my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » Radio Controlled Clocks (UK)

Author Topic: Radio Controlled Clocks (UK) Michael Brown Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1522 From: Bradford, England Registered: May 2001 posted 04-10-2003 02:01 PM                     I have a Radio Controlled Clock (Oregon Scientific) that I bought just after Christmas and it has worked fine. Up until sometime on Monday. I got back in at about 9pm in the evening and the clock was set to 8:30am. I've tried taking the batteries out and then re-inserting them. It just then counts from 12:00. Is anyone else having problems with their radio controlled clocks? (UK) How do I get the signal back?  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-10-2003 04:02 PM                     What station is it tuned to receive? I have two atomic clocks. Both of them receive station WWVB @ 60KHz. It is located in Fort Collins, Colorado. Check out the N.I.S.T. Website As a matter of fact, the site reports that there was a station outage about 4 days ago... Outages Page There's a lot of cool information on the site that tells how the time code is transmitted. It's a BCD format where a code group is transmitted, one bit per second over a period of one minute. If your clock gets even one bit out of sync, it could display freaky looking numbers until it finally gets itself in sync. I live about 1/2 way across the country from the transmitter. It usually takes several minutes and sometimes up to 1/2 hour to finally get in sync. If your clock is set to listen for the Fort Collins station, it could take a lot longer than that to get the time. 60KHz does "hug the earth" pretty well but I don't know if it's strong enough to be reliable from all the way across the ocean. This is what's getting me thinking that your clock must be set to listen to another station... somewhere in UK/Europe. Thus, you might want to check into the records of the agency that runs it to see if there were any outages. If your clock IS receibing WWVB, then the outage on the 6th could explain some things. It's just been having problems hearing the signal from all that way away. Best advice is to get fresh batteries and to make sure the clock's antenna is facing Fort Collins Colorado. I'm going to guess that the shortest distance between the UK and Colorado is going to be over the north pole... North-by-Northeast? (Pure guesswork on my part.) Get it up high and facing NNE. Give it some time and it SHOULD finally right itself.  |  IP: Logged Mike Rendall Film Handler Posts: 78 From: Southampton, Hampshire, UK Registered: Nov 2002 posted 04-11-2003 04:50 AM                     In the UK, the radio controlled clocks are synchronised with the Rugby Time Signal which I believe is at 60KHz. It was out on the 1st April for 4 hours according to the outage page (and again on the 6th April) Rugby Time Signal  |  IP: Logged John Spooner Expert Film Handler Posts: 186 From: South Australia, Australia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 04-11-2003 11:32 AM                     Interesting posts regards these types of clocks. In Australia, these devices listen to the pager data channels which tx just above the amateur 2 metre band (144-148 mhz) on 149-150 mhz. I believe there is a dedicated channel for these clocks, maybe a fellow Aussie can advise accordingly. John S.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-13-2003 09:39 AM                     I've had a Heathkit clock that receives WWV for about 10 years now. It even has settings to cancel out timming differences based on your distance to the transmitter. Its been reliable all the time(pun intended) that I've had it. Sometimes those outages are planned transmitter maintainance times, or just technical outages such as final PA failure. There is also a WWV in Hawaii and the Heathkit clock will pick up either one if you flip a DIP switch inside. A good friend of mine that collects clocks has an actual HP Atomic Clock in his home. Its an older model and it pretty much fills an entire 6 foot relay rack. I can't remember if its a Cesium or Ribidium clock but I've seen it running. Oddly, it has an old fashoned rotary motor driven clock for the readout!! BTW: Any GPS receiver will display the atomic clock as received from the GPS satellite. Mark  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 04-13-2003 05:36 PM                     Some of the K-Mart Blue-Light $60.00 specials are not worth the powder it would take to blow them to hell.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 04-16-2003 09:45 PM                    quote: BTW: Any GPS receiver will display the atomic clock as received from the GPS satellite. Curiously, my GPS receiver only displays the time in GMT. Now, obviously, the GPS knows where I am... so... ? Oh, nevermind.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 04-17-2003 12:30 AM                        My Bendix King dash mount and handhelds both display UTC and local time... I suppose it all comes at a price.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.