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Cloaca
1906
Dec 17, 2017
I think if I were going to stray from automatics I would just go to a radio-controlled/wave ceptor style watch that will be perfectly accurate until the electromagnetic pulse nuclear war or the planet-killing mega sun spot happens. At that point I will rely on a Nomos ... sundial, that is.

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https://www.nomos-store.com/en/Things/Sundials/Sundial-stainless-steel-Local-time-Glashuette.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyggAJJuN_I
Gugliermo
1317
Dec 17, 2017
Cloaca I'm not straying anywhere, just incorporating more to appreciate.. (-;
PetrosD
3702
Dec 17, 2017
CloacaI have one, a Citizen. It's clearly the most accurate watch that I have, but that doesn't translate to wrist time. But between the radio control and the Eco drive, it'll be deadly accurate for a long long time.
Cloaca
1906
Dec 18, 2017
GugliermoWave Ceptor and the other brands' versions sync with time-broadcasting radio stations, usually in Japan (two stations) and the U.S. (one station in Colorado). Some of the higher-priced models sync with radio stations in China, Europe, and Africa also.
They attempt to connect in the early a.m., when the reception is best, usually two attempts. If a connection cannot be had, they wait until the next night. So if the watches are in a region with supported transmitters, and as long as you don't keep them in a basement or a radio-opaque Faraday cage, they are perfectly accurate and self-correcting.
It's only when you are out of range for a long period of time, and the core quartz watch is on its own, that the monthly error is a factor.
The annoying thing about them is when you first get one, or when you change time zones, and you want immediate sync, and you end up doing a little dance and holding it up in the air and pushing the sync button and so on, and it for some reason is unable to connect and sync. You can manually set the time, however.
Cloaca
1906
Dec 18, 2017
Gugliermo
1317
Dec 18, 2017
CloacaThanks for the explanation. I had just checked Amazon and they mentioned 10-15 seconds a month but now I understand how and why. Amazingly inexpensive, around $50. Still, I'm more impressed with the Bulova running a tuning fork at 262KHZ and gearing that down to a sweep second hand...(-;
PetrosD
3702
Dec 18, 2017
CloacaNo, I actually tried that one on, but with my presbyopia I couldn't read a thing. This is mine.
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PetrosD
3702
Dec 18, 2017
CloacaEven better, but more expensive, are the Seiko and Citizen models that sync with GPS rather than the atomic clocks. Those give global coverage and don't require you to be in range of an atomic clock. I considered one of those but didn't want to invest that much and settled for the one I bought.
PetrosD
3702
Dec 18, 2017
I use either the Watchville app on my phone or my Citizen to set my watches. Those two sources are both in perfect sync with the atomic clock, so I can use either to set my watches.
Cloaca
1906
Dec 18, 2017
PetrosDBlue Angels, not Blue Impulse. It must be a U.S. version. I've see Blue Impluse many times at the
air show at the local Japanese air force base. Pretty wild -- they don't seem to avoid the sky over the crowds, so if anything went wrong ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlo1pqg5adY
Cloaca
1906
Dec 18, 2017
PetrosDI had my mechanic mount a small Sony portable GPS system on a 250-cc motor scooter in the 1990s, and reception was really bad in areas will tall buildings. You needed to connect to three satellites that were reasonably triangulated apart from one another. Maybe the tech is better these days; other than car systems I haven't used any other GPS gizmos.
Cloaca
1906
Dec 18, 2017
PetrosDI would imagine that a smart phone would for the most part have perfect time also, all by itself.
PetrosD
3702
Dec 18, 2017
CloacaWow that's terrible. One reason to avoid air shows.
PetrosD
3702
Dec 18, 2017
CloacaA smartphone does use atomic time, but the time on my smartphone doesn't show seconds, so I use the app to get seconds when my watch will hack (I have two watches that don't). The Watchville app also shows the correct moon phase, for people who need to set that complication. Technically speaking, a smartphone gets the time from the network it's on, and the networks are the ones that sync with atomic time on the back end.
Cloaca
1906
Dec 18, 2017
PetrosDI think you really want UTC instead of atomic time (TAI). They are not the same, and UTC is the official time in all but certain scientific realms. UTC is based on the day length, ultimately, which is ever so slightly shorter as time goes on and earth spins down to its icy death (or the sun expands to engulf it, or explodes in a supernova, or whatever will happen at the end). Atomic time was arbitrarily set to the length of the day in 1958 and never changes, so it gets more and more out of sync with reality, about 37 seconds off now.
At any rate, all these websites, apps, phones, and radio transmitters have network latency that the software tries to estimate and correct for, but nothing is showing exact time, atomic or otherwise, although all of them are accurate enough for setting a second hand.
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