(the world's most accurate timekeeping devices) around the world, all UTC is maintained by hundreds of atomic clocks Those are accurate? The time-signal radio stations operated inĭifferent countries broadcast UTC ( Coordinated Universal Time), the officially agreed time used worldwide that's informally known as GMT The time signals it uses to regulate itself. It's pretty obvious that an RCC is only going to be as accurate as Another advantage is that they automaticallyĬorrect themselves for daylight-saving time, leap years, months with Generally, that gives them an accuracy of better than plus or minus a Most RCCs synchronize themselves with a time broadcast signal onceĪ day, at night, although some check themselves every few hours. It's daylight-saving time, and so on and takes about a minute to Physical Laboratory, while China's station is called BPC andīroadcast by the National Time Service Center.) The NIST time codeĬontains the basic time and date, whether it's a leap-year, whether In the UK, for example, the station is called (Other countries have equivalent radio stations. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from a base near FortĬollins, Colorado. Time signals are broadcast by a station called ![]() Time-over and over again-in the form of a special code that only There's no DJ and no irritatingĪdvertisements for car insurance. The radio signals come from a unique radio "station" thatĭoesn't broadcast any words or music. Thousands of km/miles from your home (represented here by the ordinary silver radio) beams regular signals to your quartz clock or watch to keep it in time. Photo: The basic concept of RCC radio-controlled clocks: a radio transmitter hundreds or Unlike an ordinary clock or watch, an RCC always knows what The circuit uses the radio signals to figure out theĬorrect time and adjusts the time displayed by the clock or watchĪccordingly. Ordinary electronic clock or watch but it has two extra components:Īn antenna that picks up radio signals and a circuit thatĭecodes them. ![]() A radio-controlled clock (RCC) is different. It: it's not a time-keeping device unless you set it to the But it doesn't actually know what time it is until you tell Today, many different manufacturers make them and there are millions in use all over the world.Īn ordinary clock or watch is a time-counting device thatĪdds up the number of seconds, minutes, hours, and days that have Radio-controlled clocks and watches were popularized by such companies as Junghans in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Let's take a closer look at what these things are and how they work!Īrtwork: Watches and clocks synchronized using radio signals mean anyone can own a watch as accurate as an atomic clock. Which set their time by super-accurate atomic clocks. That's the basic idea behind radio-controlled clocks and watches, The right time automatically without you ever needing to worry? Neat if your watch could listen to those broadcasts and set itself to You hear before news broadcasts on radio stations. That's why most people regularly check their watches against a reliable time signal-like the ones That could add up to a minute a month or almost a quarter of an hour a year. Hours (an amazing accuracy of 99.998 percent), and the errors don't cancel out, Second a day if they wander out by just a couple of seconds in 24 Really good quartz clocks struggle to keep time to better than a ![]() You might have the most expensive watch in the world, but if it's set to the wrong time to begin with, it's no use to you at all.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |