Accurate time without a network connection?

[David Kelly]

On Tuesday 22 April 2003 04:19 pm, John Murphy wrote:
> David Kelly <dkelly at hiwaay.net> wrote:
> >Surfing http://www.ntp.org/ has turned up a lot of information but
> >little hardware. Of most interest was use of sound card connected to
> >radio receiver for decoding the time signals. But that's a touch
> > exotic for this application. Else I'd use the $20 LCD "atomic
> > clock" I have on my wall, a $25 USB "web-cam", and some sort of
> > OCR.
>
> I nearly fell off my chair laughing after reading that 'solution'!

Its something I'm afraid I'm going to have to do it one day just for the 
silliness. "Take that Linux! See how superior FreeBSD is with such cool 
stuff!" The irony is how much less such a solution would cost than 
purpose built-for-computer radio clocks. Other variations would read 
the time off analog clock faces, and sundials.

> There's a self build method at the following URL with notes for USA
> users: http://www.buzzard.org.uk/jonathan/radioclock.html
> I'm determined to make one (or two) myself soon.

That's a really interesting URL. Had already turned up bits and pieces 
of what was mentioned there. Had fumbled around in the 
German-language-only http://www.hkw-elektronik.de/ site where many of 
the parts come from but lacked a North American distributor or any 
mention of prices.

> I think Charles Swiger gave the answer which will suit you best.

Its a solution we've already tried. A calibrated ntp.drift file helps a 
bunch but isn't good for weeks, months or years. This is Unix where 
simplicity and low maintenance designs are expected. It is not Windows 
where careers are made by keeping everyone dependent on the high 
priests.


-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly at hiwaay.net
=====================================================================
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.