I make, repair, service and maintain Tower and Public clocks. It is important that these are set to time correctly, other wise 'the whole town is led astray !
I carry not one, but two or three radio controlled clocks with me for setting these public clocks to time. There have been the odd occasion when one of these RC clocks has been displaying the totally incorrect time, or as Tony found out the battery came loose
It must be remembered that these clocks are radio receivers, therefore must be kept away from televisions, computers, tube lights, running car engines etc. etc. while logging on. Once logged on the internal quartz clocks will keep the time if interferrence is present.
The way they work is that on first switch on, fitting a battery, the clock waits for the first set of time code signals, this is then compared with the second set of time code signals and sometimes a third set of time code signals. If these received time code signals agree, then the time comes up on the clock display.
If the received signal is weak, due to the location of the clock, steel framed building or a neighbour's telly on the other side of a party wall, it can take several hours for enough comparison time codes to be received before the display will show up.
Once logged on, some clocks then run on its internal quartz clock, being updated with the transmitted time code, maybe once a day, or every three hours or every hour.
Some of the tower clocks I manufacture are themselves radio controlled from a master clock with battery back up, and automatically reset themselves to time followinjg powercuts, as well as carrying out the seasonal time changes
I made a radio controlled clock back in the '70's long before radio controlled clocks were available on the domestic market, It has five PCBs, 50 chips etc..!
Previous to that I used a single flashing Led MSF receiver, and decoded the time signal by eye, no numerial display ! !
Happy New Year to you all ............... David Pawley MBHI and Organiser of the BSS one day 'Newbury" meeting BSS 006.
