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Comment by tanvach | Hacker News Reader

Related - we have an atomic Seiko wall clock expecting to have the time automatically adjusted by the WWVB LF atomic clock broadcast. Turns out, the signal is very weak where we now live. Manually setting the time on these atomic clocks is a HUGE pain (beware!).

Turns out it's possible to emulate the atomic clock signal quite easily with a Raspberry Pi, or in my case I put together Arduino code that can emulate atomic clock broadcasts from around the world using an ESP32 module using NTP servers: https://github.com/tanvach/clocksync

The history of these atomic clock broadcast signals and their differences in different countries is quite fascinating.

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The loopstick antennas used in many inexpensive WWVB receivers have a fairly strong null, so rotating the clock 90 degress can make reception possible.

I would be very careful of transmitting on the same frequency as WWVB. It is very likely illegal.

That’s a very good point but the transmission power is extremely weak and won’t propagate more than 1m.

Quite possibly, however the range is stated in centimetres so practically it’s unlikely to be a concern.

Get out

Supposedly you can do it with a stock smartphone or tablet by using the audio hardware to deliberately generate RF noise that works like a WWVB signal. https://github.com/kangtastic/timestation

You do not have an atomic clock. Seiko does not manufacture “Atomic Clocks” for the $30 shelf in Target. You (and others here) don’t seem to know what an atomic clock is, or how it works, or what it costs!

Your Seiko is a radio clock. It’s probably got a crystal or some other normal timekeeping gadget, and the external WWV signal is decoded to properly set it.

“Atomic Clocks” are marketed to ignorant consumers who blithely use the term when the only external source is a radio station. The Stratum Zero clock may be atomic, but the caesium is not to be found on your nightstand.

No caesium atoms would be found in your Seiko, bro.

Can you please make your substantive points without swipes? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

If you know more than someone else, that's great! By all means, share some of what you know, so the rest of us can learn. Just please do it without putdowns.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

That distinction is obviously quite apparently from the context. I’m using atomic clock to be consistent with what these radio clocks are marketed as.

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