Radio controlled clock - No signal ?

Corncrake2

Anyone else having trouble with their radio controlled clock ?
Is there a maintainance outage of the transmitter ?

This evening I noticed my Lidl/Auriol clock was about 4 minutes slow (compared to my TV programs and my laptop clock)
I removed and replaced the battery to see if it would re-sync but it is just flashing 3 horizontal bars and a flashing antenna symbol. So I guess it is not finding a signal.
Is my clock dead or is it a transmitter/service issue ?

Thanks.

stef73

Just looked at ours and the times correct, im in north west england.
Our went funny once i took out the battery for a while put it back in, fingers span round for along time (about 1 hr) so stopped looking at it got up next morning it was showing correct time.

Hazzanet

May be worth noting:

http://www.npl.co.uk/science-technology/time-frequency/products-and-services/time/msf-outages

Annual maintenance work - signal off-air

The annual maintenance period for the Anthorn site will be from Monday 14 April to Thursday 1 May 2014 (inclusive). The MSF service will be off daily between 0800 BST and 1800 BST to allow maintenance to be carried out on the masts.

If there is the opportunity to be able to switch the service back on earlier than 1800 BST, we will endeavour to do so and minimise the outage times. Similarly, if the weather is poor and no work can be carried out, the service will be restored as soon as possible.

aerostar

Corncrake2 wrote: »

I removed and replaced the battery to see if it would re-sync but it is just flashing 3 horizontal bars and a flashing antenna symbol. So I guess it is not finding a signal.
Is my clock dead or is it a transmitter/service issue ?

Thanks.

Try and move your clock to a different location and make sure the widest part of the clock is pointing to Cumbria.

The clocks all have a directional aerial, (it is a ferrite rod) and it is quite possible that it is not receiving due to the rod having its end pointing at the transmitter instead of the width to the transmitter.

The poster in NW UK would not be far from the transmitter so he should get a good signal, the farther away from the transmitter the lower the signal, also the signal is better at night,

If you have any other electronic items near the clock (com,uters, monitors, dect phones, modems, power supplies etc) these can reduce the sensitivity of the unit as they can radiate signals close to the receiving frequency.


http://www.npl.co.uk/science-technology/time-frequency/products-and-services/time/common-clock-problems

Jivesinger

When I read the first post in this thread last night, I deliberately set a clock I have to be wrong by an hour. It flashed its antenna icon for several minutes without doing anything.

But by this morning it had set itself to be correct.

So as stef73 suggests, it doesn't seem to be a quick process, but the signal is being transmitted, or at least it was last night.

kwikbreaks

There is more than one time service. As well as MSF there is DCF in Germany. Just because one clock is working it doesn't mean all will as it depends on which signal the clock is using.

espresso

Posters to this thread are assuming that the Lidl/Auriol clock receives the 60kHz MSF time signal broadcast from the Anthorn site in Cumbria.

The Auriol clocks that I have seen receive the more powerful 77.5kHz DCF time signal broadcast from Mainflingen near Frankfurt Germany.



More info here

Corncrake2

The good news is that when I awoke this morning all was back to normal !
What a strange episode.
They must have been transmitting the wrong time for a short period and took it off-air to sort it out,
because, if it had been off for a long enough time for my clock to freewheel and drift by 4 minutes I would have noticed the error long before.

Thank you all for your comments, all very interesting :

stef73 > Quite right ! That is what I should have done right away instead of thinking doom on my clock

aerostar > Yes, did that over a period of a couple of hours ! Although I had not previously had any problems with that location I did trundle it round the house between battery resets just in case they were on low power for some reason,

Hazzanet > Thanks for the maintenance schedule, that'll stop me having a panic/scratching my head in afew days time !
I looked in their 'News' section last night for that kind of info but found nothing, you are obviously a better digger than I am !lol!

Jivesinger >"several minutes"
That is all mine needs to sync normally, so I think you must have bridged the switch-back-on phase.
That was an interesting little experiment I wonder, just curious what time was that ?
I waited around lastnight whilst drinking my glass of amber nectar and saw 27 views but no one had an answer by then. So I went to bed about 00:20 or maybe it was 00:30 !

kwikbreaks & espresso >
Dont quote me but I think DCF broadcasts CET and in this country we need a clock that has a regional time offset setting to get rid of the excess 1hr. I have not got that (or atleast, never needed to find it !) on my clock So mine must be a British-lidl special !!

I wonder which time zone Scotland will choose if it goes indy. ?!

drobe

I have a radio controlled watch and it did not change to BST on the Sat/Sun.


I tried setting it to receive the signal manually and although it seemed to receive the signal it wouldn't change the time.


I noticed also that the display dimmed slightly when I pressed a button.


I thought that it might need a new battery as it is 10 years old, so took it to get a new battery, free fitting if you buy the battery from them, still wouldn't set the correct time, left it and next morning it had went to the correct time, so either it did need a new battery or the time signal was off.

Neil49

My cordless phone base station which is nearby prevents mine from updating so when it came to BST I just moved it into the conservatory where it got a good signal and updated itself without any bother.

Kernel_Sanders

I thought the transmitter was near Rugby. What am I confusing it with ?