[time-nuts] Spectracom 8170 -> SWCC clock

[paul swed]

Some of the spectracoms like my 8170 actually put out timecodes and had
other options that were clever. It really depends on your comfort with
technology. Nothing at all wrong with a 0000 detector using 74ls30s or any
other mix of logic hitting a monostable and then a power transistor.
Snitching its voltage from the 8170 supply.
Next level any of the very simple micros if you have a flare for a little
programming more so then an iron.
What you needs very reasonable.
Please share a pix of the WU clock.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Jim Hickstein <jxh at jxh.com> wrote:

> I have a Spectracom 8170 in the living room (who doesn't?), and a Western
> Union time-service clock, a.k.a SWCC clock -- a nice one, in a 3-foot-high
> wood case.  I've been watching TV with this combination for years and years
> but never got around to feeding a pulse from the 8170 to discipline the
> other one. Now that Western Union no longer provides the service. :-)  But
> it just begs to be done.
>
> I did draw up a TTL circuit, once (on a napkin, naturally, which I have
> now misplaced), that could live inside the 8170.  I figured out the minimum
> number of inputs needed to detect when the MM:SS LED displays said 00:00
> (for one second).  It would close a relay, which could feed the
> winding-battery power to the hour-set solenoid down a pair of wires from 10
> feet away.  But I never built it.
>
> A little over a year ago the TS clock was getting gummy and free-running
> slower and slower, so I sent it to the clock hospital.  It's back and
> free-running nicely, so maybe it's finally time I did this.  Anyone got a
> better idea than my little TTL circuit, on a breadboard inside the 8170?
>  I'd like to get it across the rear panel without cutting a new hole, if I
> can avoid it.  But maybe the right connector would do.  Another time-code
> receiver in the TS clock, e.g. a GPS module that provides a relay closure
> for 1 second on the hour (if such exists) might be neater.  But the living
> room faces north.
>
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