Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
1. What is DCF77?
DCF77 is the call sign for a station in Mainflingen,
Germany that transmits a time signal and standard-frequency.
Its run by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and
its used to set the time and date information automatically on to
watches and clock all around Europe. DCF77 stands for
D-Deutschland, C- for long wave signal, F-Frankfurt due to
its proximity to Mainflingen, and 77- for the frequency it uses
77,5 kHz.
The DCF77 is simplex communication, because its a
one way communication,i.e., the station in Germany can
transmit information to a users watch or a clock at a railway
station but the watch or the clock can not send information Figure 1: Origin and range of the
DCF77 time signal. The ring that is
back.
furthest from the origin has a radius
of about 2000 km.
- In 1959, was when the transmission of time and standard frequencies began with DCF77 low
frequency transmitter, during this time, the station was only operated in a 3 hour day and night
scheduled.
- In 1970, the station started a 24 hours a day continuous broadcast of a simplified version of the
signal, and only in 1973 they added the coded time to the continuous signal transmission.
- In 1987 the Time Act was approved and they started to use atomic clocks instead of mean solar
time.
- In 2003, 14 bits of the time code started being used as civil defence emergency signals.
- Since 2006, the first 14 bits of the time code provide warning messages and weather information.
- In 2008, the Time act was combined with other regulations to form the Units and Time Act.
2.1 Transmission
The time is measured by an atomic clock that has an accuracy of a 109 seconds per day.
The standard used to format and display the time and date is ISO 8601. Because DCF77 is German,
the time signal carries the time for Coordinated Universal Time UTC+1 and UTC+2, that corresponds
to Central European Time (CET) and Central European Summer Time (CEST). The information then
gets coded using the Time Code (explained below) which is represented in Binary Coded Decimal
(BCD).
Date: 19/03/2015
Page 1
# of 4
#
Universidade do Algarve
As mention before, the time signal
transmits a time code 24 hour a day, on a
repeat cycle every minute, with time, date
and weather information. In one minute,
every second (in total 60 seconds)
represents a bit of information. The first 20
seconds contains a load of announcements
and warnings, from seconds 21 to 35
contains the time (hours, minutes), from 36
to 58 date information (day, day of the week,
month and year). The information that gets
transmitted corresponds to the following
minute and not the present.
Date: 19/03/2015
Page 2
# of 4
#
Universidade do Algarve
minute mark
call bit *
A1
announcement of a change
between CET and CEST
Z1
CET
Z2
CEST
A2
start bit
P1, P2, P3
parity bits
Figure 4: Example of the coding for the time: 2015-03-19 10:10 CET
2.3 Reception
In order to receive the time signal, the devices (watch, clock, etc) only needed a relatively
simple and cheap long wave receiver to catch the signal, and then using the coding scheme, retrieve
the time information. For a device in a different time zone, you just needed to add a gain or a delay to
the time received.
3. Observations
In our research we found that the DCF77 was very popular in the in Europe during the late
80s, mainly because of the automatic time setting feature, but also because of the simplicity and the
accuracy of the system. Nowadays the these kind of systems are becoming more obsolete, every day
more devices get connected to the internet or to the global positioning system (GPS) in search of new
features and uses, and from these services they can also retrieve very accurate time information and
Date: 19/03/2015
Page 3
# of 4
#
Universidade do Algarve
4. References
1. Andreas Bauch, Peter Hetzel and Dirk Piester, Time and Frequency Dissemination with DCF77:
From 1959 to 2009 and beyond, 2009;
2. wikpedia.org/wiki/DCF77, 16/03/2015;
3. wikpedia.org/wiki/Longwave, 18/03/2015;
4. http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/dcf77.html, 16/03/2015;
5. http://www.ptb.de/cms/en/fachabteilungen/abt4/fb-44/ag-442/dissemination-of-legal-time/
dcf77.html, 16/03/2015;
Date: 19/03/2015
Page 4
# of 4
#