Correct Time?

[Pat]

Bird, I laugh to think of the story my dad told me about one of the big pump stations on a main Magnolia Pipeline Company pipeline N-S through midwest (northern terminus was at Lima, Ohio.) The pump station involved was powered by several quite large diesel engines running 24-7 and making quite a noise that carried quite a ways. When the whole operation was shut down for a couple days they got a lot of complaining phone calls from folks whose sleep was disturbed by the lack of the sound of the station. I suppose it masked random night noises and gave a smooth noise background that was easy to get used to but when it was stopped the residents could hear every car door, front door, dog bark, owl hoot, night bird, etc. and not being used to the "normal" night sounds were bothered by it.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Bird]

Pat, to some of us, at least, that's quite understandable. It's only the "unusual" noise, or lack thereof, that interferes with our sleep.

Along those same lines, you know I spent a lot of time working nights and sleeping in the daytime. And when we had a couple of young kids, they sometimes got a bit rowdy and noisy, I guess, but never interfered with my sleep. What did awaken me many times was when I'd hear my wife yell, "YOU KIDS BE QUIET; YOU'RE GONNA WAKE UP YOUR DADDY!!"

[Pat]

Bird, My dad did shift work when we lived in Lima, Ohio as the tank farm had to be manned 24-7 to receive and trasfer oil to the Buckeye Oil Co. from Magnolia Pet. Co. (Mobil)

I sure do connect with the, BE QUIET; YOU'RE GONNA WAKE UP YOUR DADDY!!" I heard it a zillion times.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[LazyJ_Arabians]

My dearest sets our clocks ahead so she'll never be "late". And what's worse, she adds from 5-20 minutes randomly.

With our anniversay approaching in a couple weeks, ya'll have inspired me to surprise her with a radio-controlled atomic wall clock, perfect time with the only manual setting being time zone.

My kids are gonna bust a gut, hehe

[JazzDad]

We have one of those "atomic clocks" (which actually get their time from the transmitter in Colorado). It sets itself 2 minutes slow.

[Bird]

Bret, maybe that's what I have on the nightstand by the bed. It's a $15 GE clock/radio. The only reason I bought it was because it had big numbers that are easy for an old man to read, AND especially because I thought I MIGHT (but hopefully not) need an alarm clock sometime and would likely not hear a regular alarm clock anymore. At any rate, I just plugged it in and it set itself. It has a switch on the side to flip for "daylight" or not daylight time. And that's the only setting it's ever required. I did look at the manual last night and it says they recommend changing the batteries in it every 3 to 5 years. I guess I'll have to start thinking about that, since it was 3 years old in September. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Pat]

LazyJArabians, Be gald you aren't in one of those little south sea islands (don't recall the name of the place(s) now) that have their civil time off from the next "ZONE" by an amount of time NOT an hour but something like 19 min or whatever. It makes their local noon coincide with 1200 for their own custom time zone and they are so small you don't notice a lot of error from one side of the island to the other. Anyway, the upshot of this is they can't use a simple off the shelf commercial atomic clock since they are only setable to the nearest hour or time zone.

We have four of the atomic alarm clocks with inside and outside temp, two of which are the projector type that project the time and the temp on the ceiling or wall with a red LED that doesn't mess with your night vision. The projector ones were $19.95 at Wallgreens but they are available at lots of places. For regular daytime use I like the ones wilth the BIG digital display rather than the projector and little display on the front as the projection is too dim to see in the daylight but is big enough to read without glasses in a dim lit or darkened room.

Clever lad, we'll see how your social experiment goes. Let us hear how the RIGID one-hour-at-a-time only setable clock experiment goes and is accepted... or not.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[JazzDad]

That is strange, Bird. Why would you need batteries if the clock sets itself?

[Bird]

Beats me, Brett. I would assume the two AA batteries are primarily backup for power outages. And I've never had to reset it in spite of many power outages and even two moves to new homes. I've never even figured out how to operate the thing without the manual. Oddly enough for anything with batteries, the batteries were included with this clock. There's a 4 postition switch to set the time zone, a 2 position switch to indicate daylight savings time or not, and the manual has a "WARNING: Please avoid playing with these buttons after entering the Clock/Alarm set mode." But the manual does include instructions for setting the date and time "in case the memory holding batteries are accidentally removed." It would make sense to me that backup battery power only "holds" the date and time set. But in 3 years, the time hasn't drifted off at all. [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Bird and Brett, Time doesn't drift on our "atomic" clocks because the NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology, I think and used to be National Beaureau of Standards) has an atomic clock, a real atomic clock that uses the accurate oscillations of Cesium atoms to maintain time extremely accurately. They broadcast time signals that can be picked up by our "atomic" clocks and even though our colcks could in theory be so sloppy as to drift a second or two a day they get reset just about every night so there is no accumulation of errors.

My projector clocks require two double A cells. I read the manual carefully and found the plug in wall power supply is to power the projector long term without running the batts down. The clock is battery operated. Nt a clue why this arrangement.

In the old days some electric clocks were wind up clocks that were electrically wound and had no particular accuracey advantage (remember when dash clocks in cars would make a spark in the dark every so often and a click noise?). Later the clocks were synched to the power line AC voltage which is 60 Hz. The utilites used to adjust the frequency just a tiny little bit to keep the long term electric clocks set properly (no long term accumulationi of errors.)

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]