Period clock change

[Flyfisher]

Digital radios receive regular time updates when they are on and receiving data. When switched off they use an internal clock to keep time, but it has no reference to the outside world. Thus, a digital radio/alarm would still operate to the old time. But once switched on, the radio would receive the new time and set its internal clock accordingly. At least, that's how my digital radio behaves.

As an aside, I have a couple of cheap clocks in my study that synchronise to an atomic clock via radio signals (once called "Rugby MSF" clocks, but the signal is no longer transmitted from Rugby - but I digress from my digression). I have never caught them changing over to GMT or BST but I happened to be up late last night when there was a sudden flurry of furious ticking as both clocks went forward 11 hours (their mechanism can't go backwards). Isn't technology wonderful?

 

[CatherineB]

Digital radios receive regular time updates when they are on and receiving data. When switched off they use an internal clock to keep time, but it has no reference to the outside world. Thus, a digital radio/alarm would still operate to the old time. quote]

Exactly! Not much use for getting you up in the morning after the clocks go forward, is it? "Wakey wakey, it's 8am, but until 2 seconds ago I thought it was 7am, so you're an hour late - har har har!!!".

 

[FamilyWiggs]

My digital clock radio, on which the alarm/radio only goes off Mon-Fri, doesn't reset its time until the radio is turned on. So, if I don't turn the radio on at all on the Sunday that the clocks change, what time will my alarm/radio go off on Monday? I wish I'd left it off today, to see if it woke me an hour early tomorrow - except that I don't want to be woken an hour early!

And, BTW, PPUK still seems to be out of time, as I'm writing this at 3.28 pm, but what time will the site say I posted?

Yours, with brain-ache...

Your post was at 3.31pm which seems to be correct.

Incidentally - if your clock hadn't updated today, it would still have gone off ath the usual time tomorrow - but you would be an hour late not early! :roll:

 

[Flyfisher]

Perhaps not all digital radios are made in the same way. According to this factsheet for a Pure digital radio, the internal clock is kept updated from the broadcast time data even when the radio is in standby mode, so it should recognise the BST/GMT time change and the alarm would go off at the correctly set time the following morning.
http://support.pure.com/attachment_files.php?s=bf29897a767cab9c41e7707f97beb799&id=53

Obviously, this is a simple sort of thing to engineer, but it's another example of wastefulness in terms of energy consumption. Indeed, the whole changeover from FM to DAB is a 'green' disaster area, but perhaps we shouldn't pursue that particular digression.

 

[JohnB]

Of course DAB radio is no use if there's no signal where you live. I'm missing all the period programmes on Radio 7, and the period music on Planet Rock since I moved to Wales .

 

[CatherineB]

Your post was at 3.31pm which seems to be correct.

Incidentally - if your clock hadn't updated today, it would still have gone off ath the usual time tomorrow - but you would be an hour late not early! :roll:

Curiouser and curiouser (period quote from?)... the PPUK site on MY computer says my post was at 4.31pm!

And yes, I know the clocks went back today, but I'd be more worried about getting it wrong the other way around :wink:

Speaking of period digital radios, any idea why the expensive Pure one in our kitchen stopped tuning in to anything a couple of years ago (it's a period feature, so still sitting on the shelf there!)? It just switches on and shows a blank screen, not even the "tuning" message