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The term atomic clock watches is the most mis-used term that people often use, when referring to radio controlled watches. Radio controlled watches receive time signals from the famous radio station wwvb. technically speaking, atomic clock watches, are radio-controlled watches.

The fact is (and I wish to clear up any confusion for you right away) - an atomic clock has an atomic oscillator inside (such as a cesium or rubidium oscillator, I will tell you a bit more about the amazing atomic clocks in a minute). However, a radio-controlled watch has a radio antennae inside the case of the watch, which receives a signal that comes from a place where an atomic clock is located and then syncronizes the time automatically to the US exact time atomic clock.

  • In the US the radio signal is transmitted by the famous radio station wwvb, operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, based in Fort Collins, Colorado.
  • This radio station is unlike your ordinary radio station, because it's well known for it's accurate time synchronization services for clocks, computers and electronic gadgets via it's radio transmitters, using cesium atomic clocks.
  • Another reason why wwvb is an extraordinary radio station, is because unlike your local AM radio station that has a frequency of 1,000,000 Hz to broadcast compared to the very low 60,000 Hz frequency of wwvb - which is a testiment to it's highly efficient antenna. Plus a mega 50,000 watts transmitter power. The result is a lethal bounce of radio waves capable of a very wide North and Central America coverage, especially USA & Canada.
  • You can listen to the audio version of wwvb and wwvh broadcasts by the telephone which are for announcement of time. Also a (BCD) binary coded decimal timecode is broadcast on a 100 Hz subcarrier. geophysical alerts and GPS) global positioning system status reports, are also announced.
  • The British version is the (NPL) National Physical Laboratory's msf atomic clock, using a 60,000 Hz frequency from the British Telecom transmitter based at Rugby in England and providing time codes for the BT Speaking Time clock, British Rail Clocks and all the digital atomic watches and clocks in the British Isles.



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Discover features like:

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Feel free to discover your favourite - atomic clock watch they are so accurate!

or

Here are some of the finest atomic clock watches or wwvb radio controlled watches available or find out more below with our brief, fun-filled update on atomic clocks.

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Find below the finest selection of atomic clocks and read the truth about them:


Atomic clocks burst into the clock world three decades after quartz technology had revolutionalised the clock industry. The cesium atom's natural frequency was formally recognized as the new international unit of time in 1967:

This led to the timekeeping performance of quartz clocks been substantially surpassed by atomic clocks.

How is this possible? Simple, atoms make up a potential "pendulum" which has a reproducible rate that sets the standard and it is transmitted via microwave and satellite technology for much better accurate clocks.

This led to the creation in 1972 of the International (UTC) Universal Time Co-ordinating Center

Today the Atomic Clock Systems from over 25 countries World-Wide and the USA, feed continous data to the UTC.

In the US, Radio signals beamed from the National Institute of Standards (NIST) in Fort Collins, Colorado are received by Atomic clocks sold in the USA.

When the atomic clock is set once, it functions within the four time zones of the continental United States only, which will keep your atomic clock accurate to within a second over a million years. Never will you have to reset your atomic clock again, even for daylight-savings time, it's all done for you automatically.

Although, today different Clock manufacturers have produced many types of Atomic Clocks the atomic principles behind them are very similar.

There are now three main types of atoms for atomic clocks:

  1. cesium atoms using different levels of energy in a field of magnets.
  2. hydrogen atoms using a special walled container to retain the high state of energy.
  3. rubidium gas absorbs light, at optical frequency involving the right surrounding microwave frequency,

The most accurate and precise atomic clocks manufactured today use the cesium atom technology.

Due to the maintenance free and perfect time precision of the atomic clocks, they are in our books the ultimate clocks or clock to have in this day and age.