Longtime readers of Aaron’s Engineer’s Corner series at The Public’s Radio know that public radio stations rely on precise timing to transition smoothly from local to national to local programming. At our main offices at 1 Union Station, we have a nice ESE GPS master clock with big (4in tall) six-digit clocks in each studio. But how do we handle this now that most of us are working from home (WFH), especially during pledge drives? Or other live coverage like election night? Sure we’ve got the sync timer but if that fails, everyone needs to know the exact time as a backup.

Accordingly, your Intrepid Engineer has cooked up a variety of options, ranging from big to small, expensive to cheap, that all can get the job done of telling the time right to the second.

Note: this article is cribbed from the how-to instructions provided to The Public’s Radio staff.

Option 1: DS CLOCK

DS Clock is free Windows software from Duality Software. It is highly customizable, allowing you to set up a six-digit clock using a transparent background, a font & text color of your choice, and the ability to make it “always on top” so it’s always visible regardless of what you click behind it.  Usually you’ll want to also install NetTime from www.timesynctool.com – a free software tool that automatically synchronizes your computer’s clock on a more frequent basis than Windows itself does.

• Upside: it’s free and it just takes a few minutes to set up, and it can work perfectly well for many people.
• Downside: it’s one more thing on a laptop screen that might already be pretty cluttered with the sync timer, pledge scripts, a zoom video conference, email, etc etc etc. If your vision isn’t great, you might have a lot of trouble seeing the clock clearly, which rather defeats the purpose.

How to Install:

1. Go to dualitysoft.com/dsclock For most users, you’ll want the 64-bit installation package. Download it, then double-click the downloaded file to run the installer.
2. Accept the agreement, click INSTALL, then when done, confirm LAUNCH DS CLOCK NOW is checked, then click FINISH.
3. If DS Clock does not launch, click the START button and type DS Clock and hit enter.
4. If the clock has appeared but the options window has not, right-click the digits of the time, and click OPTIONS.
5. Change the options to look like the image below. Then click CHANGE FONT.
6. The font is partly a matter of personal preference, but I recommend selecting COURIER NEW, BOLD, and SIZE=72 This will result in a very consistent appearance with high visibility. Increase/shrink the size as desired.
7. For the synchronization tab, confirm that it’s set to [ Do not synchronize ] – use NetTime for that instead. Click OK.
8. Click-n-drag the time digits to move them. Right-click them and select EXIT to make them disappear.

Option 2: ATOMIC CLOCK iOS APP

Like Windows, your iPhone or iPad updates the time automatically but it’s not quite precise enough for public radio’s needs. This app syncs to whatever server you want, and it also makes the iPhone display a fairly large & clean six-digit clock, especially when turned 90 degrees into landscape mode.

• Upside: it’s free, fairly easy to set up, and it gives you a nice easy-to-read clock that is separate from your laptop screen.  With a cheap gooseneck phone stand, or even a tabletop stand, or perhaps a tabletop wireless charging stand (if your iPhone supports wireless charging), you can position the phone to be visible at a glance while talking live on-air.
• Downside: I am not a fan of using your cellphone for anything mission-critical during live on-air operations. It removes, or at least complicates, a critical path for emergency communications. Also, some people prefer to use their phone for other purposes during a pledge drive.  

Note: if you have a second phone, or a tablet, then that removes the downsides.

How to Install:

1. Search the Apple App Store for “Atomic Clock” and add “Timo P” to your search. Look for a blue icon with the three overlapping ovals like an atom icon.
2. Once you install and open the app, tap the blue gear at the bottom right.
3. Change the settings to be as follows:
4. Timeserver = pool.ntp.org
5. Custom Time Server = (irrelevant)
6. Shown Time = local time
7. Time format = 12 hours
8. Date format = M/d/yyyy
9. Clock face = Clock face 4
10. Clock hand = Clock hand 1
11. Clock color = I recommend red/#FF375F but it’s up to you.
12. App theme = I recommend “Dark”
13. Show analog clock = off
14. Show weekday = off
15. Show date = off
16. Seconds display = Whole seconds (0 decimals)
17. Acoustic ticking = off
18. Prevent lock screen = on
19. Fluid minute hand = on
20. Fluid second hand = off
21. Greenwich Time Signal = Disabled
22. When tapping screen = Hide info bar

You’re done. Go to the top and tap “back” to use the app.

Remember to plug your phone into a charger & mute it, too!

Option 3: ATOMIC WALL CLOCK ANDROID/FIRE APP

For the Android phone/tablet users, or AmazonFire Tablets, there is Atomic Wall Clock. This one’s even easier than AtomicClock for iOS, but like AtomicClock it turns your phone/tablet into a simple, easy-to-read clock that automatically sync’s time every five minutes.

• Upside: it’s free, fairly easy to set up, and it gives you a nice easy-to-read clock that is separate from your laptop screen.  With a cheap gooseneck phone stand, or even a tabletop stand, or perhaps a tabletop wireless charging stand (if your phone/tablet supports wireless charging), you can position the phone to be visible at a glance while talking live on-air.
• Downside: I am not a fan of using your cellphone for anything mission-critical during live on-air operations. It removes, or at least complicates, a critical path for emergency communications. Also, some people prefer to use their phone for other purposes during a pledge drive.  

Note: if you have a second phone, or a tablet, then that removes the downsides.

How to Install:

1. Open the Google Play Store and search on “Atomic Wall Clock”, look for the app from Light Dot Net. Its icon is a red-on-black stylized analog clock.
2. If you’re using a Amazon Fire Tablet, you’ll have to install the Google Play Store app first. This can be a pain in the butt, but here’s a good step-by-step guide.
3. Download and open the app.

That’s it. It’ll look like this when you turn the phone/tablet into landscape mode.

Option 4: LA CROSSE “ATOMIC”

Some wall clocks, mostly from La Crosse, have “atomic” ability. This means they synchronize themselves to the special WWVB signal out of Fort Collins, Colorado. If they can regularly receive the signal, then they’re often quite accurate. And the clocks themselves tend to cost between $40 and $80; quite reasonable. There’s usually several different options for four vs six digits, temperature displays, etc.  All you really need is one that displays seconds and all the time digits are large enough to read easily.

• Upsides: cheap, easy to use. Gets the job done in many situations. Will attempt to sync by itself two to five times every night, ensuring a pretty accurate time.
• Downsides: often these clocks have trouble receiving the WWVB signal, rendering them useless.

The WWVB signal operates on 60 kHz…relatively close to the AM band (530 to 1700 kHz). Like AM, the signal travels much further at night due to skywave propagation. But even so, Rhode Island is a long, long distance from Fort Collins. In some cases the clocks work fine, but in many they don’t. It can depend on the makeup of the walls in your house, the orientation of the clock, the presence of nearby electrical devices (AC power stands for “alternating current”, it alternates at 60 Hz. Ergo 60 kHz (aka 60,000 Hz) is a harmonic, and particularly vulnerable to interference. Granted, it’s a really high harmonic, but the signal is very, very weak, too.

How to Use:

1. I recommend buying a clock you like from a visual/aesthetic standpoint and giving it a try. Skywave propagation works best at night, so try putting the clock where you want and force it to synchronize at a time no less than three hours after local sunset (which ensures darkness between RI and Colorado). Most clocks have a “sync now” button, but you can always just pull the batteries and re-insert them.
2. You can see the full La Crosse lineup here, or search on “La Crosse atomic clocks” on Amazon. If you can find one (try Amazon) the 515-1419 model is a great option as it’s quite large and easy to read.

La Crosse also has the new UltrAtomic clocks that take advantage of a superior “phase modulation” scheme on WWVB. But these are analog/hands-style only and the one I tried still had places it wouldn’t pick up the signal.

Option 5: ATOMIC WALL CLOCK on Amazon Fire Tablets

I’m repeating Option 3 here because I wanted to suggest a specific setup using cheap Amazon Fire 7 tablets, which you can get new for $50 or certified refurbished for $40. Fire Tablets are very limited in processor power, but they’re ideal for a specific purpose like this one.

Additionally, you could elect to get two tablets and use one for your clock, and one for your countdown timer, freeing up additional space on your laptop computer’s screen. 

I would recommend the following setup:

• Certified refurb Amazon Fire 7 Tablet(s)
• One gooseneck tablet stand (clock) and one tabletop stand (timer)
• Make sure you have sufficient outlets (ext cord or power strip) for the two chargers; the batteries on Fire Tablets only last so long when in constant use.
• Maybe pick up some zipties to make the wiring nice and neat.
• Install Atomic Wall Clock on one tablet (see option 3 above)
• Remember, you’ll need to install Google Play Store app first.
• For the timer tablet, you’re just using the Silk web browser, so you’ll want to block the Fire Tablet from going to “sleep” (aka “timeout”) after inactivity. Instructions for that are here.
• You’ll also want to mute the sound on the tablet.

• Upside: this is a relatively low-cost way to get a highly accurate clock display, and a timer display, separate from your laptop screen. Makes it more visible, and frees up “real estate” on your laptop screen, too.
• Downside: like any tablet, it can get squirrelly on you if/when Amazon pushes out a software update; murphy’s law dictates it will always be at the worst possible time. Amazon makes these tablets cheap explicitly to create a new vector to try and sell you stuff through, which can be annoying. And any Amazon tablet requires an Amazon account to function at all. (the Google Play Store app requires a Google account to access/download an app, too) And like any tablet, they’re really designed to last for two or three years of operation, and that’s it. So you may have to “repeat” this purchase every few years, and deal with whatever changes Amazon makes to the tablets each time. Remember these things need reasonably solid wifi internet to function, too. 

Option 6: TIME MACHINES INC clocks

The most expensive, but also the most purpose-built and reliable option, is dedicated networked time protocol (NTP) wifi clocks from TMI. They come in multiple versions, but my recommended version (SKU 760-260W-000) is: six digits (with seconds), red color, wifi-enabled, not-PoE, single-sided, 2.5 inch tall digits. 

• Upside: these clocks look very professional, are easy to read, keep VERY good time, and are ideal for public radio purposes. They boot up within a few seconds, and once programmed need almost no maintenance. The wifi antenna is high-gain so it often will work pretty much anywhere in your home, and it’s got a handy magnetic base.
• Downside: while great clocks, they’re expensive. The recommended configuration I above costs $240 each, plus shipping. Plus while the clocks look really professional in a studio, they might look a bit weird in a home office environment.  

How to Use:

I consider the TMI clocks a “weapon of last resort” just because they’re kinda expensive and require some knowledge of networking to set them up properly; too much so to really get into it here.