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Radio Controlled Atomic Timepieces

atomic clock
noun

1. A type of clock that uses an atomic resonance frequency standard to feed its counter.

2. An extremely precise timekeeping device, regulated in correspondence with a characteristic invariant frequency of an atomic or molecular system.

An often misunderstood and incorrectly labeled timepiece is the Radio Controlled Atomic Timepiece.  These devices are available as wrist watches, wall clocks, desk clocks or table clocks.  Many times one will hear someone refer to their timepiece as "atomic".  This is completely false.  The "atomic" portion of the timepiece's description, simply denotes the source origin of the transmitted time.

One should not be misled by the many "atomic time" wristwatches and timepieces, you that you see on the market today.  They are simply quartz timepieces, with a built-in radio receiver.  The Atomic Wrist Watch contains a small (but highly powerful) antenna, specifically tuned for optimal reception of the 60 kHz time signal. The signal received on the antenna is demodulated by a tiny onboard receiver, which sends the information to the watch's microprocessor for decoding.

The signal itself is a 60 kHz VLF (very low frequency) radio time code, transmitted by the NIST (United States Government's National Institute of Standards and Technology, Time and Frequency Division).  NIST radio station WWVB is located on the same site as WWV, near Fort Collins, Colorado.  The powerful WWVB radio transmitter transmits its time code over a range of 2000 miles.  The time code contains the year, day of year, hour, minute, second, and flags that indicate the status of Daylight-Savings Time, leap years, and leap seconds.  The time code is broadcast continuously, but your timepiece will usually make its corrections around Midnight, reception permitting.

The timepiece resets itself, to compensate for the normal drift of the quartz crystal.  Once your wristwatch or timepiece has initially set its time, it ensures continuing accuracy by automatically tuning into the WWVB radio signal.  As long as your wristwatch is within transmitter range, your Radio Controlled Atomic Timepiece will continue to display the precise time, even adjusting for time zone variances and Daylight-Savings Time.

Should you move your Atomic Timepiece out of transmitter range, it will continue to operate as precisely as the quartz-controlled electronics contained within.  Upon re-entering transmitter range, your timepiece will correct itself to the precise WWVB time signal,  at the passing of the next midnight adjustment.  The result of this combined technology is a self-adjusting, radio-controlled, atomic-time, wrist watch that is never off by more than a second a day.  However... keep in mind that these are not "atomic clocks".

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