"Atomic" Clock question

[cockroachfarm]

I have a battery-operated "atomic" clock in every room of my house (the ones regulated by the radio signal from Boulder ,Colorado). A friend of mine in Germany would dearly love to have one for his office - he said he's never seen one before.

If I buy one for him, would it work in Germany? (IOW - is there a similar time signal transmitted in Germany that would regulate an "atomic" clock that was purchased in the U.S.?)

 

[Larry B.]

From what I understand atomic clocks will work anywhere.

 

[Gollnick]

The clock purchased in American will NOT work in Europe. The time signals are on a different frequency and us a different encoding scheme. In fact, the US ones don't work well in Alaska or Hawaii either. It's a ground-wave signal

But, there are similar time signals transmitted in Europe and clocks are available for use in Europe. Googling a source for one is left to the reader as an exercise.

 

[Illiya]

I have an atomic casio watch. It picks up the signal from Colorado fine in Chicago, but it did not pick up the Japanese time signal when I traveled in Japan.

 

[Grey Area]

I have a battery-operated "atomic" clock in every room of my house (the ones regulated by the radio signal from Boulder ,Colorado). A friend of mine in Germany would dearly love to have one for his office - he said he's never seen one before.

I have to say that I´m a bit surprised about your friend not knowing about these clocks. They were introduced here in Germany about 15 years ago, and nowadays even cheap watches from the supermarket incorporate the technology. Maybe he was confused by the "atomic" reference, which in German is only used for the clock that sends the signal, while the clocks and watches available for purchase are "radio clocks".(?)

Kristofer

 

[pcnorton]

Just how many times do you need to synch these watches? They're quartz.

I wouldn't mind a GPS updated watch, hell this wouldn't be bad:

paul

 

[Quiet Storm]

I have a battery-operated "atomic" clock in every room of my house (the ones regulated by the radio signal from Boulder ,Colorado). A friend of mine in Germany would dearly love to have one for his office - he said he's never seen one before.

Tell him to look for a "Funkuhr". They can be bought virtually everywhere in Germany, I'm surprised that he doesn't know this. Maybe he doesn't realize that these Funkuhren are "connected" to an atomic clock because the name doesn't imply that.

 

[cockroachfarm]

....I'm surprised that he doesn't know this.....

Overheard only last week at Sam's Club in Buffalo, NY: "Hey, Harry! Look at this - an atomic clock! What the heck is that?"

LOL! We sometimes have to remind ourselves (at least I do) that not everyone around us is a gadget freak! My friend in Hamburg is still marvelling at 2-megapixel digital cameras. I'll tell him to go look for a "Funkuhr" and he can buy his own!

Thanks!

 

[GarageBoy]

If that Casio uses the 1840 module like mine, it's a piece of crap. Mine won't lock on satellites a Magellean locked in less than a minute

 

[tortoise]

Just how many times do you need to synch these watches? They're quartz. paul

Ahhhh, that's a matter oft discussed on watch fora.

The "atomic" watches are no more accurate timekeepers than any other inexpensive (i.e. non-thermo regulated) quartz watch. Most are spec'd to run +/- 15 seconds a month. It's receiving the radio signal that lets them display a more exact time. This is why Kristofer rightly points out that they are more often called "radio" clocks or watches in Europe, where watchmaking is a time honored profession. The atomics don't advance the science of horology at all, they're just radio receivers.

Now, as to how often do you have to sync any quartz... that's of course a personal thing. Some people don't mind a few seconds off, or even a few minutes. Others want nuclear precision in a timepiece. For those it's sometimes a disappointment to learn that the atomic watches that seem to promise this are actually very average timekeepers if unable to receive their signal. The thermo regulated quartz movements from ETA, for example (what Breitling calls "Superquartz") are good for maybe 2 seconds a year which obviously blows away an atomic that's on a trip or facing the wrong direction.

This is a subject that drives me mad.

I love automatic watches: no batteries, as long as I'm alive, the watch is too; though they "require" maintenence, most really should function forever even if neglected; asthetics, like sweep second hands and the knowledge that it's a tiny engine spinning and whirring and clicking away inside the case. But, their accuracy is less than a quartz. We're talking fractions of a percent here: 99.997% vs. 99.999% say, but I admit that I must have a mental defect and really would like that last .002%.

Generally, I don't want it enough to trade battery dependence for it, but sometimes I am tempted.

 

[Gollnick]

I got one of these "radio" clocks when I decided that I wanted a wall clock with HUGE numbers for my bathroom so that I could read it without my contacts in. The one I found with the biggest digits happened to have this radio self-setting feature. It also tells you the indoor and outdoor temperature and the day and date. I've come to like all of that in a bathroom clock. It's very helpful as you get dressed in the morning.

It sets itself once every night. (The low-frequency radio band used for the time signals is very noisy during the day because of radio emissions from the sun. So, the cheap receiver it contains works best at night.) If it's unsuccessful, the "TIME LOCK" indicator on the display goes out and it continues on its internal oscillator and tried again the next night. I've had it for a year and a half or so now and I think I've seen it fail two or three times.

Recently, my 20+ year old alarm clock stopped working. I decided I wanted a clock radio this time so I could listen to the news in the morning. The one I liked just happened to have the self-setting radio feature built in too. Sp, now I have two.

The thing I like best about these is that they self-correct for daylight savings time.

The accuracy of these clocks is excellent. Let us assume that, unaided, they would be +/-15 Seconds/month, less than a half-second per day. But, once a day, they re-synchronize to the NIST. As a result, they're never off by more than a half-second. Neither displays seconds, much less fractions of a second. So, each one is completely accurate in what it does display. And yet I never have to touch either.

 

[severtecher]

Get Satellite Radio. I'll bet it has a clock on it accurate to 1 second at any given time.

 

[Gollnick]

The other one that's super accurate is the clock on your PCS or GSM cell phone. Each cell site has a GPS receiver to get time-of-day for billing purposes and to time hand-offs. That time (which comes from the Naval Observatory) is then transmitted to the mobile units as part of the protocol. Most phones then display it for the user. It's highly accurate time-of-day.