Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!jupiter!karn
From: karn@jupiter (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Radio Time Clocks
Message-ID: <16468@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: 30 May 89 22:47:10 GMT
References: <895@osf.OSF.ORG> <3086@daisy.UUCP> <2767@csccat.UUCP> <600@lzaz.ATT.COM> <13437@ut-emx.UUCP> <1989May27.222428.4127@utzoo.uucp> <1970@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com
Reply-To: karn@jupiter.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn)
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 25

>A lab on our foothills campus (in Ft. Collins, CO, home of WWV) had
>one of these units. The receiver front-end was being overloaded, so
>the dipole was turned 90 degrees and put in a cabinet!

After some frustrating experiences with the GriefKit clock, I used to
say that there's nothing wrong with it that couldn't be fixed by moving
to Fort Collins, Colorado.  I guess I was wrong. :-)

Seriously, the biggest problem with the clock is how it behaves when
propagation from WWV is poor. The clock accumulates a significant error
(several seconds) when the signal is lost for even relatively short
periods, and there's no way to set it manually.  I don't understand why
this should be so; my 10-year-old $25 National Semi wristwatch typically
stays within 1 second/month with no WWV updates at all, and it's very
easy to set manually.

Has anybody built a clock that uses CHU's encoded time signals? CHU is
generally much easier to receive in the northeastern US than WWV, but
their time code format (300 bps FSK bursts, used as sound effects in the
movie "The Empire Strikes Back") is of a different format. (CHU is on
3.330, 7.335 and 14.67 MHz. It uses AM with the lower sideband
suppressed. Time is announced in voice every minute in both French and
English.)

Phil