Time Travel?

kevindickinson

Active Member
Woke up to my radio synced clock showing this on Sunday morning.

It reset itself to correct time during the day.

No power outage so can only assume signal was wrong?

Anybody else had issues?
f5b2e0df2e5bc9d42cf15606eff8fabd.jpg



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My kitchen clock occasionally gets its knickers in a twist and be a multiple of four hours out from the correct time.
 
I'm amazed 1934 is a valid value. My guess is that invalid input didn't get trapped by the Roberts code and resulted in that display.
 
But surely not nearly 81 years out?
It only shows the time of day. The multiple of four hours discrepancy when it gets confused I assume is an artifact of it checking every four hours whereas my Casio watches check once a day at two in the morning or sometimes miss which I can see at a glance from the signal display but then they just keep on running at approximately the right time losing maybe one second every few days.
 
Just been checking how it gets the date & time.

The manual says:
The clock radio will then display "Clock not Set...". The clock handswill then move to 12:00. The radio will scan for DAB signals and if a DAB signal is found it will then show the current time and date in the display. The clock hands will then move to show the correct time.

So looks like it gets the date and time from the DAB signal. It was tuned to Radio 4 overnight so only explanation I can think of was the signal was corrupt/incorrect overnight.

Not sure how often it checks time but it was still wrong middle of the day but had set itself back to correct time without any intervention by evening.


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BH : The photo was posted by kevindickinson not gomezz

gomezz : I have owned MSF / DCF77 analogue clocks that need to be stepped to the correct 4 hour period, i.e.
if the current time is 12:00 - 03:59 then the hands must be stepped to 12:00
if the current time is 04:00 - 07:59 then the hands must be stepped to 04:00
if the current time is 08:00 - 11:59 then the hands must be stepped to 08:00

maybe your clock requires something similar
 
The hands normally set themselves (they go spinning round) if they get out of sync, eg after a power failure. Takes a few minutes while they tune in get the signal and set.

It set the time correctly itself some time during Sunday. And didn't need any manual intervention.

Only have 2 theories to date:
1. DAB signal overnight some how sent the wrong time then was corrected on Sunday.
2. Power failure and clock resets to a default of 1934 (seems a strange choice) and it did not pick up signal for a few hours. But never seen this before

Will test 2 by unplugging power at some point.

It's got me curious!


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Confirmed tonight that issue was not loss of power by disconnecting from mains. That resets other settings (eg background light intensity) but clock says "clock not set" until it gets DAB signal then shows time and hands adjust to match this.

So the 1934 date must have been transmitted over the air, or at least that's the only explanation I can think of.


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Perhaps they accidentally picked up a radio signal from the star Sarin in the constellation of Hercules which happens to be 91 light years away from Earth?
 
I'm thinking someone might have tinkered with it using a sonic screwdriver but can't think Who?


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