DCF Time - Frankfurt/Rugby

Are you sure it won't work in the UK? If you orient the ferrite rod antenna correctly, the range may well be adequate. Certainly some people use that signal in the UK, and in parts of France which are at a similar distance from the transmitter.

Chris

Yeah - pretty sure, the DCF77 signal from Frankfurt pretty much wins over the MSF60 signal from Rugby. The only way to get the right time is to set it manually and disable the DCF77 reception otherwise it keeps setting itself to an hour ahead of British time.

From what I've been able to find the signal coding is different, so tweaking the tuning won't help. As the only way to set the right time is disable the DCF (the whole point of buying it was the automatic accurate time) I consider it to be unfit for the purpose for which it was sold - its going back where I bought it!

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I've 5 Lidl-Netto-Aldi radio clocks throughout the house and yep, they're all on Frankfurt and all reading 7:26

All mine are from Lidl and this is the first Frankfurt DCF77, the analogue clock has a switch on the back for Europe/UK use, apart from that none of the others require time zone adjustment in the UK.

It seems that Lidle may be sourcing clocks from a new supplier after a disagreement with the previous one, last year they advertised clocks one week that failed to arrive, the next batch they got had poorer finish and less features!

After spending some time fiddling with the buttons I found that the month digit doubles as the time zone offset, the illustration key does not indicate this.

Sounds like you know Lidl!. I'll be down there next Thursday for the drill set, jigsaw blades and acrylic sealer. :)

Pleased you made the original post. Went round the house checking the clocks, chuntering and cursing the radio types, (and the PC clock) as all being well and truly f***** as compared to the other dozen or so normal clocks and watches. Had to be told that we moved to summertime last night. (blush).

Not sure if it was on offer at the time but Focus have/had a better case of drill bits, when I bought one it was £19.99p it looks to have twice as many bits, loads of screwdriver/socket bits, hole cutters and a drill diameter guage instead of a spirit level (very handy for picking which drill to use for a rawplug)

Only about half my clocks updated automatically - the rest I had to pull the battery out so they had to read the time signal from scratch, the most recent (Frankfurt) was a right PITA because every time the battery is put back the outside temperature sensor has to be brought next to the clock and reset at the same time.

Sorry, I thought you meant that it wouldn't receive the transmitter, I didn't realise that it was the hour offset that was the problem. Unless you can find a button sequence or switch to change the offset, then returning it sounds like the best option.

Chris

The translation from German to English weren't the best I've ever seen so the instructions are less clear than they could have been, the time zone indicator shares the same digit as the month display - which is not indicated in the illustration key, it took some fiddling with the buttons to discover that but I got there eventually.

Don't, know if yopu still have trouble with this, but the rugby transmitter has closed down, it's up in scotland somewhere now

All but one of my MSF60 clocks have continued updating since 1st Apr - the one over my desk is at right-angle to the signal and only picks up in good reception weather, just as it did before.

The DCF77 clock OTOH has to be placed near a window every now & then.