Horological Meandering

Pondering My Pointless Purists' Pursuit of Precision (nay, perfection)

 

alas if you get your time off of your mobile phone, you might not understand this obsession, but it comes from the saying

"man who has two watches never knows what time it is"

I resolved to solve this problem, with a "atomic clock" that turned out to be extremely UN-reliable. And I don't mean Ulysse Nardin.

So I got a precise and reliable clock. Some of you have seen this one before - it's the clock I use to set my watches.
I like it because it's easy to read, the hands hit the markers, and the battery lasts a couple years.

But the annual time-change exercise got me to thinking. What if I could do better? Not only a good time-keeper, but a good time-checker and date-provider as well.

Where should I turn?  I ended up talking with the guy who sold me the Glashutte. He had gone on to an Arbiter master clock - a device that generates "legally-traceable time"

Well. Harumph.

Not to be outdone, I too dialed up eBay and waited. A few weeks, a few purchases later and I brought all this stuff home (unable to hide it from my wife)

I have also had to re-teach myself serial communications, soldering, BNC connector pin-outs, and become best friends with the ESE company. Oh yes, and order up a Radio Systems remote for the monster 4" red-LED display timer on the top of the stack (as it is meant to be wall-mounted).

This is all stuff used in radio and TV stations, atomic energy plants, military facilities, etc.

The top silver unit is an ESE 185A MASTER CLOCK (sounds impressive, doesn't it?). A master clock feeds the correct time and date to other devices. Thus all the pieces I have here are fed by the master clock and do not require setting on their own. Below the Master Clock is a timer (for timing and counting up and down - a chronograph if you will). But you can set a time period using the toggles on the right, then push a button and it shows up on the LED display.

Below is the time and date display (.56" amber numbers). I'd really like to have one of those for each room .... Below that is a .56" LED unit that will display either time or date, and below that a 1" LED unit that will also show either time or date. What's missing is the real prize - the large format display for BOTH time and date. I haven't seen one on eBay but I can't bring myself to buy one new. But I might.

My thought is to have one display in the watch factory in the basement for those calibrations and battery replacements, one display in the one in the room with the watch case for setting of ornery watches that have gone dead without me noticing, and one for last minute checks in the living room where all my clanging, bonging striking clocks reside. These displays will talk to Mr MASTER CLOCK and get his instructions.

How accurate is the MASTER CLOCK? ESE assure me it's within 10 nanoseconds of reference time and calibrated to length of antenna wire, longitude/latitude, etc.

This is all to help my mechanical and quartz watches do their best.

Sigh. I'm nuts.

Cazalea

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READ ON FOR MORE
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The GPS master clock differs from the garden variety "atomic clock" (technically these are not atomic, but are radio-controlled clocks) in its approach to providing accurate times.

Bear with me while I go into excruciating detail on the alternatives:

Radio or atomic clocks or watches get their signal in the USA directly from radio station WWVB near Ft Collins, in Colorado. It's operated by the US Naval Observatory.  Other stations include BPC in China, DCF77 in Germany, JJY in Japan, and MSF in the UK. These clocks are standalone devices and powered by the mains or batteries.

Master clocks either catch or generate their own time signal, and broadcast it on to other clocks or devices. They produce what is known as "legally-traceable time" which is required for broadcasters, power facilities, military installations, telephone exchanges, weather stations, etc.

You have various choices for maintaining your master clock:

SET IT YOURSELF

•   quartz master clocks are self-contained with temperature-stabilized crystal oscillators to stay stable within a second a month (this is comparable to the best quartz watches from Citizen or Grand Seiko) and is what my Glashutte clock represents
  

GET IT FROM NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology)

•   AC line frequency clocks are able to maintain time by referencing the 60 Hz frequency of our public power, because even though voltage may drop, we maintain the frequency (at least the US does)

•   modem master clocks dial up to the Observatory multiple times a day on a phone line

•   NTP server master clocks are connected to networks and get their time reference via continual connection to a time server ( PC clocks occasionally reset themselves this way, if required)

•   Serial master clocks get a signal by serial port or USB port connection to a PC  which gets its signal (but are only as accurate as the PC clock is)

•   GPS master clock/time code generators get a time reference from as few as 3 or as many as 12 of the fleet of approx 50 NAVSTAR satellites in orbit   Click for more.  This is what I am setting up now.

•   airborne time code generators get their reference from the satellites as well, but are optimized to be continually moving, not stationary; used primarily in high-end and military aircraft

GENERATE YOUR OWN TIME

•  Cesium and other radioactive decay clocks "make" their own time signals - available outside the US or as surplus from military use in the $2500-50,000 range. I am resisting this option!

WHY?
Master clocks and "time code generators" produce output signals that can be interpreted by other devices that need time information.  For example in a recording studio or broadcasting facility, one (backed-up) time server will supply exact time references to all equipment across the facility, so everyone is on "the same time". How else would we know exactly WHEN a wardrobe malfunction occurs? And the duration of the malfunction... and avoid those embarrassing silent or dark intervals on the television ...

Other more mundane uses include college and other school campuses, time-clock systems in large companies, ship-board clocks, etc. Anywhere that you want everyone on the same time and you DON'T want to or CAN'T set or reset each of them separately.

TRANSMISSION OF THE TIME
The time code generator devices send a variety of signals in various formats to indicate time, date, top of the hour, etc.

•   NIST ( click here to see what the Navy sends out to your clock)
•   Network time protocol
•   SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture/Television)
•   IRIG-B or E
•   EBU
•   ASCII
•   Ethernet
•   1PPS, 10 PPS
•   ESE TC 89 or ESE TC90 (proprietary to ESE - manufacturer of clocks & displays)

Blah blah blah ....

My new clock is supposed to be accurate to within 10 nanoseconds of reference time; equal to the best in the industry. Anyway, it's a lot of fun for $800.