program to read NBS time

[Chuck Musciano]

> Looking for a program that will dial up and read the time from National
> Bureau Standard and then set the local computer clock.. 

This might be harder than you think, unless you have a special number for
NBS.  If you call (303) 499-7111, you'll get the audio that is broadcast
from WWV, in Fort Collins, Colorado.  The time is announced each minute,
and you get a tick each second.  If you listen closely, you'll hear the
tick, plus a varying length 100 Hz tone.  The length of the tone
represents either a zero or a one, and the first forty five ticks are used
to encode the current time of day and day of the year, plus any correction
for UTC and tenths of leap seconds applied to the time.

In addition, you can get the station ID at the top of the hour, western
hemisphere storm information at 8, 9, and 10 minutes after the hour, the
Omega report at 16 after (Omega is a very low frequency navigation aid,
and the report gives the current signal degradation), and geo alerts at 18
after (geo alerts give the current state of solar flares and the
geomagnetic field).  The geo alerts have been pretty active with the
current round of solar flares occuring.

I would suggest that the easiest way to solve your problem is to buy a
Heathkit "Most Accurate Clock" ($275) with the serial interface ($50) and
attach it to your Sun.  It will deliver the time each minute to your
machine.  I seem to recall, though, some items in sun-spots detailing a
voltage problem in the clock's serial board which meant you had to do
something special to get it to work with Suns.

Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com