I have a lo-tech approach to time sync - I always carry a radio controlled clock with me on activations (I think mine RXs on 77.5kHz). Every time I start up the Windows 10 tablet on a summit, I go into Date/Time settings and manually reset the seconds while watching the clock! This keeps me sufficiently in-sync for the next hour or so!
I am now regularly getting calls from known SOTA chasers on FT8. @IK2LEY and @F5LKW are regular FT8 chasers for instance. Still plenty of calls from other stations too of course, but I’m happy to spread awareness of SOTA to the uninitiated too!
Just a quick note on time synch for FT8. There are various bits of software that will do this using GPS:
The most common GPS dongle is a u-blox 7 (about £12). If you install the u-blox drivers you will discover that it does not work with either of the programs above. The trick is not to install any drivers and to let Windows 10 configure the dongle as a generic USB serial device. It runs at 4800 Bauds. After that, it’s all plain sailing.
That’s several hours of my life wasted. Hopefully this will save someone else some time.
People are spending longer on this time sync thing than the total time it would take them to manually reset a tablet/laptop clock on every individual activation they are ever likely to do!
As Tom says, it doesn’t take long to manually set the time. However I needed a stable time for longer than an hour or two while using the laptop to operate a WSPR receving station, so I decided to do the GPS dongle route. I too bought a u-blox 7, and was disappointed to find problems using it in the Windows 10 environment. Windows 10 was determined to identify the device as a “sensor” and not as a COM: device.
I finally discovered NMEATime2. https://www.visualgps.net/
The program has a free evaluation period, so I downloaded it, and it just worked, no fuss, no mess.
The free period has expired, but everything seems to be working just fine, and I would be willing to pay the cost of the program, in any case.
Ian
VE6IXD
Yes the NMEAtime2 app works with the u-blox drivers (and appears to be the only app that does). But as I mentioned above, if you uninstall the u-blox drivers and then plug the dongle in, W10 recognises it as a generic USB-serial device and that works with the other apps.
Tom likes old tech. He would probably prefer to use a sundial except that we seldom see the sun here.
I tried the above fix of uninstalling the drivers, etc on Win 7 last night, but could not get BktTimeSync to work.
Perhaps I’ll also have to waste several hours of my life, or would an upgrade to Win10 would be quicker?
W7 - no idea. Sorry. One of the problems with Windows is that every install seems to be different in some way. I have suggested that this fix works with W10 but I could not guarantee that it works with every W10 install… [or even reliably with my install - as it’s still flaky].
I’ve been playing with a third way, based on ideas expressed by others on this or other FT8 related threads. That is, I don’t need to know the exact time, just ensure that my computer time accurately aligns with the 15 second FT8 frames.
I can see from the “DT” values shown in the WSJT-X display whether I am in the ball park.
If necessary, I then want to nudge my computer time forward or backward - I don’t need to know the absolute time.
This reads the computer time, adds a specified number of milliseconds, and resets the time to that value. In this case, 500 milliseconds forward. Changing the number to -500 would set it 500 milliseconds back.
This is just proof of concept - and I take no credit as the younger generation wrote the code for me (and indeed lent me the Surface Pro that I used on my activations).
Possible advantages are - no need to carry an accurate clock or GPS device, and no need for an Internet connection.
… so next years challenge will be what meal can be prepared whilst operating at the summit with bonus points for 3 courses and no grass in the pan!
Rather more on topic slow progress with the headless raspberry PI solution. Current state of progress - Raspberry Pi in headless mode working in the shack with FT8, FT 817, RX working and decoding…
Still to fix… No TX audio - just purcahsed a second USB audio device so will attempt to use one for recieve and a separate one for transmit…
… Timing … not worked out how to sync the Pi with either the phone or my watch both of which have blurtooth and GPS but I bet it will be impossible to link - i expect that I willo have to use a more basic adjustment method instead!
… 5v supply for the raspberry pi - although that is just a case of connecting another set of leads up. So I’m confident it might be ready for 2021…
