Analog radio clock with time zone conversion

• US 5,901,115 A
• Filed: 09/25/1996
• Issued: 05/04/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Helmut Hechinger GmbH & Co.
• Original Assignee: Helmut Hechinger GmbH & Co.
• Inventors: Katzmann, Klaus, Wahl, Peter
• Primary Examiner(s): MISKA, VIT W
• Application Number:
  US08/719,356
• Time in Patent Office: 951 Days
• Field of Search: 368/10, 368/21-22, 368/46, 368/47
• US Class Current: 368/21
• CPC Class Codes: G04C 13/027 master-slave systems using transmission of other driving signals, e.g. coded signals
• CPC Class Codes: G04G 9/0076 in which the time in another time-zone or in another city can be displayed at will

Abstract

For time zone conversion an analog radio clock is provided with a switch device (31), preferably a rotary switch, through which an hour correction value is continuously provided. The UTC-Time received from a time signal transmitter is corrected corresponding to this hour value in a differential establishing step (33). Additionally the analog radio clock is provided with the possibility, to decode whether the time signal transmitter transmitted information is at that instant in a summer or winter time period. Insofar as summer time is decoded, the correction value from the switch device (31) is automatically increased by a value of 1. The output signal from the differential establishing step (33) is employed for step control of the analog radio clock, which thus automatically indicates the instantaneous correct local time upon corresponding setting of the switch device (31).

Claims

1. Analog radio clock, said analog radio clock comprising:

a housing;

a receiver and decoder assembly (1) for receiving and decoding a UTC-Time time message transmitted by a time signal transmitter, including means for decoding information transmitted by the time signal sender regarding the current status as to summer time or winter time;

an analog indicator comprising motor-driven indicators for displaying a clock time;

an indicator positioning device (2), which corrects and positions the indicators of the radio clock upon clock time in accordance with the local time in accordance with the decoded time signal, such that said clock sets itself automatically to the correct local time after insertion of a battery in accordance with the selected time zone by the manual switch (31); and

an hour correction device (3) via which the time signal received from the UTC-Time time message is continuously offset, wherein this time offset is adjustable in hour increments via a manual rotary switch (31) accessible from outside the housing of the analog radio clock, wherein the hour correction device (3) is connected with the receiver and decoder assembly (1), such that in the case of decoding a summer time signal the hour correction value input by the manual switch (31) is increased by one hour,

wherein said housing includes indicia associated with Eastern time, Central time, Mountain time, and Pacific time corresponding to the positions of the manual switch (31).

2. Analog radio clock according to claim 1, wherein the decoder (32), in addition to the receiver and decoder assembly (1), receives a time signal for the instantaneous UTC-Time.

3. Analog radio clock according to claim 1, wherein an hour correction value is provided at the output of the decoder (32), and wherein this hour correction value is provided to the differential establishing step (33), and the output of the differential establishing step (33) is coupled with the step controller (21) of the position assembly (2) of the analog radio clock.

4. Analog radio clock according to claim 1, wherein the rotary switch (31) is provided on the back side of the housing of the analog radio clock and is movable to various positions each of which are respectively indicated with individual markings, wherein the markings correspond to various time zones.