Battery Eliminator For Atomic Clock

[JAS]

I am considering a MFJ-148RC dual time zone clock for amateur radio use. It requires two AA batteries. Some reviews have stated that this goes through batteries rather quickly. Would a device like this be suitable to use a battery eliminator in? If so, are all battery eliminators created equally or are some better quality than others?

https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/clocks/6118.html

 

[Lynx_Arc]

for the price of a battery eliminator (3VDC power adapter) and to get it to work I would consider possibly using an external battery holder and 2 alkaleak D cells instead depending on the current draw D cells could last 4-6 times or more as long as AAs.

 

[BVH]

The Lynx Arc solution would provide power during power outages too vs the wall wart solution.

 

[JAS]

for the price of a battery eliminator (3VDC power adapter) and to get it to work I would consider possibly using an external battery holder and 2 alkaleak D cells instead depending on the current draw D cells could last 4-6 times or more as long as AAs.

Thank you for the replies. By any chance do you have a URL to a place that I can buy this?

 

[StarHalo]

$65? Not knocking the utility of good timekeeping hardware for radio use, but at that price you could buy a tablet running a world time app and have a much larger, much more informative clock display. I used my phone's clock when I was listening to scheduled broadcasts on HAARP and found it was dead-on accurate to well under a second, I made no effort to sync or check it beforehand.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Thank you for the replies. By any chance do you have a URL to a place that I can buy this?

They should have them at a local electronic supply store or on Ebay or an electronic distributor. I didn't look at the link you gave but if that battery eliminator is $65 that is an insane price if you can solder you can buy a 3V wallwart and solder on some clip lead ends and clip them to the proper battery terminals for under $10 I figure. You may find something at a Walmart store that has a 3V output for cheap also.

 

[JAS]

World Time App

$65? Not knocking the utility of good timekeeping hardware for radio use, but at that price you could buy a tablet running a world time app and have a much larger, much more informative clock display. I used my phone's clock when I was listening to scheduled broadcasts on HAARP and found it was dead-on accurate to well under a second, I made no effort to sync or check it beforehand.

Thank you for that suggestion. I just recently started using my Samsung Galaxy Tab E Android tablet where I typically sit, so I may just try this. Can you pass along which world time app you use? I will try it!

 

[StarHalo]

Re: World Time App

Thank you for that suggestion. I just recently started using my Samsung Galaxy Tab E Android tablet where I typically sit, so I may just try this. Can you pass along which world time app you use? I will try it!

Not an Android guy, but this list looks pretty helpful; the TimeAndDate.com one lets you set alarms by different clocks, so if you have a broadcast coming up in India, you can just set it to that clock/their local time, no time zone or DST conversion math needed, very clever.

 

[DoctorMemory]

Re: World Time App

It's an atomic clock -- it should have atomic power. Perhaps a small nuclear decay/thermoelectric device like use on space probes?

 

[lumen aeternum]

Re: World Time App

It's an atomic clock -- ...

Does it come with a really really big magnifying glass?

 

[Timothybil]

Re: World Time App

Another alternative would be NiMH cells and a small charger like the Nitecore D2. Once you get a charger and some cells I am sure you can find other places to use rechargeable cells. Remember, NiMH cells also come in AAA, C, and D sizes.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: World Time App

Another alternative would be NiMH cells and a small charger like the Nitecore D2. Once you get a charger and some cells I am sure you can find other places to use rechargeable cells. Remember, NiMH cells also come in AAA, C, and D sizes.

Depending on if the clock has some memory or not and if it operates well off nimh's slightly lower voltage this may not be that good of an idea as having to reset the clock more often could be more annoying that it is worth IMO.
One other option is USB power and a regulator circuit but the power bank would need to be able to operate at very low current which most won't do. I have an atomic clock that runs off 2AAs and it seems to do ok I'm thinking it will get about a year on the batteries.

 

[Timothybil]

Re: World Time App

If it is an atomic clock, it should listen to WWV as soon as it powers up so it can set the correct time, although it may have a short-term memory if you change the cells quick enough. Either way, if you have an auxiliary external temp sensor, it might take a while for it to sync with the main clock.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: World Time App

If it is an atomic clock, it should listen to WWV as soon as it powers up so it can set the correct time, although it may have a short-term memory if you change the cells quick enough. Either way, if you have an auxiliary external temp sensor, it might take a while for it to sync with the main clock.

I have several digital atomic clock/thermometers and none of them have any short term memory when I change batteries in them I have to start all over setting date and time zone and time each time and having 4 of them is a pain. Only one of them has a DST setting the others you either have to change the time back/forth twice a year or fake it out by changing time zones. The good thing about the Atomic clock is it keeps the seconds right. The Temperature sensors sync pretty quickly within minutes.

 

[JAS]

I ended up not buying that clock. I am convinced that it is simply too expensive for what it does and now I have my legacy Sony Dash "Chumby-ized" displaying TWO time zones! Thank you for all of the responses!

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Good deal then, I've replaced my one go-to alarm clock years back that was a dual alarm with large red letters with a Sony alarm clock I bought at a thrift store that only has one alarm. I like some features better and some less but the main reason I bought it was the backup battery was a coin cell and from what I've read online about it in the manual it kept the settings/time for over a week or longer and all the other clocks I have seen before use expensive 9v batteries that in a prolonged outage died and I've had a few leakalines also do their job with it that I stopped bothering with putting batteries in it. If I were to purposely buy an alarm clock I would want it to be atomic/radio and dual alarms and have buzzer/radio both volume adjustable my sony the beep setting you can't make it louder or softer it only just beeps faster after awhile so I depend on the radio alarm and hopefully the radio station doesn't go off the air leaving no good noise to wake me up.
I just with that they would figure out how to broadcast a signal for atomic clocks so that you can just set the time zone and it would pick up the correct time and even date by decoding some signal or noise at intervals.