atomic watch and year 2100

olasek

olasek

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olasek
I purchased one of those solar-powered atomic watches (synced to radio signals from Fort Collins, Co), amazing technology in such small packaged and not terribly expensive. The signal transmitted by this antenna carries all the info about date and time including STD/DST switch. Buy while reading the manual for the watch I came to a startling statement:

The watch is designed to update the date and day of the week automatically for the period January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2099. Updating of the date by signal reception will no longer be performed starting from January 1, 2100.

This begs two question. Who in the hell can know what will happen in 2100 and second, assuming this info is true what's so special about 2100.

Shall we revisit this subject on January 1, 2100? :D
 
It will be like Y2K, you just wait and see!



olasek said:
I purchased one of those solar-powered atomic watches (synced to radio signals from Fort Collins, Co), amazing technology in such small packaged and not terribly expensive. The signal transmitted by this antenna carries all the info about date and time including STD/DST switch. Buy while reading the manual for the watch I came to a startling statement:

The watch is designed to update the date and day of the week automatically for the period January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2099. Updating of the date by signal reception will no longer be performed starting from January 1, 2100.

This begs two question. Who in the hell can know what will happen in 2100 and second, assuming this info is true what's so special about 2100.

Shall we revisit this subject on January 1, 2100? :D
Click to expand...
 
olasek said:
I purchased one of those solar-powered atomic watches (synced to radio signals from Fort Collins, Co), amazing technology in such small packaged and not terribly expensive. The signal transmitted by this antenna carries all the info about date and time including STD/DST switch. Buy while reading the manual for the watch I came to a startling statement:

The watch is designed to update the date and day of the week automatically for the period January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2099. Updating of the date by signal reception will no longer be performed starting from January 1, 2100.

This begs two question. Who in the hell can know what will happen in 2100 and second, assuming this info is true what's so special about 2100.

Shall we revisit this subject on January 1, 2100? :D
Click to expand...

One unusual thing about 2100 is that it will not be a leap year. Years divisible by 100 must also be divisible by 400 to be leap years, so 1900 wasn't, 2000 was, 2100, 2200, and 2300 won't be.
 
JeffDG said:
One unusual thing about 2100 is that it will not be a leap year.
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But that's part of the already existing Gregorian calendar, in use since about 1600, it is already programmed in, nothing new here, no surprises.
 
Probably related to the watches internal memory. A hundred years' worth of calendar is a lot of info to store in a small package.
 
Hank S said:
Probably related to the watches internal memory. A hundred years' worth of calendar is a lot of info to store in a small package.
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But the WWVB signal doesn't need the watch to store anything...it's all part of the signal specification. It transmits a defined 60 bits of information each minute (yes, the bandwidth is 1 bps)
91b848880893225eec571e7c1a3f0dbc.jpg


http://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/2422.pdf
 
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I dunno. The govt used to big big on 99 year leases. Must be a holdover from that,they're willing to give access for 99 years but not 100 years or indefinitely. Probably rooted in some obscure legal debate somewhen.
 
olasek said:
But that's part of the already existing Gregorian calendar, in use since about 1600, it is already programmed in, nothing new here, no surprises.
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It might not be programmed in. That was actually one of the Y2K bugs. Many systems were programmed with the 100-year exception but not the divisible-by-four hundred exception to the exception. Ironically, improperly-programmed systems that only looked for divisible-by-four would work fine in 2000, but not in 2100. So it's possible that's how the watch is programmed. (2100 is evenly divisible by 4 and 100, but not 400.)
 
Lindberg said:
It might not be programmed in.
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Regardless, the signal sends complete information to set date and time, no programming is actually necessary (programming is only necessary for watch's autonomous operation).
 
olasek said:
Regardless, the signal sends complete information to set date and time, no programming is actually necessary (programming is only necessary for watch's autonomous operation).
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The watch might honor the leap-year bit in the WWVB signal. Not all devices do. The bigger issue might be that WWVB only uses a two-digit year. So if the watch displays a four-digit year, it probably assumes the first two digits are 20.
 
Again, these are issues only relevant if you transition some important milestone (2100, etc). Even if you face a transition that can mess you up you can still reset and continue afterwards. BTW, no year is displayed by the watch, the watch only displays time (24 hr format), day of the week and day of the month (all analog display).
 
None.

Hence the whole subject has humorous undertones. :wink2:

I am only trying to figure out what made them include this cryptic sentence in the manual, perhaps it was from some overzealous technical writer.
 
olasek said:
Again, these are issues only relevant if you transition some important milestone (2100, etc). Even if you face a transition that can mess you up you can still reset and continue afterwards. BTW, no year is displayed by the watch, the watch only displays time (24 hr format), day of the week and day of the month (all analog display).
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Ahh. So if your watch displays day of the week, that would be the problem.

Day of the week isn't part of the WWVM broadcast, so the watch would have to calculate it based on the date. Thus on Jan 1, 2100 it will display as Sat instead of Fri since it will think it's Jan 1, 2000.

After March 1st, 2100 it gets worse by a day, it will display as Wed instead of Monday.

It will however get itself back into sync in the year 2400.
 
I think the bigger question is "Will you be here in 2100 to give a siht if it works or not" :dunno: :dunno:
 
olasek said:
None.

Hence the whole subject has humorous undertones. :wink2:

I am only trying to figure out what made them include this cryptic sentence in the manual, perhaps it was from some overzealous technical writer.
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Dad gum lawyers making them CYA. Just in case your grandson is still wearing it then, and the day screws up.

But I have a hard time figuring out why when the date rolls over from Dec 31, 2099 to Jan 1, 2100 (shown as "Dec 31" and "Jan 1" by the watch's hands), the day of the week hand will magically advance two days . . .
 
A friend of mine here in FoCo, his dad works as an electrical engineer at the transmitter for the atomic watch. I'll ask him and report back.
 
Solar powered watch, how do you know what time it is at night..?? :lol:
 
It all depends on the firmware inside the watch. It may be much less capable than the sync protocol. It doesn't need to be, but for that to be relevant, you have to presume much higher quality software than you can realistically expect in a consumer product.

There is a lot of really crappy software out there.

Of course we can't know for sure, but a really likely thing is that the display hardcodes the first two digits of the year as "20." Kinda like printed checks from the 70s that had the date represented as "________ 19__." It's not the calendar that stopped at 2000, it was the representation.
 
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Hank S said:
Dad gum lawyers making them CYA. Just in case your grandson is still wearing it then, and the day screws up.

But I have a hard time figuring out why when the date rolls over from Dec 31, 2099 to Jan 1, 2100 (shown as "Dec 31" and "Jan 1" by the watch's hands), the day of the week hand will magically advance two days . . .
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It probably wouldn't but the next time it polled the radio signal, it would reset itself to Jan. 1, 2000.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
A friend of mine here in FoCo, his dad works as an electrical engineer at the transmitter for the atomic watch. I'll ask him and report back.
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So here's the scoop. That date has something to do with the watch manufacturer and nothing to do with the sync site in FoCo. Apparently in all reality the site will be gone LONG before 2100 because compared to GPS, it isnt as reliable or as useful. So the signal will soon switch over.
 
LDJones said:
What are the odds it will still be working then? :dunno:
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If it's not the original owner gets a full refund with interest, receipt must be brought to the store where originally purchased by the original owner!! :yes::yes:
 
FoCo keeps growing, the NIMBY's will have the WWV towers torn down long before 2100. LOL... those terrible ugly towers... and all that Bravo Sierra...
 
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