually easy to receive here.

There is no name on it, a reset hole in the rear, a very large LCD digit display, display the temperature C or F, the moons phase, day/month day. It has four buttons on the front - Set time, up, down and a C/F button. It can be wall hung or a fold out metal bracket allows it to stand on a desk.

It has a switch on the rear CET / UK. CET makes it one hour fast and 24 hour clock, UK makes it show UK time, but am/pm 12 hour. I think that lack of UK with 24 hour format was why it got forgotten.

I wonder if anyone might recognise it.

[Graham.]

Lidl and Aldi ones are always tuned to DCF77 in my experience.

[Chris Hogg]

When we've left the EU, will they still be allowed to receive the Frankfurt time signal? :-)

[Tim Streater]

Is that any use to anyone in the UK?

[Chris Hogg]

Presumably all those who have a Lidl or Aldi RC clock, such as me for example.

[Tim Streater]

But don't they then show Frankfurt time?

[Chris Hogg]

Apparently not. Mine's reading BST ATM, and a little 'S' comes up on the display to distinguish when it's showing BST from GMT. The change is automatic, with no input from me. I presume they're made and set up for the UK market. Frankfurt time is currently 1 hour ahead of BST.

But I do recall a thread some while ago, where someone had a clock from Aldidle that stubbornly refused to show UK time. The conclusion was that Aldidle had shipped the wrong batch to the UK.

Or maybe it was Zanzibar time!

[Brian Gaff]

Chuckle. I do hope so. However, I often have a laugh at the difference in time between radio controlled clock, DAB clock and the internet bassed one on the pc. Several seconds quite often. Who is right? I also have a phone which every so often moves an hour backwards for no apparent reason.

Brian

[Peter Parry]

The DAB clock display should be accurate as it uses a separate data stream. However, while some receivers show accurate time others appear to be out by a fixed amount which can be 5-10 seconds adrift.

The separate GMT audio hour "pips" are not accurate on DAB as the processing delay can be 2-8 seconds.

The radio controlled clock will synchronise with the time reference (DCF or MSF) once or twice a day, usually at midday/midnight plus or minus 1 hour. In between these times it relies upon its own internal clock but shouldn't be out by more than a fraction of a second.

PC internal clocks are (by timekeeping standards) very inaccurate. PC clock can drift by seconds a day. Modern versions of windows can synchronise with a time server but by default only do it once a week. (You can't easily alter this either) so can be out by 10's of seconds. Using the free Meinberg NNTP software

you can alter the synchronisation interval to any time.

Time shown on any GPS device will usually be accurate.

So who is right comes down to GPS - always, Radio Controlled clock - usually to within less than a second, DAB - display - may gave fixed error, audio time signals always several seconds out.

PC with standard synchronisation, very poor. With Meinberg NNTP and very short re-synch interval - pretty accurate.

[Peter Parry]

Forgot to say you can check your Mac/PC clock against a time server by going to Time.is (no www or anything else - just Time.is in a browser address bar).

[MKF]

You can actually.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Central European time isn't much use in the UK. Lidl did once sell a clock set to that which couldn't be adjusted to BST, etc, though. But only once that I know of.

[Bob Eager]

I think you mean NTP, not NNTP!

Yes, I use the Meinberg stuff and have for a long time. I run my own stratum 3 NTP servers anyway.

[charles]

I bought one from Lidl which could be adjusted and our Village Hall has a clock using a DCF receiver for the correct time. It's going to be fun if we move our summer time dates away from the EU ones ;-)

[Harry Bloomfield]

Chris Hogg a écrit :

Perhaps the S on mine means BST then, rather than the in Sync which I assumed.

MSF sends GMT, but an extra bit indicates whether it is currently GMT or BST.

I have not explored the German data, but no reason why it would be any different and from that the clock can work out the correct UK offset.

I thought that maybe the CET/UK switch on the rear, might switch it from MSF to Frankfurt reception. It obviously doesn't, because the displayed time changes instantly rather than taking a while to grab fresh data.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Brian Gaff a écrit :

My (RC) watch, RC clocks, phone and computers time are always in sync, unless they have failed to for some reason to sync for several days.

Your PC does need to be running, when it decides it ought to grab fresh data from a time server - the default is once per day, but you can adjust that to as frequent as 10minutes or so with a little utility.

Your PC runs tests to determine the network delays to the time server, then works out how to offset to get an accurate time.

Your phone may need a setting to be made, to allow it it sync via the cell network.

Between resyncs, they all rely upon a crystal controlled timebase to keep the clock accurate, though some can be of quite poor accuracy.

[Peter Parry]

Indeed, I blame the cat on the keyboard.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Any digitally based transmission system has latency. Each time the signal is processed it is delayed - even slightly. DAB is a particularly bad offender - perhaps through using early technology.

A radio controlled clock should be pretty accurate at the time of synchronisation. If the server is. I'd say.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Brian Gaff escribió:

I'd say the radio clock is going to be the most accurate one.

Your phone is getting its time from the network operator. The phone has changed cells to one owned by an operator which is sending the incorrect time. I see this a lot in Spain, and it's a pain in the arse as you can't rely on your phone to be telling you the right time.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , MKF escribió:

[crapectomy]

Fuck off, Rod.