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Atomic Clock Availability? — Parallax Forums

Atomic Clock Availability?

John CoutureJohn Couture Posts: 370
edited 2010-10-18 01:33 in General Discussion
We have all seen these "Atomic Clocks" which sell for about $20-40.· These are clocks that have a radio receiver in them and intrepret the signal from WWV to set the clock.· I notice now that they even have WWV watches using solar power (very kool) for·a 6 month power supply.

Has anyone found·an inexpensive source ($5?)·for a module / chip that is easy to use (similar to a Real Time Clock chip with SPI, I2C or 1W interface and·BCD output) to receive the WWV signal that can be used in a microcontroller project?

It seems the only realistic way to get an accurate time signal is to get a small $20 GPS receiver.·· Hmmm.

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John J. Couture

San Diego Miramar College

Comments

  • SPENCESPENCE Posts: 204
    edited 2005-12-03 20:36
    PARDON ME.

    THE NIST TIME SIGNAL ON 60 KHZ IS WWVB NOT WWV. WWV ONLY OPERATES ON THE HF (2-30 MHZ) HF RADIO BANDS.

    73
    SPENCE
    K4KEP

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    73
    SPENCE
    K4KEP

    Post Edited (SPENCE) : 12/3/2005 8:39:03 PM GMT
  • John CoutureJohn Couture Posts: 370
    edited 2005-12-03 20:43
    (grin)

    Ok, Spence, but is there an easy way to download / decode the signal? Even though I have a ham license (KG6YYG) , I'm not nearly smart enough to figure out how to design one!

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    John J. Couture

    San Diego Miramar College
  • SPENCESPENCE Posts: 204
    edited 2005-12-03 21:08
    Ok john.

    I think for starters i would spend some time browsing thro long wave with google. Also lwca (long wave club of america) i think i recall some articals on very simple lw receivers.

    Maybe one of the techs could give you the e-mail address of the fellow in utah who sold the atomic time clock interface which was discontinued. Parallax number 27971 under the name ultralink.page 32 of the 2001 parallax catolog. Ask him (ultralink) if he could give you some references so you could build a wwvb digital data receiver.

    I am sure ken could find his address. I have one of his high priced receiver clocks here and it has been cranking away for years now. I think i have had to reset it about 3 times so far. That aign't bad!!!!!!

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    73
    spence
    k4kep
  • John CoutureJohn Couture Posts: 370
    edited 2005-12-03 21:20
    Thank you Spence.

    After looking through the NIST site and some of the vendors there .... they have receivers for $6.75 but the output is a mechanical clock movement. I guess there just isn't a market for a simple receiver.

    I'm almost tempted to scrafice a $20 clock to see if I can hack the insides. Maybe I'll just skip this project and go on to a cheap gps receiver ... the net cost is going to be about the same.

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    John J. Couture

    San Diego Miramar College
  • John CoutureJohn Couture Posts: 370
    edited 2005-12-03 21:34
    Also, Ken pointed me to this article a while back and indicated that the discontinued module sold for about $40.

    http://www.parallax.com/dl/docs/cols/nv/vol2/col/nv51.pdf

    It seems things haven't changed in the last couple of months.

    My apologies to all, I should have just revived my own forum post from August ... I guess I was hoping for someone to shed some light on an new product that had become available.

    http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=5&m=84740

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    John J. Couture

    San Diego Miramar College
  • SPENCESPENCE Posts: 204
    edited 2005-12-03 22:04
    John.

    Where did you find the $6.75 receiver linked to mechanical movment?
    I could not find that one.

    73
    spence

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    73
    spence
    k4kep
  • John CoutureJohn Couture Posts: 370
    edited 2005-12-03 22:09
    They even have a sticker you can put on the face of your clock for $0.60 (grin)

    http://www.primexusa.com/depts/dept-180.html

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    John J. Couture

    San Diego Miramar College
  • kb2hapkb2hap Posts: 218
    edited 2005-12-04 00:34
    Sites that may interest you on WWVB receivers, I'm not sure if you have already seen any of these they look semi-helpful


    http://www.amug.org/~jthomas/wwvb.html

    http://www.geocities.com/hagtronics/vlf.html

    http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/sony-wwvb/

    http://www.pacificsites.com/~brooke/timefreq.shtml

    http://polaris.umuc.edu/~vgokoyev/wwvb.html

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    DTQ
  • John CoutureJohn Couture Posts: 370
    edited 2005-12-04 18:17
    DTQ,

    Wow! Thank you!

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    John J. Couture

    San Diego Miramar College
  • D9WD9W Posts: 6
    edited 2010-10-18 01:33
    I am not an expert on the UltraLink, but if I am right, it used a TEMIC U4226B chip.

    I found a link to the Data sheet for it here >> http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/Temic/mXyzuryv.pdf

    If you read the data sheet you will find that the Temic used two Crystals, and if you can find a good picture of the UltraLink you will also see that it has two Crystals. I think this is the chip everybody is looking for.

    As to using GPS- I thought the GPS module and the antenna ran expensive. If GPS was so great then why isn’t Oregon Scientific using it? Most of the Atomic clocks in my house are using what Oregon Scientific is using.

    As to one of the web pages I dug up, there was a comment that puzzled me. Oregon Scientific told one of the people asking what chip they used, and they told them that the TEMIC chip with all the glue/crystal parts was built onto one chip. Now my question is what is that chip?
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