Santa brought me an MFJ atomic clock. I was surprised to see the first time
I turned it on that it found WWVB fairly early (I think it was 9 PM or so).
Anyway, I also synch my 'puter to the NIS online standard, and my watch (one
of those Timex datalink thingies) gets synched to the computer.
If I let the watch go for a month or more without resynching it to the
computer, it may get a couple of seconds off, but the computer, the wall
clock, and WWV are all together as closely as I can tell. Obviously,
manually observing them there is probably room for a half-second or so of
error. The watch to computer test is probably better. If the watch is
within a couple of weeks of being synched to the computer, the watch and
computer's hourly chimes go off at exactly the same time, unless the
computer is busy in which case it's chime can be a second or so late.
Remember that WWV isn't as accurate as WWVB unless you happen to be sitting
in Boulder. But I don't think it can be off by a substantial fraction of a
second. Fifteen seconds would seem to be a problem.
72/73 de WB8RCR http://members.home.com/wb8rcr/index.htm
didileydadidah QRP-L #1446 Code Warriors #35
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Jennings" <jennings@eng14.rochny.uspra.abb.com>
To: "Low Power Amateur Radio Discussion" <qrp-l@Lehigh.EDU>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 1:19 PM
Subject: Atomic Clock Question
> Guys,
> Santa Claus gave me an Atomic Wall clock. Just to check its accuracy
> I compared the time with 10 MHz WWV time. I found that the time on the
> wall clock could be off by as much as 15 seconds. This looks like the
> clock's internal time base is not very stable.
> Is this kind of behavior to be expected?
> It's my opinion that the clock should never be off any more than a half
> second.
> I beleive the clock syncs up with WWVB sometime between Midnight and 6
> am local time.
>
> What is the group's experience with these things?
>
> BTW it cost me about $65 total.
>
> Thanks es 73
>
> Tom, kv2x
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