MSF based World Time Zone Clock

hamtech

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MSF Based Time Zone Clock

I am a radio amateur and it is very useful to have a clock display showing the times in other parts of the world so I set about building one using a DS1307 and a Picaxe chip.. I then thought to link the DS1307 to a accurate time source and decided to use MSF on 60Khz. I bought the DS1307 clock chip, a couple of Picaxe and a MSF receiver module and set about building it.

The project uses two separate picaxe chips and two LCD displays - 1 x 4 Line LCD and 1 x 2 line OLED (the 4x line could easily be a 2 line if you take out the line that says Bob's MSF Clock). With an I2C capable LCD you proably get away with one display subject to your requirements.

The MSF clock is built on one board and the Regional clock on another small board but that is up to the constructor. The key thing is that the MSF board writes the correct time to the DS1307 every minute to update it, if a good time check is received. I am using G6EJD MSF receiving code with some modifications to suit me for this purpose - my thanks to him.

The regional clock part reads from the DS1307 and displays the time on it's own OLED (in my case) display. The Regional clock element has its own picaxe chip and displays sequential the time in 10 cities around the globe with a special display for milton keynes where I live when it gives the day, date, time and room temperature as well. Other cities only have the time displayed. The regional clock cycles continuously through the cities. It is easy to add a city as long as you have the time difference the code is easily added to.

This has been running for well over a year now, the only problem I have is on occasion the transmitter is subject to maintenance and then reception is lost. It will correct itself when the signal returns. You do need a decent signal for the MSF receiver and I made a larger ferrite aerial than was supplied with the clock chip, Although that does work and does depend on where you live in the UK or elsewhere.

I used I2C for the first time and also how to use a ds18sb20 temp sensor.


My thanks to G6EJD for the use of his MSF code, the regional clock code is my own. I hope this may be of interest to someone there is plenty of scope for changes..

Each program code can be opened by using 'Open with Program Editor' as I haven't quite got the hang of uploading properly.


Hamtech
 

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