About a week ago two Casio atomic watches and one Oregon Scientific atomic
clock stopped syncing up at night. They were being kept in the exact same
location as before, and they synced up reliably every (or almost every)
night for a couple years. I can't figure out why this is happening. Have
there been any changes in the WWVB transmitter and/or propagation conditions
recently? I am located in central NJ, which can be a bit unreliable, but
usually once I find a good spot in the house, it stays reliable...until now!

- Doug

It might be propogation. I have my receiver packed ready for my move later
this month, so I have not been listening, but there have been auroras lately
and that is never good.

Also, do these clocks use a battery ? Maybe they need a new battery. My
other thought is whether anything is interfering with the clocks being able
to read the signal properly. Hope you solve the mystery.

Strength and Honor

"DougSlug" wrote in message
et...
About a week ago two Casio atomic watches and one Oregon Scientific atomic
clock stopped syncing up at night. They were being kept in the exact same
location as before, and they synced up reliably every (or almost every)
night for a couple years. I can't figure out why this is happening. Have
there been any changes in the WWVB transmitter and/or propagation
conditions
recently? I am located in central NJ, which can be a bit unreliable, but
usually once I find a good spot in the house, it stays reliable...until
now!

- Doug

I don't have a lock on WWVB on my normally-very-active big wall clock,
either. But, my little Oregon Scientific shows we had a full scale
signal in Charleston, SC in the last 6 hours (It checks time 6 times a
day).

You can get to the NIST radio people at their email address:
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/index.html
and read all about these services from NIST. The WWVB antenna
pictures are worth the trip...(c;

According to their webpage, this is the outage report:

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq...wvboutages.htm

During normal operation, the 60 kHz signal from WWVB is transmitted 24
hours per day, 7 days a week. The table includes all periods since
January 1, 2004 when the signal was turned off or intermittent for
more than 5 minutes.

Date
MJD
Began (UTC)
Ended (UTC)

03-06-2004
53070
1346
1500

01-02-2004
53006
1018
1113

01-01-2004
53005
1232
1328
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/index.html



On Sat, 13 Mar 2004 03:06:23 GMT, "DougSlug"
wrote:

About a week ago two Casio atomic watches and one Oregon Scientific atomic
clock stopped syncing up at night. They were being kept in the exact same
location as before, and they synced up reliably every (or almost every)
night for a couple years. I can't figure out why this is happening. Have
there been any changes in the WWVB transmitter and/or propagation conditions
recently? I am located in central NJ, which can be a bit unreliable, but
usually once I find a good spot in the house, it stays reliable...until now!

- Doug




Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

My big La Crosse RC wall clock has stayed in sync, but my small Oregon
Scientific RC clock has sometimes been off by as much as a second. I think
the wall clock has a better uninterrupted signal, and the other one has to
compete with my computer and radio noise. Still, my forefathers worried
about reading the sundial on a cloudy day. I get snippy about a discrepancy
of a second. Hmmm.

Corbin Ray wrote:

My big La Crosse RC wall clock has stayed in sync, but my small Oregon
Scientific RC clock has sometimes been off by as much as a second. I think
the wall clock has a better uninterrupted signal, and the other one has to
compete with my computer and radio noise. Still, my forefathers worried
about reading the sundial on a cloudy day. I get snippy about a discrepancy
of a second. Hmmm.

Watch the La Crosse wall clock on days when they go to daylight time and
off daylight time. They have a chip hardware bug that's sort of unique.

They'll reset back to the old time at the end of that UTC day, eg. in the
fall at 00:00 UTC at the start of the next day, they'll leap forward one
hour. So you get 3 time changes twice a year.

It's from having to remember the daylight bit until local time reaches 2am
but not act on it; they got the logic wrong on turning off remembering in the
next day.
--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

I think the O.S. will TRY up to 6 times a day. If it gets lock it
doesn't look again 'til tomorrow.

I haven't actually stared at mine for 24 hours but the receiver is
what drains the battery and there's no point in correcting more than
once a day.

On Sat, 13 Mar 2004 04:13:54 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

I don't have a lock on WWVB on my normally-very-active big wall clock,
either. But, my little Oregon Scientific shows we had a full scale
signal in Charleston, SC in the last 6 hours (It checks time 6 times a
day).

You can get to the NIST radio people at their email address:
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/index.html
and read all about these services from NIST. The WWVB antenna
pictures are worth the trip...(c;

According to their webpage, this is the outage report:

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq...wvboutages.htm

During normal operation, the 60 kHz signal from WWVB is transmitted 24
hours per day, 7 days a week. The table includes all periods since
January 1, 2004 when the signal was turned off or intermittent for
more than 5 minutes.

Date
MJD
Began (UTC)
Ended (UTC)

03-06-2004
53070
1346
1500

01-02-2004
53006
1018
1113

01-01-2004
53005
1232
1328
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/index.html



On Sat, 13 Mar 2004 03:06:23 GMT, "DougSlug"
wrote:

About a week ago two Casio atomic watches and one Oregon Scientific atomic
clock stopped syncing up at night. They were being kept in the exact same
location as before, and they synced up reliably every (or almost every)
night for a couple years. I can't figure out why this is happening. Have
there been any changes in the WWVB transmitter and/or propagation conditions
recently? I am located in central NJ, which can be a bit unreliable, but
usually once I find a good spot in the house, it stays reliable...until now!

- Doug




Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!