[Elecraft] accurate time

[David Fleming]

Julian, G4ILO wrote:

> Dick was just outlining the method a programmer would use
> to set the time, the commands you would need to use. He was
> not giving you the actual program. :) The implementation would 
> be quite tricky.

I wrote such a program last night. It did turn out to be a bit tricky, but it actually works. It basically compares the time on the K3 with the time on the computer and sends the approriate commands to make the two coincide.

Sending all of the neccessary commands, along with the various delays that are required to make it work right, takes time. Depending on how many UP; or DN; commands that are needed, it can take up to 0.5 second or so to complete the update. This prevents getting the K3's clock set *exactly* to the tick with the computer, but it gets it close enough. For me anyway.

I added a couple of "features" as well. There's a UTC option that allows either UTC or local time. There's also a "Auto-Update" option that will set the K3 clock automatically when the program in run without user intervention. The program then terminates after the update is sent. This allows scheduling of periodic updates - like every week, or every day, or whatever. 

If anyone is interested, I'll polish it up and make it available for download. I've only played with it on the Mac, but I should be able to compile it for Windows too.

David, W4SMT