Hi Larry,
Ok, I understand the need for an accurate clock, though I believe you're expectations for being able to track an overhead pass is pushing the limits of orbital prediction pretty hard. Another ham I know locally tried this, and ultimately gave up. His issue was not one of clock accuracy, but of Keps and the mathematics behind them.
But, you've still got a PC that isn't working right, and that bugs me. I just checked my PC, and it was spot on with WWV (clock changed at the chime). So, a question... Did the clock drift before the serial port was installed? Perhaps what you need is a new driver or a different type of serial port, if you haven't exhausted that route already.
Greg KO6TH
Date: Sun, 9 May 2010 21:23:58 -0600 From: W7IN@montana.com To: ko6th_greg@hotmail.com CC: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: PC clock
Greg,
During the process of getting a serial port interface that worked properly with W7-64b, I experienced a myriad of system crashes. This is possibly why my clock got off by about +30 seconds. I often check my PC's clock against the WWV clock on my wall, especially when tracking birds. It's now on to within a second. If it got off by more than 2 or 3, I'd want to corrected it; the problem is not Doppler, it's a near overhead pass (that's when I discovered the PC time error). Plus, I want correction automatic and not have to mess with it for a long time. I believe the once-a-week default in Win7 for syncing PC time with Internet server time is too loose. Once a day or even once an hour seems better to me.
73, Larry W7IN
On 5/9/2010 7:05 PM, Greg D. wrote:
Hi Larry,
I know PC clocks are not all that accurate, but we're talking seconds per month. Needing to update a clock more often than that probably isn't due to the PC hardware. I've never had one be off this much unless the clock battery was dead, and any PC new enough to run Win-7 isn't going to have that issue. I would suspect that there is a some software you are running that is messing it up. Back in the DOS days, this was a common occurrence, and I'm surprised to hear about it under something more modern, but my gut feel tells me that is what is happening.
Maybe a device driver or something else low-level. Try booting something else (a "Live" CD of Linux, for example) to prove the hardware is good. Go back to Windows piece by piece. If you can figure out which it is, then this whole idea of applying bandaids can go away.
Just a thought,
Greg KO6TH
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