In article ,
(known to some as Alan WA4SCA) scribed...

I have been looking for an "Atomic" clock which can be set to UTC time
for the shack. Since the update feature only works in North America,
most of them can only be set to the local time zones. The couple of
sales people I talked to didn't even understand the question. Any
first hand recommendations? (I have already looked at eHam.)

May as well put in my $0.02 worth.

Last year, at a local ham swap meet, I bought a Trak Systems GPS
station clock. Extremely well-built 1U rackmount package, doubles as a
very stable frequency standard, and puts out an IRIG-B timecode stream
as well so you can drive slave displays with it if you want.

Initial cost: $75 as a "tech special." Put a couple of hours into
it for troubleshooting, and found the problem to be a bad firmware
EPROM. Got the last release of firmware files from the manufacturer,
made new EPROMs, and had a multi-thousand $$ GPS clock to call my own
for about $120 total (counting time and parts).

There are other surplus clocks Out There. Some are more expensive
than others. Datum and TrueTime (both now owned by Symmetricom), as well
as Odetics (out of business) made numerous GPS-referenced clocks. Most
are rack-mounted, most can be set either for GMT or local, and I've yet
to see one in its class that didn't have a timecode output as well.

Prices vary from what I paid to $300 and up.

Happy hunting.


--
Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Institute
(Known to some as Bruce Lane, KC7GR)
http://www.bluefeathertech.com -- kyrrin a/t bluefeathertech d-o=t calm
"Salvadore Dali's computer has surreal ports..."

Alan WA4SCA wrote:
I have been looking for an "Atomic" clock which can be set to UTC time
for the shack. Since the update feature only works in North America,
most of them can only be set to the local time zones. The couple of
sales people I talked to didn't even understand the question. Any

My wife has bought a handful of those gray plastic digitals
that set themselves to WWV at night; I was pleasantly surprised
to find that at least two of them can be set to UTC even though
the manual didn't mention it. I've got one in my shack now,
big thing that cost about $10 at a discount store, and shows
UTC time, plus a calendar and the ambient temp. It was a very
nice surprise to find a "UTC" setting on the time offset button!
So looking at those cheap clocks in the discount stores might
bring you the same sort of deal. Good luck!


_______________________________________________
Ken Kuzenski AC4RD ken . kuzenski at duke .edu
_______________________________________________
All disclaimers apply, see? www.duke.edu/~kuzen001

wrote:

So looking at those cheap clocks in the discount stores might
bring you the same sort of deal. Good luck!

I have bought two flavors of WWV-synced clocks recently at the big box
stores. One was a small unit (2-inch display) and the other was a large
analog wall clock. Both of them work great, even though one is on an
interior wall in the basement. I'm truly amazed that they can hear WWV
and yet the cost was under $20.

Steve Bonine ) writes:
wrote:

So looking at those cheap clocks in the discount stores might
bring you the same sort of deal. Good luck!

I have bought two flavors of WWV-synced clocks recently at the big box
stores. One was a small unit (2-inch display) and the other was a large
analog wall clock. Both of them work great, even though one is on an
interior wall in the basement. I'm truly amazed that they can hear WWV
and yet the cost was under $20.

Likely because they aren't "WWV-synced".

While in the past there were some clocks that got the time in digital
format from WWV, the more recent wave of "atomic clocks" receive WWVB
at 60KHz. The low frequency allows for strong propagation throughout
much of the day, and penetration where higher frequencies might
get shielded out.

Michael VE2BVW

Well Dunno but I have 2 of the big ones digital also displays
indoor and outdoor temp. They are fed by wwvh just one island
away from me on Kauai. I have no problem it stays locked
right to the second. Once in a while the Kauai WWVH goes down
on both 5 and 10 mhz for hours if not days. Then the 2 clocks
loose it of course. WWV on the mainland is almost inaudible
out here most of the time except if conditions are good the
15mhz sig comes thru fairly well and the clocks sync on it.
Joe



************************************************** ************************
* Ham since 1937 HiSchool Sophomore ex W9ZUU, KP4EX, W4FAG, KH6ARG KH6JF *
* WW2 Vet since Sep 1940 to just After VJ day. US Signal Corps AACS *
************************************************** ************************




On Sun, 11 Dec 2006, Michael Black wrote:

Steve Bonine ) writes:
wrote:

So looking at those cheap clocks in the discount stores might
bring you the same sort of deal. Good luck!

I have bought two flavors of WWV-synced clocks recently at the big box
stores. One was a small unit (2-inch display) and the other was a large
analog wall clock. Both of them work great, even though one is on an
interior wall in the basement. I'm truly amazed that they can hear WWV
and yet the cost was under $20.

Likely because they aren't "WWV-synced".

While in the past there were some clocks that got the time in digital
format from WWV, the more recent wave of "atomic clocks" receive WWVB
at 60KHz. The low frequency allows for strong propagation throughout
much of the day, and penetration where higher frequencies might
get shielded out.

Michael VE2BVW