[time-nuts] Re Certified Time Nut Certificate

[Neon John]

On Sat, 4 Nov 2006 22:24:36 -0500, "Daun Yeagley" <daun at yeagley.net>
wrote:

>Gee, maybe some of you need to get a Bulova Accutron.  I think that is one of
>the things that got me started on the time-nut wagon back in the sixties.  My
>wife bought me one for our first Christmas together back in 1967. When I was
>overseas for our rich uncle I used to compare it with our house standard 5060
>Cesium.  I *STILL* have it, and wear it often, as John Ackermann can attest.

Heh, me too.  I got mine in about 1970, the "astronaut see-thru dial",
of course.  Wore it until about '79 when I got the very first "Sensor"
LCD digital watch that JS&A wholesale sold for about $200, complete
with the tritium backlight.  Remember JS&A?  I took the Bulova to a
jeweler a few years ago for a tuneup and a new crystal and haven't
seen it since.  Jeweler claims it "got lost" but I think it found a
new home....

I was an apprentice I&C engineer working for TVA back then.  A bunch
of us in the instrument shop got those Sensor watches at the same time
and, guys being guys, quickly got into a timekeeping contest.
Initially competition involved trimming the oscillator capacitor
inside the watch but that quickly escalated to making tiny chip
capacitors, looking for the correct TEMPCO.  We had a large
environmental chamber that made dozens of runs, sometimes with dozens
of watches inside :-)  

I got mine to about a second a month but there were guys who did
better.  Mine was actually better than that under normal use
conditions but the rules of our contest specified the watch be removed
from the wrist every night.  This was to force everyone to deal with
temperature compensation.

I still have that watch.  It still runs but the tritium has been
through enough half-lives that the glow is just barely discernable to
night-adjusted eyes.  When new, it glowed brightly enough to use as a
flashlight for finding keyholes and the like.

John
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
Don't let your schooling interfere with your education-Mark Twain