Radio Controlled Clock MSF Time Signal

Stevekir

I want to buy a small radio controlled clock (time signal from Rugby or wherever it is now) to sit on my desk, rather than the over 180 cm (8") ones that are the smallest I can find. Dial or digital display. Any ideas please?


Thanks.

Farway

Stevekir wrote: »

I want to buy a small radio controlled clock (time signal from Rugby or wherever it is now) to sit on my desk, rather than the over 180 cm (8") ones that are the smallest I can find. Dial or digital display. Any ideas please?


Thanks.

I've got a radio controlled alarm clock, could be right size for a desk?

My one, digital, was from Lidl, so not readily available,

https://www.argos.co.uk/search/radio-controlled-alarm-clocks/, no doubt a search will bring similar up

John_Gray

Search amazon.co.uk for radio controlled alarm clock, or similar string.

[or Argos, as in post above...!]

dosh37

virgo17 wrote: »

Electronic Engineering maybe, but not it seems in geography :rotfl:

The MSF signal has been transmitted from Anthorn in Cumbria for several years now following relocation.

But I do agree, the signal seems nowhere near as strong in most parts of the British Isles as it was previously.

I just re-discovered this old thread.


You misread my posting.
I am aware of the location of the Anthorn transmitter. I'm not that stupid!



When I said...
"The basic problem is that the cheap radio controlled clocks produced by the Chinese are unable to reliably receive and decode the 100uV/m signal from the MSF transmitter in the south of the UK"


What I meant was that the problem is with cheap Chinese made radio controlled clocks made by London Clock. This is not down to the location of the transmitter but the design of the receiver.



I still have the 'London Clock' mantle clock and it still gives problems. To save power, it appears that it only enables the radio once each day. The time then advances by about 12 hours. This happens every day. The clock is running faster than it should when there is no radio sync. This means the hands advance all the way around around at 4pm every day to retard the displayed time which drains the battery. This is bad design.


I have four other radio controlled analogue clocks and they work fine.

Frozen_up_north

dosh37 wrote: »

It seems crazy to me that in 2017 we are still using prehistoric 1940's longwave technology to transmit a time sync signal.
Germany Calling, Germany Calling.

The hugely expensive Galileo European time and navigation satellite system went off line recently for several days due to a ground station problem. GPS can be spoofed and jammed, try that on a 60 KHz signal. There is a marine navigation high reliability alternative to GPS, it’s called eLoran and also uses old fashioned low frequencies.

MSF might be old tech, but it works reliably and is under UK control.

Cornucopia

There's certainly scope for a relatively cheap, relatively easy-to-use Internet clock. There is a free, public internet-based atomic clock service that is available for such devices to use.

However, I can't see such a clock being either as cheap as existing cheap MSF clocks, nor would it be plug-and-play in quite the same way. OTOH, if those clocks don't work very well...

The other option is a new generation of clock chips that are able to keep time very reliably (+/-1s per month) without data from anywhere else. With logic to accommodate DST changes, configurable per country, they could also offer a more reliable alternative to MSF.

Having said that, I have an LCD MSF clock that originally came from Lidl about 10 years ago that is still working perfectly. For various reasons, I think the cheap LCD MSF clocks work more reliably than the cheap analog ones.

[Deleted User]

dosh37 wrote: »

Radio controlled clocks (at least in the UK) clearly do not work.

Both of mine work fine.

[Deleted User]

Stevekir wrote: »

I want to buy a small radio controlled clock (time signal from Rugby or wherever it is now) to sit on my desk, rather than the over 180 cm (8") ones that are the smallest I can find. Dial or digital display. Any ideas please?


Thanks.

Don't know if they're still available, but a few months ago, I got one of these, from Lidl, for £7.

If you can't find them at Lidl, Amazon have them, albeit quite a bit pricier.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Auriol-Temperature-Station-Radio-controlled-temperature/dp/B07GLFYF3C/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Auriol+Temperature+Station&qid=1564330651&s=gateway&sr=8-1

mobileron

I live in a remote village and had to get a radio clock,we do have regular power failures, and was worried i may be late for a meeting.
Currently resetting time for me, never had issues in the past.

that

of the opinion you can build an antenna in the attic and tune it into the resonant frequency, and over a short distance will act as a passive signal amplifier