Horological Meandering

On the few occasions when quartz watches are mention here Casio G-Shocks often predominate. For those of us who don’t have them, what is so good about this watch and are there any other quartz watches that purists use?

Does anyone keep a quartz watch for ‘reference’ to set their mechanical timepieces?

Andrew

and the occassional call to WWV (since it's a local call here in Colorado), or check the time at www.nist.gov or www.time.gov .  I would imagine a radio-controlled quartz watch (like Oceanus from Citizen) would also do the trick.  On the other hand (or wrist, ha), automatics and hand-winds forever!  Enjoy!  =:^D

Hi Andrew,

an interesting (some may say politically incorrect in this forum ) question you ask. Well, I do have two radio controlled, battery-driven quartz watches as reference watches at home. At work I check exact time via the atomic watch on the internet. On my wrist: mechanical timepieces only! Not necessarily logical, but that´s how it is.

Best regards,

anaesdoc

... I am happy to play to the strengths of all technologies, and for quartz watches/clocks it is their accuracy.

We have to set our mechanicals in some way and I was interested to hear what PuristS use. Being a recent convert to all things Mac, the Apple products seem to accurately set themeselves to Apple Time, but I have used time . gov as well.

Also interested to know if Purists use quartz watches for any purpose in their lives. Sport, gardening, etc.

A

I like watches because for whatever reason (and it differs with the watch), they make me happy.

In the case of quartz watches, I have a few, both digital and analogue.

I have a G-shock that I wear when dirtbiking, camping and sometimes diving. Why? Not because I don't think other watches will take it but because it was not expensive and while other watches can take spudding into the dirt at 50kph...the g-shock looks better afterwards than before .

Another one used to get strapped to the top-yoke of my motorbike as it wasn't equipped with a clock. I wasn't going to stick one of my dive watches on there, as winding would be a pain.

I have a couple of Aqualands. Both ugly watches, but loved because they're what I've taken diving with me and shared experiences with me. You could give me Mavrostomos' watch and it would have less soul (to me) than those watches I've depended on. They also have alarms. When I travel I don't take my laptop, I don't take my phone...so the one watch is all I need.

My dive computers. A Suunto and a Uwatec. Same as above. But less admired, they're just doing their jobs and you can't wear them as a watch.

My race timer...quartz.

A little chunk of silicon dioxide isn't going to put me off.

The reference to the nicer watches........
J.

This reminded my of my former German teacher who used to say:

"Nobody is completely useless - at least he/she may serve as a bad example!"

,

anaesdoc

The only quartz watch I've owned in many years.  I actually like it, especially the central chrono. minute counter..

Park

I have some RC watches I use to check the high accuracy quartz and other watches. As for G shocks, they make durable beaters and have useful functions.

During the summer-time I often use my Certina DS Furious, especially on vacations. It's informal, cool, relatively inexpensive, yet very comfortable and of good quality. And the good thing is: You don't have to worry about setting or winding the watch. It's always ready to be worn. The quartz movement is very accurate - less than a minute's deviation a year. And you don't have to be extremely careful when you wear it - it's tough and durable, with 100 m WR. You can see it on Certina's website Ref.: C011.410.21.202.00.

Sven

I love my Longines Dolce Vita, be it quartz or not.
And a couple of Swatches get worn at times.
But somehow they don't catch me in the brain as a mechanical watch does.
Maybe it is my training as an electrical engineer.
I just keep thinking making a quartz watch is too simple.
Once the resonator is swinging the only thing that effects it much is temperature and after that it is just counting down and jogging a motor then the counter reaches zero.
There is no art in a quartz watch IMHO, it is just work to get it done.
SMOP as they say, a Simple Matter Of Programming.
Don

I like that point of view. Non-mechanicals don't catch my brain in the same way either. I'm not sure I 100% agree with it, though.

Please don't take the following as anything other than points of discussion.

Is a watch just the escapement? Is a quartz movement is incapable of being 'art'? Who is more important to horology - the guy (or gal) driving the CAD tube that designs a new movement or the guy (or gal) who decorates the bridges with swirly patterns and amazing anglage?

I have about a dozen quartz watches, and they are good for more than just setting the mechanical watches.

They can be used to set the tuning fork watches, and various electro-mechanical watches,





and the meca-quartz watches.





and serve as something to set the clocks by!

 

 

This message has been edited by cazalea on 2010-08-25 13:44:21

In this nutty obsession. That's what my therapist calls it..

Several posters have mentioned automatic synchronization with a transmitted signal, but I wonder how many of us are within range of transmitters and have access to that service. Is it available across all of the USofA? I don't believe there is such a system in Australia, but many radio stations transmit 5 'pips' at the hour and of course there is now Internet access to accurate clocks.

Interested to hear more information on this service.

Andrew

My first “expensive” watch was a Junghans Mega 1, bought in 1991. The Mega 1 was the first radio controlled wristwatch in the world, it only receives signals from Germany, but will work in most parts of Europe. The accuracy is +/- 1 second in a million years! Outside the transmitters range it works like a regular quartz watch.

 

 

Today, most radio controlled watches are multi band, and can be used in Europe, northern America and Japan.

 

I bought the Longines DolceVita Chronograph because I liked the design, especially the dial and the blued hands. The movement is a Longines L538 (ETA 251.471), a high end gold plated quartz movement with 23 jewels. The accuracy is about + 3 seconds a year! The movement doesn’t have the soul of a mechanical movement, but I like to wear the Longines. A watch is more than the movement.

 

 

 

 

Best Regards

 

Livius

This message has been edited by deBalzac on 2010-08-26 13:59:45

x-33 1st Generation: Awesome watch

Casio Pathfinder: Solar powered/Radio Controlled N.America, Europe, Japan

Cheers,

--

RWK.

Hi Andrew, coming in a little late on this --well the thing I personally love about the G-Shock is that IMVHO (hahahaha, my wife says she never distrusts me so much as when I'm expressing a "humble" opinion) the most basic form of integrity a watch can express is functional integrity and in its single minded pursuit of ruggedness, I think the G-Shock is right up there in expressing integrity. I guess that's just a hifalutin' way of saying I think it's a cool watch. The inventor of the G-Shock, Kikuo Ibe, developed it initially in his spare time at Casio after dropping his mechanical watch and having it break. The story goes that he couldn't use Casio's usual labs for testing his prototypes for shock resistance so he used to run upstairs to the men's room above his office and chuck his prototypes out the window to the parking lot below, and his boss finally figured out what was going on when he started to wonder why Ibe-san was spending so much time in the men's room .

Jack

Now the G-Shock has both integrity and history, a very compelling combination!

Thanks for chipping in.

Andrew