Friday, November 10, 2017

Timely matters




          We’ve gone atomic.


          Our trusty kitchen clock threw up its hands and decided it couldn’t handle one more Daylight Savings time change. We’ve always liked that clock, had it for years, so My Guy scoured the internet until he found one closest in appearance. Even after only a few days we’d grown tired of automatically turning our heads to the blank spot on the wall where the first one used to hang, so we were grateful when its replacement arrived yesterday.

          When My Guy unpacked it, I heard an “Uh oh” from the other room.

          Turns out, you shouldn’t buy based only on appearance.

          Per the instructions that came with our new timepiece:

         

   For the best reception, please place clock on a wall that faces Ft.Collins, Colorado. When the battery is installed, the hands will move to the 12:00 position and search for the radio signal. Do not attempt to reset the hands manually even though the time on clock might be incorrect. The clock is synchronizing to the WWVB signal and once the radio signal is decoded, the hands will automatically adjust to the correct time. This may take up to 5 nights if there is atmospheric interference.

(WWVB is a time signal radio station near Fort Collins,Colorado and is operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Most radio-controlled clocks in North America use WWVB's transmissions to set the correct time.)

             Added to that are details like the possibility the hands might decide to spin on their own to autocorrect, or that electrical storms between us and Colorado might affect the signal.
         And weirdly, guess what direction our kitchen wall faces?

12 comments:

  1. You made me laugh. Our atomic clock also gave up the ghost, so I went to the local store to buy a replacement. I couldn't find one like our old one, so I got one that said, "set and forget" and doesn't use a signal. Strangely, it did reset itself last week! I had to find out how it works, and it turns out it has a second battery that lasts five years which is pre-set to change twice a year. It worked, so that's all that matters. :-)

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    1. Cool! So next spring maybe we won't have to teeter on the step stool to change ours?

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  2. we have an old clock that chimes on the hour and the half hour. it had lost it's resonance so I took it in to a clock repair guy who just bent the striker arm a little and the resonance came back. it didn't care for the journey though as the chime would not stay in sinc with the time and then finally, we were having to wind it too often so we just let it run down. the clock is still sitting on the bookcase and it is perpetually 5 minutes to 6 at our house.

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  3. I'm guessing your wall faces away from Colorado. I usually find it best to make a clean break from the old and get something different with things like clocks. It doesn't take long to get used to a new style and ten years from now you'll be saying "I love this old clock".

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    1. No - amazingly the only place we can put it in the kitchen faces in exactly the right direction. It was meant to be.

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  4. What crazy instructions! We have radio-controlled clocks here at school, but I've never heard that they have to be on a wall facing a certain direction. Sometimes they do have to reset, and we've found that putting them on the windowsill helps. I guess they get a better signal that way. But once they're reset, back on the wall they go.

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  5. I love my atomic clock. I only had to face it west when I put in the first battery and the first replacement battery several years later. It knows what it has to do, twice a year.

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  6. Wowsers.
    I always remember just how 'over clocked' our house is when daylight savings demands a change...

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  7. We really depend on our kitchen clock as well, even though there is a digital readout on almost everything else! I guess we're luddites here. Our wall hanging clocks are battery powered. -Jenn

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  8. Odd. I hope this works out. I would be afraid that it would be incorrect some of the time.

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  9. Okay, this is way over my head, but I sure enjoyed it all. Thought you were joking, at first. Clocks remind me of my other grandma's big white house with a swing on the porch. I remember the sounds in the middle of the night of the clock on the mantle, ticking and chiming.

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  10. I have never heard of an atomic clock, where have I been all this time :(

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