[time-nuts] Heathkit clock available

Bill Hawkins bill.iaxs at pobox.com
Wed Aug 10 02:03:42 EDT 2016


The GC-1000 was the Most Accurate Clock. This new GC-1006 is Most
Reliable without mentioning accuracy.

The ad says that the standby oscillator can be calibrated by pushing
some buttons on the back. Wondering how they do that almost makes me
want to buy a simple clock that is $100 per pound. Perhaps there is a
motor that turns a tuning capacitor to make the standby oscillator match
the line frequency. More likely software changes the number of counts of
some inexpensive XO per cycle.

I have an alarm clock with 2" seven segment LEDS that I can read without
glasses. Its backup oscillator is LC, and somewhat faster than the line.
It has carried me through the short outages I've experienced.

There's not enough info on what's behind the Santa Cruz rebirth of
Heathkit. If I thought they were solid, I'd buy a kit to help prime the
pump, so to speak. As it is, I'll be looking for neon-colored seven
segment arrays a bit taller than those in the GC-1006.

No doubt, there are many schemes for disciplining 60 (or 50) Hz
oscillators with 1 PPS.

TIA for any helpful comments.

Bill Hawkins




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