Michael A. Peters wrote:
Something that has bugged me for years - I have to manually set the time on my microwave, on my stove, on my VCR (it will auto-sync if I pay for cable, but cable does not offer me what I consider to be programming worth what they want to charge - well, I would watch the sci-fi channel, had I the time to watch it ...), my wall clocks, etc.
[snip]
That's been around for as long as I can remember... at least 30 years... in North America the WWV time signal and it's associates WWV-B all shortwave signals, synch'd to the US Naval Observatory Atomic (Cesium) clock which is the "official" time in the USA.
I'm seeing more and more consumer-grade devices that listen for that signal.
Walmart sells "ATOMIC CLOCKS", well, of course the clocks are not atomic... but they have a short wave receiver in them, and a switch on the back to set your UTC offset (since WWV broadcasts UTC) and something to indicate whether you participate in Daylight Saving Time or not.
So.... why isn't that technology in every consumer device with a clock? Because it costs $1 to add it at the mfg level and not enough people want it.
Now that technology is being usurped by GPS... a GPS unit in a vehicle could set it's own timezone... it know where it is (from the GPS signals) and it knows what time it is (from the GPS signals)
Except GPS is strictly line-of-sight.... so unless I keep all my appliances in an open field... they won't get the GPS signals. :-)
<paranoia>
Beside, then the gov't would start stealing time.... they'd slow the clocks during working hours so you work longer for the same pay, and they'd speed the clocks up during off hours so you get back to work sooner.
</paranoia>
:-)
This may all become pretty obscure as I believe MIT has developed a real atomic clock that will fit in a cell phone and is quite cheap to make. As a single chip, it may endup in all types of devices.
One thing to remember is WWV is not always available in all locations at all times. I use WWV to set my watch once in a while as a reference but there are times I just cannot pick it up.
-- Robin Laing
