[comp.dcom.telecom] Master Clocks Around the World

Linc Madison <rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu> (04/06/90)

In article <5958@accuvax.nwu.edu> Blake Farenthold (blake@pro-party.cts.com) 
writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 227, Message 4 of 10

>There is also a "modem" clock operated by Leitech Video that gives the
>time at 300 baud (Eastern, I think) ... but when I ran my time-set
>program on the Mac it doesn't look like it made the switch last night as
>my -1 adjustment to Central time resulted in the clock being an hour
>behind.

Exactly right.  Both the Virginia and the Canada numbers are *always*
on Eastern Standard Time, so CDT is +/- 0 hours time difference.  One
nice feature about the program, though, is that if you adjust the time
difference setting, say from -1 hour to 0 hours, your clock is
adjusted automatically without another call to the master clock.  (If
you just change your clock by an hour from the Control Panel, you lose
a few seconds during the time you have the time selected.)

For any interested Macintosh users, I think the file is available as
some variation on "Set Clock" in the info-mac archives by ftp from
sumex-aim.stanford.edu.  The program just outdials at 300 bps on your
modem to the master clock in VA or Ont. and receives a series of ASCII
data lines along the lines of

023440
023441
023442
023443
900406

Your clock is then reset and you are told how much fast/slow it was.


Linc Madison   =   rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu
Disclaimer: I have no connection to Leitech, and I *clearly* have no
connection to sumex-aim.snodfart.edu  ;-)

john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (04/06/90)

jeh@simpact.com writes:

> the local telco (Pacific*Bell) clock seems to be synched very well to
> WWV (as received via shortwave).  Right to the tick, as far as I can
> determine!  Do they run a receiver on WWV and automatically adjust

I am told that is what they do by my Pac*Bell friends. On the other
hand, there is GTE who allowed their Los Gatos time signal to get
several minutes off before a disgruntled subscriber finally called in
to complain!

Oh, well, I'm sure GTE would normally be happy if their time signal
indicated the correct century.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 723 1395
    john@bovine.ati.com     | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !