# Morgenwerk



## Will_f

Anyone else as excited about these as I am? A high accuracy thermocompensated satellite watch that learns from its error rate? The cheapest version is around $1100

http://www.ablogtowatch.com/morgenw...atch-is-more-accurate-than-your-mobile-phone/

Will


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## ronalddheld

I read the linked information. Seems promising if the watch can learn young be more accurate than 10s/y. Since I just bought a GPS Astron, I really should not even consider this watch.


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## Hans Moleman

Will_f said:


> Anyone else as excited about these as I am? A high accuracy thermocompensated satellite watch that learns from its error rate? The cheapest version is around $1100
> 
> Morgenwerk Satellite Precision Watch
> 
> Will


Cool!
Thanks for the link.

The dial is spot on. Clear and concise is the way I like it.

Some interesting new tricks here:
Antennas to the outside. They will scratch though.
Hook-up to recharge. I'll have to think about that one. Solar dial not reliable enough?


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## ronalddheld

I wonder what is the link to the company's website? No preordering yet?


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## mikeynd

Way cool,I even like the looks of these watches,and the price is even in my ball park,but gotta save up a few months for.Thanks for posting Will,loving it.


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## ronalddheld

Morgenwerk launches GPS time | Europa Star Magazine.


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## Will_f

*Morganwerk*



ronalddheld said:


> Morgenwerk launches GPS time | Europa Star Magazine.


I'm surprised that the quartz accuracy by itself is 36s/year. While significantly better than standard quartz, I would have thought it would be 20 s/y or so.


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## Hans Moleman

Will_f said:


> I'm surprised that the quartz accuracy by itself is 36s/year. While significantly better than standard quartz, I would have thought it would be 20 s/y or so.


Don't look too hard at hard at those numbers. You can make them look really good with some temperature manipulation and wear pattern. A marketer's dream. The legal division's nightmare.


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## Will_f

*Morganwerk*



Hans Moleman said:


> Don't look too hard at hard at those numbers. You can make them look really good with some temperature manipulation. A marketer's dream. The legal division's nightmare.


I'm sure you're right. After all Seiko put out a non compensated 16 kHz movement in the early 70s that they guaranteed 24s/y. I'm thinking they assumed a pretty constant temperature.


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## ronalddheld

We need to see real world performance. Someone(s) will have to buy one and report on it.


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## Will_f

*Morganwerk*



ronalddheld said:


> We need to see real world performance. Someone(s) will have to buy one and report on it.


I'm thinking about it. They go on sale next year so I've got time. They look nice (an important quality) but bigger than I like and I want to see what kind of WR they have. I generally won't consider watches with less than 50M rating.


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## ronalddheld

I would go for the top model. I wonder if firmware could be updated via USB?


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## everose

Wow....I am glad i held off ordering an Astron GPS now !

This all sounds quite promising......... AND i like the simple, no nonsense styling. Prices also appear to be more realistic,...... just like the dimensions !
It seems like a lot of tech/functionality is included for the $.

Not being solar powered may not be the massively inconvenient issue which was my initial thought, since a TC piece should not require quite such regular and power consuming daily GPS corrections. 

I really like the thinking behind this "multi-layered" approach to accuracy and i hope it works out well in practice.


So would the "learning" IC also help compensate for crystal ageing?... :think:


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## Hans Moleman

everose said:


> Wow....I am glad i held off ordering an Astron GPS now !
> 
> This all sounds quite promising......... AND i like the simple, no nonsense styling. Prices also appear to be more realistic,...... just like the dimensions !
> It seems like a lot of tech/functionality is included for the $.
> 
> Not being solar powered may not be the massively inconvenient issue which was my initial thought, since a TC piece should not require quite such regular and power consuming daily GPS corrections.
> 
> I really like the thinking behind this "multi-layered" approach to accuracy and i hope it works out well in practice.
> 
> 
> So would the "learning" IC also help compensate for crystal ageing?... :think:


Well, at a guess I would say it never stops learning. Even after 20 years, it will work out the then current actual quartz rate between GPS synchronizations.

The requirement to charge separately could be handy if you use a lot of expensive functions. Use the alarm a lot; recharge more frequently.

On the other hand then, why not synchronize when docking? If that is going to be a regular event.


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## Horoticus

I am very intrigued by this watch and look forward to some real world show-and-tells. The geek in me loves the idea of a watch that "learns" as it ticks. As Spock would say, "Fascinating." ;-)


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## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> Well, at a guess I would say it never stops learning. Even after 20 years, it will work out the then current actual quartz rate between GPS synchronizations.
> 
> The requirement to charge separately could be handy if you use a lot of expensive functions. Use the alarm a lot; recharge more frequently.
> 
> On the other hand then, why not synchronize when docking? If that is going to be a regular event.


Most of us cannot receive GPS signals indoors. Good idea in principle. I think recharging each day would be a nuisance given all of the other devices that must be charged up daily.


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## mikeynd

I would not think it would need to charge everyday.I have an ana-digi here,and with average use it can go 4 months until next charge.Not sure if we can compare the two,but something to go off.If you've seen it before.


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## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> Most of us cannot receive GPS signals indoors. Good idea in principle. I think recharging each day would be a nuisance given all of the other devices that must be charged up daily.


Oops. Quite right. Computer time won't be accurate enough either.


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## Eeeb

mikeynd said:


> I would not think it would need to charge everyday.I have an ana-digi here,and with average use it can go 4 months until next charge.Not sure if we can compare the two,but something to go off.If you've seen it before.


The major power consumer of 'docked' watches is usually radios. Operating a TC analog-digital watch would consume much less power. If the GPS use is minimized I would hope daily docking would not be required.

I have two 'docked' watches. They need daily feeds. It is an operational PITA.


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## Sabresoft

*Morganwerk*

An M3 for me! Hope they don't release for at least 6 months, still got to pay 50% of Astron price when I get delivery in January, so need some time for bank account to recover.


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## dicioccio

That's it, THAT'S IT !!! Finally it is exactly what I was looking for. Also the looks of the watch and of the dial is exactly what I ever wanted !!!

I hope this is true and not a project that will fail too soon...


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## ronalddheld

With a daily sync, and an alarm with no ABC usage, perhaps a week or more.
Assuming I get the M3 which stays, it or the Astron?


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## dicioccio

ronalddheld said:


> I wonder what is the link to the company's website? No preordering yet?


MORGENWERK

Anyway the site is under construction yet...


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## ronalddheld

Didn't one of the articles claim the site would be up by early 2013? Whomever sees it up for preorder should let us know.


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## webvan

Very interesting, I wonder what kind of movement they use, wasn't there a German movement that could learn too, by Ruhla? Did they get some IC from ETA for the TC part? And Ana/Digi, that's good! Might hold off on getting an X33 ;-)


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## avusblue

Awesome! Thanks for pointing this out. It would be ideal if they could shrink one down to a sub-40mm case diameter for those of us who don't like wearing dinner plates. 

I am convinced that satellite sync is the future of high-end accurate timekeeping. Let the innovation continue! :-!


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## ronalddheld

Maybe they will list the movement when their website comes up?


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## artec

It seems to make little or no difference but I think the right spelling is morgen-werk, with an E rather than an A.


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## ronalddheld

In either case, the site is not up. Maybe early next year.


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## Andrew McGregor

Very, very cool stuff.

I suspect the TC is a bit less accurate than most TC watches because they're merely quoting the Dallas Semi specs for a TC RTC chip... and those are rated over the whole industrial temperature range, rather than the lesser range that watches are rated for.


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## artec

The website is still under construction, according to the message.


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## raging.dragon

I like the idea, thought the M2 and M3 are too big for my wrist. An M1 sized watch with M3 functionality would be nice, or even an M1 with a small LCD display for the date, timezone and daylight savings time indicator.


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## roestiexpress

It seems that these guys are at least much into marketing. 
The Morgenwerk UG, with 1000 EURO of equity has been founded just YESTERDAY, as it is published today! 
A lot of noice anyhow, my respect!


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## ronalddheld

Good to know about that.


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## webvan

A very interesting watch...might have to rethink getting a X-33 now!


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## ronalddheld

I am looking forward to trying it out.


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## webvan

No news is...bad news I suppose http://www.morgen-werk.com/ ?


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## ronalddheld

Hold on a little longer..


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## webvan

Why not ;-) Sounds like you've been in touch with them?


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## ronalddheld

I have proprietary information I am not allowed to share. I will when I get permission. I am no less impatient as you are.


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## TicTacman

ronalddheld said:


> I have proprietary information I am not allowed to share. I will when I get permission. I am no less impatient as you are.


The D day is pending some internal company issues from October 1st to October 15th 
abe.


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## ronalddheld

I do not have anything concrete to add although I am in contact with the company.


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## ronalddheld

I am concerned in that i have had no contact with the company recently and mid October is approaching.


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## webvan

Not looking good indeed...


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## ronalddheld

The 15th has come and gone. Are there more delays or will this watch not be produced?


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## webvan

Good question, but you were the one saying you had some "proprietary information" ?


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## ronalddheld

I did but circumstances must have rendered it worthless. No contact with the company for several weeks..


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## ronalddheld

I just got an email from the company. I am trying to get more quantitative details.
Edit:There is nothing I can report on so we just have to be patient.


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## ronalddheld

I was searching and found this: MORGENWERK??????????????GPS?????? | ??????????????????????????????????, If someone can translate the content into ideomatic English that would be helpful.


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## everose

This is chrome translation.....





















































*







*










GPS satellite has an atomic clock on board the most accurate in the world. 
MORGENWERK The satellite Precision function, you will receive the exact time from the GPS satellite. 
The time it has become a standard of the world today, one of 2 UTC (world reference time) and (Greenwich Mean Astronomical Time) GMT but there. The lead out by observing the celestial sun and Greenwich Observatory in England in (0 degrees longitude), GMT has been used for many years as the exact time of the world's most always. 
IT technologies such as current computer advances, digitization of the reference time is determined, UTC has been made anew by an atomic clock with the aim of one time that can be shared in the world, with an accuracy of less than 1 second in 100,000 years were. 
The satellite precision function of MORGENWERK, from six groups which can be seen in the sky radio waves of high precision of 1Ghz or more to get out of the GPS satellites, able to engrave the same time exactly the UTC time by to wish receive one the best one You can.

*







*










It is equipped with a self-correction function and temperature compensation function with quartz in MORGENWERK for a longer period of time, it continues to tick the correct time UTC received from the GPS satellites. 
= Quartz crystal oscillator is an exact ticking parts to receive the vibration of high precision is in the crystal.
Frequency will change depending on the temperature difference as a feature crystal oscillator. 
In MORGENWERK, and has adopted the quartz with a temperature correction function made by the latest technology in order to compensate for this. 
The measurement error of the exact time recorded in the internal computer the deviation of the individual difference by quartz addition, received by satellite precision function. Based on the data that is fed back to the internal computer, I will correct the deviation that occurred automatically. 
We will continue to evolve so that by multiplying these two functions, cover which is a weak point of the crystal oscillator, the individual difference and temperature difference, it continues to tick the correct time at all times. 
It is equipped with a power save mode in order to minimize the repetition of charging and discharging is the cause of the deterioration of the battery, I realized the drive of up to 14 months on a single charge in MORGENWERK.

*







*










German Design starting to Bauhaus, has been highly praised in the world. 
Of Mies "Less is More" (is that less is more prosperous), as represented by the words of many years design rationalist, functionalistic that was stripped to the limit a later universal It is said that art does not fade as well. 
Everything has a meaning, not a decorative thing as one of the parts that make up the MORGENWERK. 
The expressed using only second hand setting time zone, daylight savings time, the calendar display, the function of all such as battery level and receiving display. 
While also equipped with high-tech technology that combines the multi-functional by this, the dial has become a simple finish to the limit has been scraped off. 
Also so that it does not really able to hide the internal GPS antenna also, it is possible to optimize performance as an antenna, it is designed to separate the antenna part and watch part dare. It also succeeded in reducing the thickness of the watch body by this. Antenna portion is curved to match the radius of the arm, three-dimensional impression of unique satellite Precision unique is expressed. 
Serial number and time zone major cities time difference table is engraved, I feel a connection with the outside of rechargeable only charging terminal portion is hollowed out on the back cover. The Butterfly Touch-tone buckle, logo MORGENWERK is engraved, it reminds us the gates of traditional plant in Germany.
​
















































​


















*100 world limitation*

MW001-21 
Case: Stainless Steel 
Band: Stainless Steel 
Price: 130,000 yen (tax inc.)

​


*100 world limitation*

MW001-22 
Case: Black Steel 
Band: Black Steel 
Price: 140,000 yen (tax inc.)

​


*100 world limitation*

MW001-41 
Case: Titanium 
Band: Titanium 
Price: 170,000 yen (tax inc.)

​


*50 world limitation*

MW001-42 
Case: Titanium 
Band: Titanium 
※ full Superluminova Specifications 
Price: 210,000 yen (tax inc.)
​



[*=left]43.8 mm: Case Size 
14 mm Thickness: 
(needle, index) use Superluminova: dial 
temperature correction function with Quartz Movement: 
Waterproof: 5ATM 
Rechargeable lithium-ion battery: battery 
about two months driven by a synchronous once or twice a month ※ 
※ power save mode, about 14 months drive 
satellite radio reception Duration: 8 seconds to 60 seconds time and date received time 
function: self Collecting (learning) function, date display, time zone display and selection, daylight saving time ON / OFF function 
included goods: special charger, USB cable, regular warranty (2 years)





















*100 world limitation*

MW002-42 
Case: Titanium 
Band: Natural Rubber 
Price: 170,000 yen (tax inc.)

​


*100 world limitation*

MW002-52 
Case: Titanium 
Band: Titanium 
Price: 180,000 yen (tax inc.)

​



[*=left]46 mm: Case Size 
15 mm Thickness: 
(needle, index) use Superluminova: dial 
temperature correction function with Quartz Movement: 
Waterproof: 5ATM 
Rechargeable lithium-ion battery: battery 
about two months driven by a synchronous once or twice a month ※ 
※ power save mode, about 14 months drive 
satellite radio reception Duration: 8 seconds to 60 seconds time and date received time 
function: self Collecting (learning) function, date display, time zone display and selection, daylight saving time ON / OFF function 
included goods: special charger, USB cable, regular warranty (2 years)


The acceptance of the Pre, we will support us in the first-come-first-served basis. 
Please see the contents of the Pre-form, for more details.
  

Publisher: Martha Inte
​


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## ronalddheld

I do not use Chrome and cannot read the text because it is low contrast.


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## webvan

Strange, it looks like they got a Japanase launch, maybe to capitalize on the existing Seiko Astron market? They got quite a lot of press too judging by what you can see by clicking on the "MEDIA" tab.

Didn't you have a contact overt there that could shed some light on what's going on?


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## ronalddheld

I sent two emails this month one asking about the Japanese website watches. I have received no response to either.


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## chris01

Yet again, I think this is still inactive. On the Japanese home page there is a row of 7 items near the top of the screen. The first links to a Japanese letter, headed MORGEN WERK.

Feeding the text into Google translate gives this:

#######################
12 or Month 2 ⽇ 2013 

I proposed that thing of your ardor nowadays more and more golden pheasant. 
And look forward to your Te pull ⽴ particular, I thank thick patronage. 

This time, ⼊ load of zymogen Vel clock watch, which had been expected to launch from 11 or Month 2013 is a delay 
We have. The postponement of the release to determine ⽣ production of the product Orimashi late for ⼤ width, the launch of the year is difficult 
Has decided. The customers are booked, we will guide you again, but wait for the release 
We apologize deeply that everybody dealers and customers have received, We apologize for the inconvenience. 

⼤ We apologize for the inconvenience, but strange, as the continued patronage in the future, thank you kindly. 

Yours sincerely 

MORGENWERK ⼊ total export sales agency 
Martha International Co., Ltd.
#######################

Amongst the garbled English, I think it's clear that nothing is happening.

How the press releases, which seem to be during the last 2 months, relate to this is anybody's guess.

I filled in the order/enquiry/??? form just to see what happens.


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## Horoticus

Interestingly enough, you can 'register' for one of the six models by providing your name and email address. So, I picked one and signed up. Will keep you posted when/if I hear anything.


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## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> I do not use Chrome and cannot read the text because it is low contrast.


Ronald, assuming you're using Windows, position your mouse in everose's item and press Ctrl-A. You should find the selected text is readable.


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## ronalddheld

I have not given up on these watches but am not optimistic they will be available anytime in the near future.


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## Sabresoft

Of the two models currently listed, I think that the M1 would be my choice, probably the MW001-41, but really what I would like to see (and hope is coming) is the M3. 

Interesting that they showed up in Japan first. Probably because the Japanese are much more supportive of high tech quartz, unlike the Europeans who seem to be regressing back to the mechanical ages.


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## chris01

Sabresoft said:


> Of the two models currently listed, I think that the M1 would be my choice, probably the MW001-41, but really what I would like to see (and hope is coming) is the M3.
> 
> Interesting that they showed up in Japan first. Probably because the Japanese are much more supportive of high tech quartz, unlike the Europeans who seem to be regressing back to the mechanical ages.


You are definitely a 'glass half-full' man. I tend to the 'glass half-empty' view, but in this case I don't even see a glass.


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## Sabresoft

I applaud what the Morgenwerk guys are trying to do. It has taken them a long time because it probably isn't easy to execute what they are doing.

There are many boutique watch brands out there, and for many of them it is relatively easy. Design a case/dial, get it manufactured, and plop in a Miyota or ETA (not so easy now) caliber and try to sell some. With watch fans/collecters and forums it is a lot easier than it probably used to be for a small brand to succeed.

What these guys are doing is a little bit more complicated. They have a thermocompensated, satellite corrected, caliber. There's nothing like that currently out there. While Miyota is a major supplier to the world's OEM watch industry, technologies like Citizen's radio controlled, satellite controlled and thermocompensated movements are not on the sales list, and even they don't have what these guys are trying to build. This is a custom designed and built mechanism, manufactured in small lots (with the current line up we're talking 550 pieces). Getting the investment and production lined up would probably be challenging and take some time. While these guys already have watch making experience, this really is a leap that few other small companies have tried. After all the two dominant satellite/TC watch sellers, Citizen and Seiko are not exactly small operations.

I have no illusions about these guys, but see some promising ideas, and finally some signs of progress. The fact that they are starting in Japan seems to me that they have headed where the market is most receptive to what they are doing. I may or may not ever own a Morgenwerk watch, but I'm still interested and wish them success in their efforts.


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## chris01

Sabresoft said:


> I applaud what the Morgenwerk guys are trying to do. It has taken them a long time because it probably isn't easy to execute what they are doing.
> 
> There are many boutique watch brands out there, and for many of them it is relatively easy. Design a case/dial, get it manufactured, and plop in a Miyota or ETA (not so easy now) caliber and try to sell some. With watch fans/collecters and forums it is a lot easier than it probably used to be for a small brand to succeed.
> 
> What these guys are doing is a little bit more complicated. They have a thermocompensated, satellite corrected, caliber. There's nothing like that currently out there. While Miyota is a major supplier to the world's OEM watch industry, technologies like Citizen's radio controlled, satellite controlled and thermocompensated movements are not on the sales list, and even they don't have what these guys are trying to build. This is a custom designed and built mechanism, manufactured in small lots (with the current line up we're talking 550 pieces). Getting the investment and production lined up would probably be challenging and take some time. While these guys already have watch making experience, this really is a leap that few other small companies have tried. After all the two dominant satellite/TC watch sellers, Citizen and Seiko are not exactly small operations.
> 
> I have no illusions about these guys, but see some promising ideas, and finally some signs of progress. The fact that they are starting in Japan seems to me that they have headed where the market is most receptive to what they are doing. I may or may not ever own a Morgenwerk watch, but I'm still interested and wish them success in their efforts.


Agreed. If they ever sell anything close to what they have promised, I will buy one. The big problem with most small, high-tech start-ups is invariably over-promising and under/never-delivering. If that's the only way they can get external funding then everybody involved will eventually be disappointed. If they are really making some progress, however delayed, then they would do themselves a big favour by updating their website to report it, and by not issuing pointless press releases. When there are no realistic announcements, one tends to think "nothing to see here, move along".


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## Sabresoft

chris01 said:


> Agreed. If they ever sell anything close to what they have promised, I will buy one. The big problem with most small, high-tech start-ups is invariably over-promising and under/never-delivering. If that's the only way they can get external funding then everybody involved will eventually be disappointed. If they are really making some progress, however delayed, then they would do themselves a big favour by updating their website to report it, and by not issuing pointless press releases. When there are no realistic announcements, one tends to think "nothing to see here, move along".


Fair Enough. Of course many companies, and especially high tech for some reason, don't get the "Communicate with your potential customers" concept. It's idiots like us that can be their best brand ambassadors if given a chance. Companies like Sinn and ChristopherWard get it.


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## chris01

Sabresoft said:


> Fair Enough. Of course many companies, and especially high tech for some reason, don't get the "Communicate with your potential customers" concept. It's idiots like us that can be their best brand ambassadors if given a chance. Companies like Sinn and ChristopherWard get it.


It's a widespread problem in all areas of business (at least in the UK!). If your plumber or builder is going to be late starting or finishing the job, why don't they realise that you'll be much less annoyed if they tell you up front, rather than waiting until you find out?


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## Sabresoft

chris01 said:


> It's a widespread problem in all areas of business (at least in the UK!). If your plumber or builder is going to be late starting or finishing the job, why don't they realise that you'll be much less annoyed if they tell you up front, rather than waiting until you find out?


It's a human failing. I have the same problem at work. I supervise (currently) 17 engineers/designers, and it is a constant battle convincing them that they should advise the project engineers/managers/clients when we are going to have additional costs/delayed deliverables. I have a good rep with my managers and project people for delivering fairly well, and as I constantly monitor my team, for the most part they also do fairly well. Just wish that i could get them to where I had my team at my former employer where they would tell me well in advance, and even remind me that I had dates to meet!


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## Will_f

Sabresoft said:


> It's a human failing. I have the same problem at work. I supervise (currently) 17 engineers/designers, and it is a constant battle convincing them that they should advise the project engineers/managers/clients when we are going to have additional costs/delayed deliverables. I have a good rep with my managers and project people for delivering fairly well, and as I constantly monitor my team, for the most part they also do fairly well. Just wish that i could get them to where I had my team at my former employer where they would tell me well in advance, and even remind me that I had dates to meet!


As a senior engineer, I feel your pain.


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## Hans Moleman

Will_f said:


> As a senior engineer, I feel your pain.


I'd rather had Morgenwerk took their time, and produced a top-notch product than that they rush things to meet arbitrary deadlines.

I remember a story about Kalashnikov. He had a very supportive manager. "Make the best rifle you can think of. Do all the tests you can think of, and take as long as you need."

That together with a clear vision about the end product created a masterpiece.
Was he a a few years late delivering? Who cares? Who still cares to remember?


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## Will_f

Nice idea, but I've had my share of employees that would take Mr Kalashnikov's boss at his word and spend 20 years, producing nothing in the end. Each employee is different. Some just need space to run. Some need a solid kick in the rear.


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## chris01

I have no problem with MW taking 20 years to produce anything, good or bad, if they want or need to. The irritating feature is the pre-announcement of the product, with what, even without hindsight, seems an excessively ambitious timescale. This is then followed by silence. If they are still alive then some evidence of a pulse would be encouragement to those of us who would like a reason to care. The Japanese press releases do not qualify, IMO.


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## Hans Moleman

chris01 said:


> I have no problem with MW taking 20 years to produce anything, good or bad, if they want or need to. The irritating feature is the pre-announcement of the product, with what, even without hindsight, seems an excessively ambitious timescale. This is then followed by silence. If they are still alive then some evidence of a pulse would be encouragement to those of us who would like a reason to care. The Japanese press releases do not qualify, IMO.


Not the way to treat one's customers.

I still hope that that mistake does not force them into the next mistake; rushing things.


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## ronalddheld

I Understand the need to make a quality but with technology moving forward rapidly their product might be superceded by a better GPS/TC watch within a few more years.


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## everose

chris01 said:


> .....The irritating feature is the pre-announcement of the product, with what, even without hindsight, seems an excessively ambitious timescale. This is then followed by silence. If they are still alive then some evidence of a pulse would be encouragement to those of us who would like a reason to care. The Japanese press releases do not qualify, IMO.


Agreed!
I do not care for some of the funding methods some 'Start Ups' use.
They make celebratory product announcements AND a production timescale giving the impression things are in the final stages with just an odd tweak required here and there. 
Facts are scarce but hyperbole is all around. They are organised enough to accept pre-orders but not organised enough to be otherwise communicative. 
These pre-orders can sometimes turn out to be THE major source of funding for the entire project and those 'unknowing investors' can subsequently get burnt ,big time!

I am NOT saying MW is one of these Cos but certain aspects have set off my 'alarm bells' and have made me cautious.

I also hope MW pull through with a great product and I am all for the little Co getting one over on the major players. Unfortunately, imho the reality is that this is still a fairly unusual occurrence, even in the era of so called 'Start-Ups."



Hans Moleman said:


> Not the way to treat one's customers.
> 
> I still hope that that mistake does not force them into the next mistake; rushing things.


I do not share the view that taking an almost indefinite timescale to deliver a 'best' product is the way to proceed. This is the globally competitive, hi tech world of 2014. Windows of opportunity are ever shrinking. Yes, of course it needs to actually deliver to be successful but unfortunately the window of opportunity won't stay open for as long as in the lower tech world of the past.
If MW took 7-10 more years to deliver a 'perfect' product, it may be an amazing engineering masterpiece BUT it would likely be an irrelevance because it would probably be too late to a market which had already moved forward again.


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## Sabresoft

Fortunately I won't jump on the first release, and hope that they succeed and survive the M1/M2 release and then come out with the M3. That is when I'll be interested.


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## chris01

Sabresoft said:


> Fortunately I won't jump on the first release, and hope that they succeed and survive the M1/M2 release and then come out with the M3. That is when I'll be interested.


Being an early adopter in this case would be a big risk, whichever model you want. Let someone else find out that it doesn't work. When I jumped in on the brand-new Certina I felt that was a small risk - long-established watch producer, with an update of a 30-year old technology from ETA, another highly-respected manufacturer. MW has nothing to offer in this area.

I still want one, though!


----------



## dicioccio

ronalddheld said:


> I Understand the need to make a quality but with technology moving forward rapidly their product might be superceded by a better GPS/TC watch within a few more years.


...or even by a CSAC...


----------



## Sabresoft

chris01 said:


> Being an early adopter in this case would be a big risk, whichever model you want. Let someone else find out that it doesn't work. When I jumped in on the brand-new Certina I felt that was a small risk - long-established watch producer, with an update of a 30-year old technology from ETA, another highly-respected manufacturer. MW has nothing to offer in this area.
> 
> I still want one, though!


I agree that caution is warranted, although they do have some history with watch making, having been involved with the Neolog brand, but even this transition is a huge leap so the risks are high, both for them and for early adopters.

And yes agreed I want one too, just as a later adopter. After last year my watch budget is just slowly recovering so in reality I am in no hurry.


----------



## ronalddheld

It appears that for the next several years the wrist will be a battleground for smartwatches, wristphones and other devices. Get an entry in too late and it may not matter in terms of sales.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> It appears that for the next several years the wrist will be a battleground for smartwatches, wristphones and other devices. Get an entry in too late and it may not matter in terms of sales.


What a cheerful thought for anyone who wants the latest and best in timekeeping technology. Every time you change your phone you'll have to buy a new smart watch, and _vice versa_. And I thought that having to replace the battery in my VHPs every 10 years was a bit of a chore.


----------



## rcs914

ronalddheld said:


> It appears that for the next several years the wrist will be a battleground for smartwatches, wristphones and other devices. Get an entry in too late and it may not matter in terms of sales.


To a certain segment of the market perhaps this is the case. But something like this is never going to be a big seller - I am guessing that their total market is quite small (1500 pieces total?). I would love to have one, as I think they are the best looking of the GPS watches, but assuming they are ever available, they are definitely out of my current price range.

I think I've mentioned this before (sorry, I'm a new dad and my brain is sleep fogged) but there are numerous GPS watches available that do time sync (without HAQ movements), but not a single one other than Seiko and Citizen that have analog ones available. While not in keeping with this forum since it wouldn't be a HAQ movement, if Casio were to develop an ana-digi GPS sync g-shock, I think it would be a big seller at $400 or so.


----------



## everose

rcs914 said:


> .....if Casio were to develop an ana-digi GPS sync g-shock, I think it would be a big seller at $400 or so


You may be in luck! 
Apparently Casio are getting ready to introduce a GPS/Waveceptor Hybrid at Baselworld next month.

(from g-street.com)
Casio to debut new GPS G-Shock next month | GStreet

From the WUS G Shock Forum.... https://www.watchuseek.com/f17/g-shock-gps-hybrid-waveceptor-978649.html

It all sounds VERY interesting but I'm wondering what size the watch will need to be to fit all that inside it?!!

#Edit; I found this teaser pic at mygshock.com.
World's First Hybrid GPS Radio-controlled Watch: "G-Shock GPS Hybrid Waveceptor" | mygshock.com


----------



## ronalddheld

everose said:


> You may be in luck!
> Apparently Casio are getting ready to introduce a GPS/Waveceptor Hybrid at Baselworld next month.
> 
> (from g-street.com)
> Casio to debut new GPS G-Shock next month | GStreet
> 
> From the WUS G Shock Forum.... https://www.watchuseek.com/f17/g-shock-gps-hybrid-waveceptor-978649.html
> 
> It all sounds VERY interesting but I'm wondering what size the watch will need to be to fit all that inside it?!!


I would be interested in it if it had a readable digital display and decent power management.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> I would be interested in it if it had a readable digital display and decent power management.


Even better if it was an Oceanus - analogue/titanium/sapphire and decent size + styling - rather than a huge chunk of steel or plastic. Power and antenna requirements will probably prohibit that option.


----------



## ronalddheld

Over time there may be analog and digital variants.
If this becomes a lively enough topic I will create a new thread for it.


----------



## rcs914

ronalddheld said:


> Over time there may be analog and digital variants.
> If this becomes a lively enough topic I will create a new thread for it.


Sorry to hi-jack the Morgenwerk thread, but this is very interesting info. I have to wonder if pricing will be similar to their high end G-shock range, which is over a grand (and far too high for a casio). Their Oceanus line would be a natural fit though.

Really a decent looking watch, but ana-digi would be nice. Hopefully a sign of things to come.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have just heard from Morgenwerk. I am waiting for another response before I can post anything .


----------



## mark1958

I got an email from Morgenwerk stating they are in the assembly phase and anticipate a launch in June 2014.


----------



## Sabresoft

Received this from Morgenwerk today:

japan is only a test-baloon for the marked there.
M3 is definitely coming.
I let you know when website will be up.

until then

best

arne

MORGENWERK UG
Hallerstraße 6
20146 Hamburg
Germany

www.morgen-werk.com

Am 25.01.2014 um 18:03 schrieb <[email protected]>:

I see that you have set up operations in Japan. Also don't see an M3 model yet. Will this model be added in the future. Looking forward to seeing your watches in the real world soon.


----------



## ronalddheld

It appears we have the same basic information, so now we wait a few more months.


----------



## Horoticus

FYI - I received an email today and through the magic of google translate, I believe they are verifying interest. They asked if I plan to buy, am still leaning toward purchasing or am no longer interested. I replied that I am still in the hunt and to keep me posted. No other details or timeline was offered.

Anyone else get this note?


----------



## ronalddheld

Horoticus said:


> FYI - I received an email today and through the magic of google translate, I believe they are verifying interest. They asked if I plan to buy, am still leaning toward purchasing or am no longer interested. I replied that I am still in the hunt and to keep me posted. No other details or timeline was offered.
> 
> Anyone else get this note?


 What language was the email in before it was translated?


----------



## chris01

Horoticus said:


> FYI - I received an email today and through the magic of google translate, I believe they are verifying interest. They asked if I plan to buy, am still leaning toward purchasing or am no longer interested. I replied that I am still in the hunt and to keep me posted. No other details or timeline was offered.
> 
> Anyone else get this note?


Yes I got the same. It was some form of Japanese but Google turned it into almost perfect gibberish. There was also an attached PDF but I couldn't find a way to convert this into anything. I think it's more market research along the lines of post #86 above. Test balloon, kite flying, whatever ...


----------



## Horoticus

chris01 said:


> Yes I got the same. It was some form of Japanese but Google turned it into almost perfect gibberish. There was also an attached PDF but I couldn't find a way to convert this into anything. I think it's more market research along the lines of post #86 above. Test balloon, kite flying, whatever ...


Bingo, and agree on all points. However, I did try a different translator and it seemed to smooth out the gibberish to a point of mere piffle. :-!


----------



## ronalddheld

Nothing from Morgenwerk in months. Should they be written off for delivering any products?


----------



## Horoticus

Great question. I thought joining their "preorder list" might at least provide more regular communication and/or updates. Radio silence does not build any confidence.


----------



## ronalddheld

I am losing confidence that this watch will be sold. Perhaps an important time will be when the Casio RC/GPS watch comes out?


----------



## dicioccio

The success of such a watch could have been selling it when no other competitor would have produce this kind of product. As months go by, there could be no other good chance to launch it and have a commercial success. On top of that, Seiko and Citizen are working to offer GPS watches in smaller packages with more efficient power consumption. Maybe, in a near future, GPS watches will eventually replace RC watches with the advantage of receiving the signal everywhere...

That's a true pity...


----------



## artec

And when the new Citizen GPS watch starts deliveries...I understand probably next month?


----------



## ronalddheld

I have just had a communication from Morgenwerk. I cannot reveal any details but have been told to ask everyone to wait for more information.


----------



## Horoticus

Bump for an update?


----------



## ronalddheld

I have nothing new since my last post. Repeated emails to Morgenwerk do not get more timely responses to me. Maybe I will have an update before the end of the year.


----------



## chris01

Has anyone else just received an email from MW? I'll paste the full (Google-translated) text from mine. I'm not sure if this is a real offer of something real, though:

##################################################################
I have send you having you apply for MORGENWERK this email. 
There may not be displayed properly, depending on your e-mail software. If it is not displayed correctly, please click here <http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/s/58KjGTx7Ye/>.

Chris like, Thank you for waiting very long. 
This time, I came to carry to sell zymogen Courchevel clock watch ahead of the rest of the world. 
And have caused a lot of inconvenience due to a change of sales time, and apologize from the bottom of my heart that I kept you waiting.

The product you are've had sign up, ready to be delivered with certainty because now ready, we will inform you of two major benefits Premier pre-sale for a limited time before the general sale.

Premier pre-sale is the (day) August 3. 
The order four days after August will be eligible for benefits, what you have received your application will be invalid. In addition, Premier pre-sale after the end product can be purchased from the site of Mogen'vu~eruku and over-the-counter, but it will be sold on a first come, first served basis, we recommend an order of Premier pre-sale period.

I present the limited original multi-case

There is a modest, but we offer it is available as an accessory case portable when traveling or for storage of the charging adapter cable, key case, the Mogen'vu~eruku limited original multi-case. 
We present one case per order one.

I have the image of the national flag colors of Germany

Will be sold in quotation 3%

Including goods having you sign up, you will be sold at 3% discount all. 
(This is described in the "3% reduction" in the pre-sale site)

How to order is three. 
Your order except the product which had your application are also subject to all benefits.

If you order from the pre-sale site 
You can use credit card, cash on delivery, bank transfer. 
※ (up to 24 times payment) revolving credit can be split credit card

If you order from the mail 
Available cash on delivery, bank transfer.

If you order from the telephone 
Available cash on delivery, bank transfer. 
Response Time: 10:00 to 18:00 on weekdays (weekends Shukukyu)

※ Delivery of the order product 
After receiving your order, shipping Itashimashitara completion performs a final inspection, the goods, we will contact you by email the details. 
• If there is no specified delivery date, will be delivered in the shortest 
• If the specified delivery date, please specify by leaving more than 4 days, except Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays 
Specify in after Thursday August 7 order ⇒ on Friday August 1 Example:

※ If you are more than 300,000 yen by the order of once 
I ship by Yamato, but transportation insurance costs will be borne by our company. 
Credit card, payment methods you can use is the only bank transfer 
-Not available specified delivery date or cash on delivery 
· In the case of cash on delivery hope, can be supported by if you order individually 
(Cash-on-delivery fee will be charged, respectively)

World limited product having you sign up is the (limited quantity) Sales. 
If you would like, because there is a possibility that can not cope, thank you to contact us once the goods other than sign up. 
Stock after being sold is not. 
Delivery of the commodity is only in Japan. Please note overseas because I can not cope.

Product Sign up 
MW001-41 
(100 world limitation) 
Case: Titanium 
Band: Titanium 
Case size: 43.8mm 
14mm: thickness 
138g: Weight 
178,500 yen 183,600 yen ⇒ (tax)

<http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/?utm_source=Release&utm_medium=mail&utm_campaign=NewSalee> 
<mailto:? [email protected] subject = mail order & body = ■ order product% 0d% 0a [MW001-41]% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ■ your name% is possible [] by more than one order (full name)% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ■ settlement method% 0d% 0a [cash on delivery / bank transfer] 0d% 0a ■ you% 0d% 0a% (please choose either-du) 0d% 0a [] like Nothing in particular (eg ⇒ 0d% 0a ■ hope day 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ■ your phone number% 0d% 0a []% shipping address% 0d% 0a []% ○ in the case of 0d% 0a ※ specified delivery date ○ Sun% 0a7 Mon ○% None in particular 0d% 0a)% 0d%, 0d% 0a ■ Contact% Please specify 0d% 0a% at spaced four or more days except Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays ○% None in particular 0d% 0a (○ None in particular cases ⇒)% deliver the desired time zone 0d% 0a morning% 0d% 0a12 ~ 14 時% 0d% 0a14 ~ 16 時% 0d% 0a16 ~ 18 時% 0d% 0a18 ~ product which had you 0d% 0a your order 20:00% 0d% 0a20 ~ 21 時 percent will be delivered after conducting the final inspection. % If you do not have 0d% 0a specified delivery, will be delivered in the shortest. Percent for 0d% 0a specified delivery date, thank you specified apart for more than 4 days. % 0d% 0a payee% of customers 0d% 0a ※ bank transfer 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a% will be as follows. % 0d% 0a after a transfer check, .. I will do the delivery arrangement of the product. % 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━% 0d% 0a Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ueno branch% 0d% 0a usually 5248624% 0d% 0a Martha International mosquitoes)% 0d % 0a ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━% 0d% 0a>

Your personal information, delivery of zymogen Vel clock watch, 
Will be used only for after-sales service, for your assistance.

(Needle, index) Superluminova use: dial 
Windshield: sapphire glass 
Antenna section: K1 glass (1000HV) ※ 1 
Case back: stainless steel (316L) 
Movement: Temperature correction function with Quartz 
Waterproof: 5ATM 
Built-in Battery: Li-ion rechargeable 
About two months driving the receiving once or twice a month: continuous driving time 
(Power save mode: about 14 months driving) 
Satellite radio reception Duration: 8 seconds to 60 seconds Functions: date, time zone display 
Daylight saving time ON / OFF function self Collecting (learning) function 
Accessories: charging adapter, USB cable

※ 1 Vickers hardness and (HV): 
Kind of measure of the hardness of industrial materials. Is pushed into the material surface indenter made of regular quadrangular pyramid diamond, calculated from the area of the indentation left after removal of the load.

<http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/?utm_source=Release&utm_medium=mail&utm_campaign=NewSalee> 
<mailto:? [email protected] subject = mail order & body = ■ order product% 0d% 0a [MW001-41]% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ■ your name% is possible [] by more than one order (full name)% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ■ settlement method% 0d% 0a [cash on delivery / bank transfer] 0d% 0a ■ your delivery% 0d% 0a% (please choose one) 0d% 0a [] like (None example ⇒ ○) 0d% 0a ■ hope day 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ■ Contact phone number% 0d% 0a []% earlier address% 0d% 0a []% percent for 0d% 0a ※ specified delivery date ○ Sun% 0a7 Mon ○% None in particular 0d% 0a 0d%, 0d% 0a ■ deliver% Please specify 0d% 0a% apart for more than 4 days, except Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays ○% None in particular 0d% 0a (○ None in particular cases ⇒)% desired time zone 0d% 0a morning% 0d% 0a12 ~ 14 時% 0d% 0a14 ~ 16 時% 0d% 0a16 ~ 18 時% 0d% 0a18 ~ 20 product which had you 0d% 0a at the time of the order% 0d% 0a20 ~ 21 時 percent will be delivered after conducting the final inspection. % If you do not have 0d% 0a specified delivery, will be delivered in the shortest. Percent for 0d% 0a specified delivery date, thank you specified apart for more than 4 days. % 0d% 0a payee% of customers 0d% 0a ※ bank transfer 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a% will be as follows. % 0d% 0a after a transfer check, .. I will do the delivery arrangement of the product. % 0d% 0a% 0d% 0a ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━% 0d% 0a Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ueno branch% 0d% 0a usually 5 · Q48624% 0d% 0a Martha International mosquitoes) % 0d% 0a ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ━% 0d% 0a>

Your personal information, delivery of zymogen Vel clock watch, 
Will be used only for after-sales service, for your assistance.

Publisher: <http://www.marsainc.co.jp/> Martha International Co., Ltd. 
Address: Tokyo Higashi Ueno, Taito-ku, 1-12-2 Higashi-Kanto Building 4F 
Hours: 10:00 to 18:30 (Saturdays, Sundays and Shukukyu)

<http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/contactus/>

<http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/law/guide.html> use guide 
notation based on Specified Commercial <http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/law/> To-ho 
For <http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/law/personal.html> personal information
##################################################################


----------



## ronalddheld

I presume this was meant for the Japanese market and not the US/Europe?


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> I presume this was meant for the Japanese market and not the US/Europe?


Who knows?

I think this was a result of my response last January to the Japanese web site (MORGENWERK???????????????????? | ??????????????????????????????????). I have been unable to get any clear meaning from the translation.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Who knows?
> 
> I think this was a result of my response last January to the Japanese web site (MORGENWERK???????????????????? | ??????????????????????????????????). I have been unable to get any clear meaning from the translation.


http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/#blk_0 This looks interesting. I left it untranslated so you can use the trasnlator of your choice.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> http://ordere.morgenwerk.jp/#blk_0 This looks interesting. I left it untranslated so you can use the trasnlator of your choice.


If you click through to the order form, you'll find that the buyer's address page doesn't have provision for another country, so I'd assume that this is Japan-only.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> If you click through to the order form, you'll find that the buyer's address page doesn't have provision for another country, so I'd assume that this is Japan-only.


(sigh) I was waiting for the M3 anyway.


----------



## Horoticus

I received the same email as the OP, and would agree that this is Japan only.

"Delivery of the commodity is only in Japan. Please note overseas because I can not cope."

Perhaps they will be able to cope with international shipping at some point. ;-)


----------



## everose

Horoticus said:


> I received the same email as the OP, and would agree that this is Japan only.
> 
> "Delivery of the commodity is only in Japan. Please note overseas because I can not cope."


You could probably side-step this Morgenwerk JDM rule if you really wanted to:

Registering with a reputable shipping forwarder in Japan would probably work. In the past i have used Tensco forwarding services to buy from Japanese companies who will not sell overseas and it has worked out very well for me.

Alternatively you may be able ask someone like Seiya to act as a proxy for you.


----------



## chris01

everose said:


> You could probably side-step this Morgenwerk JDM rule if you really wanted to:
> 
> Registering with a reputable shipping forwarder in Japan would probably work. In the past i have used Tensco forwarding services to buy from Japanese companies who will not sell overseas and it has worked out very well for me.
> 
> Alternatively you may be able ask someone like Seiya to act as a proxy for you.


It's a brave WIS who's going to throw £1000 into a potential black hole before someone even more foolish actually has one in their hand! Given the record of start-up companies' HAQ watches over the last few years, there can't be much confidence that this is really going to happen. There is also the question of whether it will actually deliver the expected performance.

Apart from the big three Japanese companies (mostly extending their existing ranges) and the new watches from Certina, I think that we haven't had a single new hi-tech and/or HAQ watch. I exclude the CSACs, as these are not yet practical wristwatches.


----------



## chris01

I sent MW an enquiry, asking when/if this Japanese 'launch' would be repeated in Europe. I have received a reply from Arne, saying that they are working towards a Christmas (2014!) launch. He says he'll keep me informed. I'll write my letter to Santa.


----------



## ronalddheld

That would be good news if true. I am not optimistic about any schedules.


----------



## webvan

Weren't you given some info at some point that you said you would share?

Hopefully there will be some user reports from Japan at some point...


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> Weren't you given some info at some point that you said you would share?
> 
> Hopefully there will be some user reports from Japan at some point...


Yes but I have not been given permission.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> That would be good news if true. I am not optimistic about any schedules.


I'm going to wait until you have received yours before I place an order.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> I'm going to wait until you have received yours before I place an order.


Good idea. I have asked for up to date information. I will post what I have received assuming it is not proprietary information.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have gotten several responses back. This is my interpretation: For the japanese market the release will be first. The rest of the world is scheduled for Christmas of this year. This is for the M1 and M2 models. the M3 model is being delayed due to outsourcing of better components than in a previous design. If things work out M3 May be released by year's end(2014).
Chris I am looking for the M3 so it may be a while.


----------



## Sabresoft

ronalddheld said:


> I have gotten several responses back. This is my interpretation: For the japanese market the release will be first. The rest of the world is scheduled for Christmas of this year. This is for the M1 and M2 models. the M3 model is being delayed due to outsourcing of better components than in a previous design. If things work out M3 May be released by year's end(2014).
> Chris I am looking for the M3 so it may be a while.


Just as well, I have no funds in my watch buying account anyway.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> I have gotten several responses back. This is my interpretation: For the japanese market the release will be first. The rest of the world is scheduled for Christmas of this year. This is for the M1 and M2 models. the M3 model is being delayed due to outsourcing of better components than in a previous design. If things work out M3 May be released by year's end(2014).
> Chris I am looking for the M3 so it may be a while.


It looks like the M3 is going to be rather too large for me (48x16mm I believe). My other problem is that I have a rigid, self-imposed limit of 10 watches, so I have to dispose of one before buying anything else. At least MW is giving me plenty of time to do so!


----------



## ronalddheld

No money either,so I would have to sell the GPS Astron or another watch. if I can wear the original GPS Astron, the M3 should be doable.


----------



## artec

I notice that there is a jp website for morgenwerk, with some text in Japanese, plus most of it translatable into multiple languages. So maybe the watches really are available in Japan....in which case, maybe they really will be available in the US later this year! Maybe.....


----------



## ronalddheld

In principle the M1 and M2 should be available by the end of 2014 "everywhere".


----------



## chris01

M1 and M2 are now apparently on sale in Japan:

æ™‚è¨ˆå°‚é-€åº-Junks(ã‚¸ãƒ£ãƒ³ã‚¯ã‚¹ï¼‰: æ-°å•†å"�æƒ&#8230;å.±

Open the link in Chrome browser (for instant translation) and scroll down to just past the middle.


----------



## ronalddheld

Good to know.


----------



## artec

I asked Seiya if he could find and buy one for me and he said he couldn't. I don't know how hard he tried or whether he knew about the retailer that someone posted here.


----------



## ronalddheld

artec said:


> I asked Seiya if he could find and buy one for me and he said he couldn't. I don't know how hard he tried or whether he knew about the retailer that someone posted here.


Interesting. Maybe he only deals with Japanese watches now?


----------



## artec

In examining, at my leisure, the photos of the different models of Morgenwerk watches on the site found and donated by Chris01 (how, by the way?), I was struck by how closely the times on the various models matched one another. Not only did this indicate that the photos were all taken within a few minutes of the others, but that the watches all showed the same time. And the final photo, showing all the models together, indicated that the watches all agreed as far as one can tell. So either whoever arranged the display took a lot of trouble with it or the watches had set themselves to the same time and zone. Which is promising!


----------



## chris01

artec said:


> In examining, at my leisure, the photos of the different models of Morgenwerk watches on the site found and donated by Chris01 (how, by the way?)


Well, I occasionally check this site: MORGENWERK???????????????????? | ?????????????????????????????????? and there is now a list of Japanese retailers at the bottom of the page. The Junks site was the only one that mentioned Morgenwerk. Incidentally, if you follow the link on the MW page to order a watch, you find that there is provision to enter only a Japanese address.

Although I keep pursuing this, there is no way I'm going to buy one until I see proof that someone else has received a working watch.


----------



## ronalddheld

The rest of the world should catch up by year's end. It would be useful to read a comprehensive review before making a purchase.


----------



## Sabresoft

Tenso.com provides a Japanese address and then they forward the item to you. I have used them in the past and it works, and of course there is a handling charge, but if a vendor won't sell outside of Japan this is a method that works.


----------



## artec

I've been in contact with Tensco, even got myself "verified". They seem cooperative and helpful but at the moment the holdup is actually buying the watch. Using Tensco's buying service adds 10% to the price and using their forwarding service adds another 10%....a total of 21%, plus whatever packing and EMS shipping would add. It looks as if the final cost would still be well under either of the Seiko or Citizen offerings' and I much prefer the Morgenwerk MW001's size and looks (not the MW003, which is too big for me, though I still like its looks).
The buying holdup is that the Buying Service asks for a URL of the "item" and the only identification in the catalogue of "items"...photos in the one website of a retailer who shows them....is the Morgenwerk model number of the watch. So identifying a source for the "item" and the "item" itself are still not solved.
I don't know that I shall pursue this path to its conclusion, even if that proves possible, but I shall keep going for a bit, I think, and see how many other snags there are!


----------



## chris01

artec said:


> I've been in contact with Tensco, even got myself "verified". They seem cooperative and helpful but at the moment the holdup is actually buying the watch. Using Tensco's buying service adds 10% to the price and using their forwarding service adds another 10%....a total of 21%, plus whatever packing and EMS shipping would add. It looks as if the final cost would still be well under either of the Seiko or Citizen offerings' and I much prefer the Morgenwerk MW001's size and looks (not the MW003, which is too big for me, though I still like its looks).
> The buying holdup is that the Buying Service asks for a URL of the "item" and the only identification in the catalogue of "items"...photos in the one website of a retailer who shows them....is the Morgenwerk model number of the watch. So identifying a source for the "item" and the "item" itself are still not solved.
> I don't know that I shall pursue this path to its conclusion, even if that proves possible, but I shall keep going for a bit, I think, and see how many other snags there are!


Perhaps you and Tensco could use the Morgenwerk.jp page, where they will sell diirectly to Japanese buyers. Note that MW's warranty is currently for Japan only.


----------



## ronalddheld

artec said:


> I've been in contact with Tensco, even got myself "verified". They seem cooperative and helpful but at the moment the holdup is actually buying the watch. Using Tensco's buying service adds 10% to the price and using their forwarding service adds another 10%....a total of 21%, plus whatever packing and EMS shipping would add. It looks as if the final cost would still be well under either of the Seiko or Citizen offerings' and I much prefer the Morgenwerk MW001's size and looks (not the MW003, which is too big for me, though I still like its looks).
> The buying holdup is that the Buying Service asks for a URL of the "item" and the only identification in the catalogue of "items"...photos in the one website of a retailer who shows them....is the Morgenwerk model number of the watch. So identifying a source for the "item" and the "item" itself are still not solved.
> I don't know that I shall pursue this path to its conclusion, even if that proves possible, but I shall keep going for a bit, I think, and see how many other snags there are!


I am not that interested in the M1 or M2 so I am going to wait until the end of the year to see if the US will have all of models.


----------



## artec

Thanks for the suggestion about morgenwerk.jp....I don't think I knew about it...but I'll have a look. Thanks also for the warranty warning. I didn't know it but I assumed it.

I remember, Ronald Held, that you said you were interested in the Mark 3. I lie it, too, but a) it's way too big for my taste and b) for a watchI wear every day, I prefer an empty dial. Of ana-digis, though, it's cleaner than most, isn't it?


----------



## Sabresoft

artec said:


> ....
> The buying holdup is that the Buying Service asks for a URL of the "item" and the only identification in the catalogue of "items"...photos in the one website of a retailer who shows them....is the Morgenwerk model number of the watch. So identifying a source for the "item" and the "item" itself are still not solved.
> I don't know that I shall pursue this path to its conclusion, even if that proves possible, but I shall keep going for a bit, I think, and see how many other snags there are!


You can buy the watch at one of the other retailers and have them mail it to your Tenso address. The challenge can be filling in the order forms as cutting and pasting in the Japanese characters, especially when the order form address format is different from the block address info Tenso gives you, leaves you a little uncertain as to where your package may end up going. But I have 2 watches that I bought that way, so it does work. At one if those sites I posted the full Tenso address info into the additional instructions field as a backup to make sure that the got the correct address info.

I found a similar service for buying items in the US from vendors who ship only to CONUS addresses. I have used it only once in "trial" mode, but after that first use they expect you to sign on for a monthly subscription, which I have no interest in doing.


----------



## ronalddheld

artec, finding the correct watch features and size seem to be nigh impossible. It is either compromise or have no(or few) watches.


----------



## artec

@sabresoft
Thanks for your info. I'm hoping to be able to use their Buying Service to buy from the Morgenwerk .jp site but don't know yet whether that's going to work. If it does, because they are doing the buying, there should be no difficulty about where the watch is delivered to after it's bought. Once it's in Tesco's warehouse, there should be no difficlty about getting it shipped here. However, there's many a slip....And although their customer service people appear to be pretty fluent in English, we seem to wind up at cross purposes a lot of the time...so it's still very much a work in progress!

@RonaldHeld
Agreed, perfection eludes us. However, I'm pretty happy with my two The Citizens and really only grumble about details, such as the fuel gauge on one and the font in the Chronomaster. I can put up with a lot more compromises in a watch like the Morgenwerk (at least, I think I'll be able to) because I shall only wear it occasionally, unlike The Citizens, which I wear all day, every day. The positives on the MW do not seem to be overcome by the negatives, which, for me, are the diameters of all of them, even the MW001s, the lack of date, except in the MW003 which so far doesn't exist, the thickness and maybe the dimension along the 12-6 axis where the antenna pads are. Those seem to present question-marks that won't be answered till we see one in the flesh.
I have no ambition to have a lot of watches. I have three at the moment, two for every day and one for back-up and when the Chronomaster has to go back to its parents for a new battery and service; I'd like to have the MW just to have a GPS that isn't as enormous as most of them and maybe an 8J GS just to have a GS!
I'm not sure that I know what would be a single "ideal" watch. I think there are more features I definitely don't want than those I do and I fear they aren't compatible in a single piece!


----------



## ronalddheld

I wonder if a TC/GPS watch is now a stopgap until CSAC watches come down in price?


----------



## chris01

artec said:


> The positives on the MW do not seem to be overcome by the negatives, which, for me, are the diameters of all of them, even the MW001s, the lack of date, except in the MW003 which so far doesn't exist, the thickness and maybe the dimension along the 12-6 axis where the antenna pads are. Those seem to present question-marks that won't be answered till we see one in the flesh.


My feelings too. While I get heartily sick of all the whining on WUS about wrist sizes, and demands for fairly pointless pictures, I do believe that even the M1 will be a watch that needs careful study before committing a big chunk of cash. Either that, or some serious preparation in the gym! The other two models are just way too big, but I suspect the "lug-to lug" size of the M1 is a bit of a problem.


----------



## dicioccio

When the first RC watch came to the market (a Junghans, if I'm not wrong, something like 25 years ago), I remember that it has no size issues.

The GPS technology instead needs still to have a big case, and this from the first model produced. The market is quickly producing improvements, but I doubt we will get a "human size" GPS watch quickly, especially from a small manufacturer like Morgewerk.

Actually CSAC are very big, bigger than a GPS watch so that they cannot fit into a smaller case than a pocket watch. Anyway I don't see why the manufacturers should work hard on miniaturizing a GPS watch while they can have a better accuracy (and intrinsic) working on CSAC.

With this in mind, if Morgenwerk didn't produce quickly an affordable GPS+TC wristwatch, they are destined to fail for sure...


----------



## chris01

dicioccio said:


> When the first RC watch came to the market (a Junghans, if I'm not wrong, something like 25 years ago), I remember that it has no size issues.
> 
> The GPS technology instead needs still to have a big case, and this from the first model produced. The market is quickly producing improvements, but I doubt we will get a "human size" GPS watch quickly, especially from a small manufacturer like Morgewerk.
> 
> Actually CSAC are very big, bigger than a GPS watch so that they cannot fit into a smaller case than a pocket watch. Anyway I don't see why the manufacturers should work hard on miniaturizing a GPS watch while they can have a better accuracy (and intrinsic) working on CSAC.
> 
> With this in mind, if Morgenwerk didn't produce quickly an affordable GPS+TC wristwatch, they are destined to fail for sure...


The GPS size problem appears to be a combination of power requirement (battery capacity) and receiver sensitivity (aerial size). MW is clearly suffering from the need for those big antenna bulges, while the rest of the M1 watch isn't outrageously large.

Ten years ago, my first stand-alone satnav would only work in the car directly under the windscreen. To install it on the centre console I had to use an extension aerial. Inside my house, which has metallised foil thermal insulation*** under the roof, it couldn't get any satellites. Today, my iPhone works perfectly anywhere in the car and gets a reasonable fix in the house. We probably need another order of magnitude improvement in receiver sensitivity to allow a sensibly sized watch. Power consumption will also need attention.

*** (My version of a tin-foil hat to keep the CIA away from my brain waves.)


----------



## ronalddheld

Is the general consumer more interested in having the current RC watches or GPS watches? That would be where the short term innovation would be. As long as GPS watches use more power and need larger antennae than an RC watch then the overall watch is going to be larger. CSAC watches may be huge or extra large until the power requirements are drastically cut and the chip size is significantly decreased. Someone with greater knowledge than I should chime in.


----------



## artec

I may easily have this round my neck but isn't the antenna size for GPS reception pretty much fixed? The spacing of the antenna pads on the WM1 seems to be about the same as the diameter of the Astron and the other Japanese GPS watches. If this is right, it seems to argue that the MW1, with pads, is as small as GPS reception can get.

Power consumption. at least in the MW, may have been neatly dealt with, at least until someone comes up with a better mousetrap, by the rechargeable battery. Maybe we could get MW to talk to Tesla?


----------



## chris01

artec said:


> I may easily have this round my neck but isn't the antenna size for GPS reception pretty much fixed? The spacing of the antenna pads on the WM1 seems to be about the same as the diameter of the Astron and the other Japanese GPS watches. If this is right, it seems to argue that the MW1, with pads, is as small as GPS reception can get.


I don't know much about the theory, but I guess we're all used to the idea that electronics stuff gets smaller and more powerful every year.

However, this may be a promising sign ... I've just acquired a car dashcam for my new car. In case you don't know, it's a very small video camera plus DVR that sits inside the windscreen filming your journey and recording to a memory card, providing evidence in case of an unpleasant incident. One of the optional extras is a GPS receiver that logs your position every second, allowing the journey to be displayed on your PC on a moving map. The GPS is not inside the camera but is built into the little plastic block that's glued to the screen and onto which the camera is clipped. So swapping the plain block for the GPS one (both the same size) adds the feature. The block's face exposed to the sky is only 30x30 mm. Not bad!


----------



## Hans Moleman

chris01 said:


> I don't know much about the theory, but I guess we're all used to the idea that electronics stuff gets smaller and more powerful every year.
> 
> However, this may be a promising sign ... I've just acquired a car dashcam for my new car. In case you don't know, it's a very small video camera plus DVR that sits inside the windscreen filming your journey and recording to a memory card, providing evidence in case of an unpleasant incident. One of the optional extras is a GPS receiver that logs your position every second, allowing the journey to be displayed on your PC on a moving map. The GPS is not inside the camera but is built into the little plastic block that's glued to the screen and onto which the camera is clipped. So swapping the plain block for the GPS one (both the same size) adds the feature. The block's face exposed to the sky is only 30x30 mm. Not bad!











Source

A GPS receiver you can buy if you're handy with a soldering iron.
25mm antenna build in.

It has the uncommon feature of a PPS output: The white wire.

I am sure the ones inside a phone are smaller still.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> View attachment 1615583
> 
> 
> Source
> 
> A GPS receiver you can buy if you're handy with a soldering iron.
> 25mm antenna build in.
> 
> It has the uncommon feature of a PPS output: The white wire.
> 
> I am sure the ones inside a phone are smaller still.


If you could get that to run all the time you could use the 1 PPS output as a time reference. I noted the antenna is 25 mm.


----------



## artec

These two examples of small but effective GPS antennae, one 25mm and the other 30mm x 30mm, seem to contradict the apparent need for the big antenna on the watches, with the possible exception of the very short-term athletic ones (all digital?). I wonder if anyone has any idea why? Are the requirements for the watch GPS antenna different from those of the recording camera? I don't see why they would be but I view all electronics as magic, so I'm not likely to know.


----------



## chris01

artec said:


> These two examples of small but effective GPS antennae, one 25mm and the other 30mm x 30mm, seem to contradict the apparent need for the big antenna on the watches, with the possible exception of the very short-term athletic ones (all digital?). I wonder if anyone has any idea why? Are the requirements for the watch GPS antenna different from those of the recording camera? I don't see why they would be but I view all electronics as magic, so I'm not likely to know.


One big difference is that the small dedicated GPS unit can have an antenna that covers the whole area. With a watch you've got to move it out of the way so that the dial is readable, or park it under the dial. This presumably means an increase in the diameter/width/length/height. I don't actually know if the carcam is that big; that's just the overall size of the plastic block. If it wasn't semi-permanently fixed to the screen I'd dismantle it.

I wonder where RC watches keep their antennae. Anybody want to open theirs up and show us some interesting photos?


----------



## ronalddheld

For ~$16 someone could buy it and dissect it. Anyone with good DIY skill might be able to make this into a TC/GPS clock?


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> If you could get that to run all the time you could use the 1 PPS output as a time reference.


Too right. I toy with the idea of getting an old wall clock and attach the PPS to the stepper motor.
That gives you a clock that's accurate to a few nanosecond.

You can never ever lose the GPS connection though.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> Too right. I toy with the idea of getting an old wall clock and attach the PPS to the stepper motor.
> That gives you a clock that's accurate to a few nanosecond.
> 
> You can never ever lose the GPS connection though.


Maybe you can for short periods of time relying on the TCXO to keep time?
If I had the skills I would output it to a desk clock sized digital display with manual controls to set time time/DST/ leap seconds.


----------



## ken_sturrock

Right, if you loose a GPS signal the on-board quartz will keep up the pulse. For fun, I built a clock out of one of these and an Arduino microcontroller run by some obscenely inefficient code. I don't actually use the pulse, I have the Aruduino decode the GPS statements and display the time (it also takes a guess at the time zone and sets itself). I was in the process of building a case for it but, as often happens, got distracted so it sits naked on my office desk looking ugly.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ken_sturrock said:


> Right, if you loose a GPS signal the on-board quartz will keep up the pulse. For fun, I built a clock out of one of these and an Arduino microcontroller run by some obscenely inefficient code. I don't actually use the pulse, I have the Aruduino decode the GPS statements and display the time (it also takes a guess at the time zone and sets itself). I was in the process of building a case for it but, as often happens, got distracted so it sits naked on my office desk looking ugly.


Congratulations! You've done it.

If the code is able to run, it must be efficient enough.

Must be quite involved to decode that serial data coming from the GPS.
Well done.


----------



## Andrew McGregor

Actually, it's quite simple, the GPS tells you the time straight off:

$GPGGA,123519,4807.038,N,01131.000,E,1,08,0.9,545.4,M,46.9,M,,*47

The 123519 is 12:35:19 UTC. The thing to be aware about GPS serial data is that it is delayed relative to the pulse, by some amount that you don't necessarily know; the pulse happens and then the data stream comes out between pulses.


----------



## ronalddheld

ken_sturrock said:


> Right, if you loose a GPS signal the on-board quartz will keep up the pulse. For fun, I built a clock out of one of these and an Arduino microcontroller run by some obscenely inefficient code. I don't actually use the pulse, I have the Aruduino decode the GPS statements and display the time (it also takes a guess at the time zone and sets itself). I was in the process of building a case for it but, as often happens, got distracted so it sits naked on my office desk looking ugly.


Could you post a picture or two?


----------



## ken_sturrock

Andrew McGregor said:


> Actually, it's quite simple, the GPS tells you the time straight off:
> 
> $GPGGA,123519,4807.038,N,01131.000,E,1,08,0.9,545.4,M,46.9,M,,*47
> 
> The 123519 is 12:35:19 UTC. The thing to be aware about GPS serial data is that it is delayed relative to the pulse, by some amount that you don't necessarily know; the pulse happens and then the data stream comes out between pulses.


Absolutely right. Moreover, the Arduino software environment is not particularly powerful at text-processing and I'm not a brilliant programmer. When you add the inefficiency of my code atop the much-smaller latency in the GPS module the slow-down is cumulative and the clock will actually skip a second here and there.

I have thought about a few approaches to making it more efficient but haven't had the time/energy/passion to try it yet. I guess I could always take the "Microsoft Approach" and just use an Arduino with a faster clock speed. Alas, I'm no Gaijin.



ronalddheld said:


> Could you post a picture or two?


Sure. I'll snap a picture in the office tomorrow.


----------



## Andrew McGregor

Post your code on github... I'm sure someone will fix it for you (hint...)


----------



## ken_sturrock

Andrew McGregor said:


> Post your code on github... I'm sure someone will fix it for you (hint...)


Aw, what fun would that be?

There are several examples of GPS-reading Arduino clocks out there (with source code) but most of them involve pre-compiling the time-zone. I wanted mine to be a little more autonomous. I was also trying to keep the code fairly high-level and understandable by me. There are also some nice GPS control libraries, but the protocol is fairly simple and I was trying to minimize unnecessary external libraries because the entire code has to fit into RAM along with the libraries needed to control the display and an eventual motor board.

The original idea was that I wanted to build a "linear clock" that, rather than use a round face, would show time on a scale more like a meter stick with a line for hours and another for minutes (the whole thing would reset at midnight). I'd then have pointers that would point to the correct marker. I decided that I would use stepper motors to drive long threaded shafts. So, I used an Arduino compatible motor control board and started working out the control software. I also needed some time source.

Because I was a diplomat living in Central Asia at that time, I was interested in a clock that could set itself after frequent power failures and would be "internationally aware". Accuracy was also good. I decided to use a GPS system, so I built a prototype that would read the location and take a guess at what time zone it was in based on the longitude (in the case of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, that guess would always be wrong). It also had to use that longitude to figure out the date and provide buttons to manually over-ride the time-zone guess and allow you to compensate for DST if needed.

Ironically for a posting in /f9, I didn't really care about absolute precision or even seconds because I wasn't going to show seconds on the linear display. Anyway, I was working on this about three years ago and, of course, never finished it. Maybe some day.



ronalddheld said:


> Could you post a picture or two?


Here is the prototype:



















It is just an Arduino controller board with an LCD display board piggybacked on it. You can see the GPS module connected by a wire bundle. I am only using four wires to the GPS: two for power, two for a serial connection to download the NMEA sentences. The wires are tapped into some Arduino pins that are unused by the LCD board. My code does no time keeping itself. All it does is read the continuous flow of NMEA sentences, extract the relevant information, adjust it for locality and reformat it so that it looks "pretty". As I said, my inefficient code causes the clock to "miss" a second every minute or so. Note - it doesn't loose time, it just jumps because the time cycle needed to do the work isn't evenly divided into a second so it will periodically "drop the ball".

The blue stand is just something I threw together on my 3D printer. At some point I might finish it by making some "walls", perhaps out of balsa wood, that would snap into grooves built into a modified version of this stand. The "+" symbol on the display means that it is has a good GPS lock.

As it stands, it does fine service as a time-source for setting my watches...


----------



## ronalddheld

ken_sturrock said:


> Aw, what fun would that be?
> 
> There are several examples of GPS-reading Arduino clocks out there (with source code) but most of them involve pre-compiling the time-zone. I wanted mine to be a little more autonomous. I was also trying to keep the code fairly high-level and understandable by me. There are also some nice GPS control libraries, but the protocol is fairly simple and I was trying to minimize unnecessary external libraries because the entire code has to fit into RAM along with the libraries needed to control the display and an eventual motor board.
> 
> The original idea was that I wanted to build a "linear clock" that, rather than use a round face, would show time on a scale more like a meter stick with a line for hours and another for minutes (the whole thing would reset at midnight). I'd then have pointers that would point to the correct marker. I decided that I would use stepper motors to drive long threaded shafts. So, I used an Arduino compatible motor control board and started working out the control software. I also needed some time source.
> 
> Because I was a diplomat living in Central Asia at that time, I was interested in a clock that could set itself after frequent power failures and would be "internationally aware". Accuracy was also good. I decided to use a GPS system, so I built a prototype that would read the location and take a guess at what time zone it was in based on the longitude (in the case of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, that guess would always be wrong). It also had to use that longitude to figure out the date and provide buttons to manually over-ride the time-zone guess and allow you to compensate for DST if needed.
> 
> Ironically for a posting in /f9, I didn't really care about absolute precision or even seconds because I wasn't going to show seconds on the linear display. Anyway, I was working on this about three years ago and, of course, never finished it. Maybe some day.
> 
> Here is the prototype:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It is just an Arduino controller board with an LCD display board piggybacked on it. You can see the GPS module connected by a wire bundle. I am only using four wires to the GPS: two for power, two for a serial connection to download the NEMA sentences. The wires are tapped into some Arduino pins that are unused by the LCD board. My code does no time keeping itself. All it does is read the continuous flow of NEMA sentences, extract the relevant information, adjust it for locality and reformat it so that it looks "pretty". As I said, my inefficient code causes the clock to "miss" a second every minute or so. Note - it doesn't loose time, it just jumps because the time cycle needed to do the work isn't evenly divided into a second so it will periodically "drop the ball".
> 
> The blue stand is just something I threw together on my 3D printer. At some point I might finish it by making some "walls", perhaps out of balsa wood, that would snap into grooves built into a modified version of this stand. The "+" symbol on the display means that it is has a good GPS lock.
> 
> As it stands, it does fine service as a time-source for setting my watches...


Interesting project and pictures. Any way to change the processing cycle as to not drop seconds? How close is the time to another source?


----------



## Hans Moleman

That is good original work.

A silly idea, and in the end something works too. Could there be anything more satisfying?


----------



## artec

Unfortunately most of your explanation of what you did and how you made it might as well have been in the local native language but I envy your ability and congratulate you on your knowledge and skill. The reason I'm replying is that I have a 1093B Satellite Controlled clock made by Arbiter Systems. It has a number of controls (all buttons) and a digital readout, reading in hours, minutes and seconds.

I was wondering if the signal that your device accepts was likely to be the same as the signal accepted by mine, and if so, whether the seconds might not be in there but just not decoded (if that's the right verb)?

Changing the subject and aiming at other recent posters, I tries to use the Tensco Buying Service to buy a Morgenwerk MW001-41 from the Japanese MORGENWERK site. The Customer Service people of Tensco said that it was a legitimate e-shop from which purchases could be made on line. I filled in the blanks of the Buying Service form, which included the price, and received a message saying the URL was "not correct" and the price was "not correct".

I have no idea how to overcome this roadblock and wondered if anyone had any ideas? Aside from anything else, if the URL is "not correct" (the only URL is the MORGENWERK one, how can they possibly know what the price is? I got the price from the site, anyway!

It looks as if there may really be no way of getting one from Japan short of knowing someone trustworthy who lives there or hopping on a plane!


----------



## Hans Moleman

I guess that the entered format of the price is wrong: it needs decimals, or the exact opposite?

Might it need a comma or a dot as decimal separator?


----------



## artec

Don't think I got it wrong; I put it in in the same format as the listed price in the website. Still, worth checking, thanks!


----------



## ken_sturrock

ronalddheld said:


> Any way to change the processing cycle as to not drop seconds? How close is the time to another source?


Ronald - I have terrible parsing code, in other words, if I could write a more efficient way to extract the needed data coming from the GPS receiver, that would help. I also have a number of functions that could get moved out of the main event loop so they don't have to be processed each time the clock gets information. More fundamentally, I experimented with a number of approaches and chose some that might have been elegant but not efficient. For example, I convert time & date into a Julian format - do the time zone & DST adjustment - and convert it back. Keeping those functions separate and adding code to handle stuff like leap years would have been less work for the computer (especially on a slow narrow-register system like an Arduino microcontroller) but it would have been more work for me and would have involved juggling more balls.

I have only casually compared my clock to Emerald Time running on my iPad. They do not usually update their displays simultaneously but are never more than a second apart.



artec said:


> Unfortunately most of your explanation of what you did and how you made it might as well have been in the local native language


It was just a ponderous way of saying that, a few years ago, I had a lot of time on my hands. Thanks Esteemed Artec. I appreciate it.



artec said:


> I was wondering if the signal that your device accepts was likely to be the same as the signal accepted by mine, and if so, whether the seconds might not be in there but just not decoded (if that's the right verb)?


I suspect that your clock probably uses the same basic components as mine but that it was programmed by actual professionals....



Hans Moleman said:


> That is good original work.


Thanks Hans, coming from one of /f9's renowned experimenters - that means a lot.

So, did we ever figure out when we can buy Morganwerks? Can we get a group discount? Special engraving?


----------



## ronalddheld

Ken maybe if you post your code or send it discreetly via PM, someone could make changes to improve the data processing.
As to Morgenwerk I sent out a recent mail. No response usually means no updates from my last posting. I know nothing about HAQ discounts but I know they view this forum. I thought we should be able to buy the M1 and M2 before the end of the year.


----------



## ken_sturrock

ronalddheld said:


> Ken maybe if you post your code or send it discreetly via PM


It's no secret, it's just a pain to pick through and fix other people's code. I certainly hate doing it.

Here it is: http://www.decaocto.org/Arduino_GPS_Clock.txt


----------



## dicioccio

This code is very plain and well written and documented. Maybe I would change the translation of the month number in the month name (1 = JAN) but otherwise it is almost impossible to make it more efficient.

Very very interesting to see how easy is to create something with Arduino... !


----------



## artec

From the Japanese Morgenwerk website, it seems that there were ten retail stores, mostly department stores, I think, from which the MW001 and MW002 could be bought in Japan. The only one that had a website I could get into (rather unfortunately named "Junks Rukusa Osaka Shop") showed all the MW watches plus quite a number of other makes. My impression was that most of them were more costume watches than the MW line. When I last looked at that site, the MW watches had vanished. All but three or four of the stores were in Tokyo, several of them apparently belonging to chains.

I'm wondering whether anyone has any ideas about how the availability of the watches here will be announced and what sort of stores will carry them? Or whether, maybe they'll only be sold on-line? RonaldHeld has said that he believes (knows?) someone from MW is monitoring this Forum, so perhaps we can expect some kind of alert here....I hope so!


----------



## ken_sturrock

dicioccio said:


> This code is very plain and well written and documented.


Thank you. After having posted it, I already see a bug - I seem to be dropping the day value when it converts UTC to Julian. *Yet - the clock seems to work.* Regrettably, I wrote this long enough ago that some of it is a haze.



dicioccio said:


> Maybe I would change the translation of the month number in the month name (1 = JAN) but otherwise it is almost impossible to make it more efficient.


That would save some processing. You could, of course, reformat it to be locally appropriate. Since I used to work a lot with both U.S. and non-U.S. systems, I learned to just change the date number to letters in order to avoid confusion.


----------



## ronalddheld

I see the request to have the code posted has already produced some improvements.
Any Morgenwerk information I get that I am allowed to post is. Like many people here I am waiting for December.


----------



## Andrew McGregor

dicioccio said:


> This code is very plain and well written and documented. Maybe I would change the translation of the month number in the month name (1 = JAN) but otherwise it is almost impossible to make it more efficient.
> 
> Very very interesting to see how easy is to create something with Arduino... !


So... taking the approach of reading the NMEA into a buffer, then processing it, that is indeed fairly efficient.

But there's a better way. The buffer isn't necessary; obviously you do need to keep some state, but holding the NMEA strings in memory isn't necessary.

Make it a finite state machine; character-by-character, decide what state to move into and record any useful information on the way. On the state that triggers at the last character of the seconds, check if you have deduced enough to show the time, and if so, do it right then.

Yes, this does amount to hand-rolling a parser, but on a machine as limited as an Arduino, it's still possible to process NMEA and get low latency with predictable results. And you've hand-rolled a parser already anyhow.


----------



## ronalddheld

Andrew McGregor said:


> So... taking the approach of reading the NMEA into a buffer, then processing it, that is indeed fairly efficient.
> 
> But there's a better way. The buffer isn't necessary; obviously you do need to keep some state, but holding the NMEA strings in memory isn't necessary.
> 
> Make it a finite state machine; character-by-character, decide what state to move into and record any useful information on the way. On the state that triggers at the last character of the seconds, check if you have deduced enough to show the time, and if so, do it right then.
> 
> Yes, this does amount to hand-rolling a parser, but on a machine as limited as an Arduino, it's still possible to process NMEA and get low latency with predictable results. And you've hand-rolled a parser already anyhow.


Could you edit the code for him?


----------



## Andrew McGregor

ronalddheld said:


> Could you edit the code for him?


Not without doing a bunch of paperwork at work to let me release it... I'm planning on doing that for my own code later.

The perils of working for a US-based tech company...


----------



## ronalddheld

More news. Japan is the only market where the two watches are available now. End of this year is the goal for the rest of the world. As usual I will post any updates as I receive the.


----------



## artec

I understand that the watches will only be available from Morgenwerk's website, which is still "Under Construction", not from retailers as they apparently were in Japan.


----------



## chris01

MW's Japanese website has been completely revised:
MORGENWERK????????????????????

Open with Chrome browser for instant "translation".

There's even a PDF catalogue, although I can't work out how to translate it:
http://www.morgenwerk.jp/support/pdf/catalog.pdf

Also, operating instructions:
http://www.morgenwerk.jp/support/qa.html


----------



## artec

@Chris01
Thanks for finding and posting those updates!
I hope the instructions that will come with the world-wide versions (always assuming that they become available as promised) are a bit less cryptic than the Q & A from the third link. Still, those are the first hint of how it's going to respond and very welcome!


----------



## mark1958

They are a Dutch company? I am heading to Holland next month and wondering if any chance of them having an outlet store over in their home country by then


----------



## chris01

mark1958 said:


> They are a Dutch company? I am heading to Holland next month and wondering if any chance of them having an outlet store over in their home country by then


German, and so far there is no sign of availability outside Japan. Maybe in time for a Christmas present?


----------



## ronalddheld

That is what I am hoping for(or at least in the case of the M1 and M2).


----------



## mark1958

AT one point I thought there was a website with the URL ending in nl but I must have been wrong but going back to my email from them in early 2013-- I am in error. Nevertheless, I am intrigued by their product and will likely go for an M1. I have a small wrist and the M2 and M3 will likely be too large for me.


chris01 said:


> German, and so far there is no sign of availability outside Japan. Maybe in time for a Christmas present?


----------



## mark1958

AT one point I thought there was a website with the URL ending in nl but I must have been wrong but going back to my email from them in early 2013-- I am in error. Nevertheless, I am intrigued by their product and will likely go for an M1. I have a small wrist and the M2 and M3 will likely be too large for me. I have friends in both Japan and Germany and I am sure I could get one of them to purchase for me but willing to wait a bit longer. I apologize i thought i was editing my post above but accidentally posted a second.


----------



## chris01

An update to their Japanese site: a little video in English that manages to tell us absolutely nothing. Nice pictures, though.

MORGENWERK????????????????????

At 50 seconds you can see 3 watches with their hands not quite in sync. This reminded me of my recent inspection of three Astron chronos at a local shop. Compared with my DS-2, which is currently 0.4s fast, they were +3, +5 and +6. The slightly embarrassed sales lady said that they had to take them up onto the roof to set them.


----------



## Sabresoft

chris01 said:


> An update to their Japanese site: a little video in English that manages to tell us absolutely nothing. Nice pictures, though.
> 
> MORGENWERK????????????????????
> 
> At 50 seconds you can see 3 watches with their hands not quite in sync. This reminded me of my recent inspection of three Astron chronos at a local shop. Compared with my DS-2, which is currently 0.4s fast, they were +3, +5 and +6. The slightly embarrassed sales lady said that they had to take them up onto the roof to set them.


Actually I don't mind if they are off, because the very first thing that I did when I bought my Astron was to do a forced sync out in the car. It took my watch from Tokyo time zone plus/minus whatever accumulated error, to Mountain Time and the correct seconds (checked against my recently sync'd Casio Protrek RC). No better way to prove that the watch really works.

Almost as much fun as my mantle clock (RC) when the battery dies. I pop in a new battery and put it back on the mantle showing whatever time it was at when the battery died. Usually if there's a visitor when I do this they always wonder why I don't bother setting it (I usually just say it doesn't really matter right now, I'll get around to it a little later when I have time). When I check a while later it has synced itself to the correct time.


----------



## chris01

Sabresoft said:


> Actually I don't mind if they are off, because the very first thing that I did when I bought my Astron was to do a forced sync out in the car. It took my watch from Tokyo time zone plus/minus whatever accumulated error, to Mountain Time and the correct seconds (checked against my recently sync'd Casio Protrek RC). No better way to prove that the watch really works.
> 
> Almost as much fun as my mantle clock (RC) when the battery dies. I pop in a new battery and put it back on the mantle showing whatever time it was at when the battery died. Usually if there's a visitor when I do this they always wonder why I don't bother setting it (I usually just say it doesn't really matter right now, I'll get around to it a little later when I have time). When I check a while later it has synced itself to the correct time.


Yes, but the point of this little problem is that, while RC clocks and watches in appropriate locations tend to sort themselves out, current GPS watches have to be treated like small children and gently led outside by the hand (!). Otherwise, after a few weeks you wonder what you spent all that money on. Unfortunately, while the new Oceanus GPS+RC is a lot smaller than your Astron and Citizen, it's still bloody huge.


----------



## richy176

chris01 said:


> An update to their Japanese site: a little video in English that manages to tell us absolutely nothing. Nice pictures, though.
> 
> MORGENWERK????????????????????
> 
> At 50 seconds you can see 3 watches with their hands not quite in sync. This reminded me of my recent inspection of three Astron chronos at a local shop. Compared with my DS-2, which is currently 0.4s fast, they were +3, +5 and +6. The slightly embarrassed sales lady said that they had to take them up onto the roof to set them.


The Astron is only accurate to +/- 15 spm without using the gps synch so if they are inside a store then the times will vary slightly. In day to day life they will synch to the satellites so long as you either go outside or sit by a window - with the watch on the window side - they just seem to need to `see the sky'.


----------



## mark1958

Is there any follow up on the sync issue, how they are selling in Japan, when they will be available elsewhere and any WUSers who have received their watch -- comments?


----------



## ronalddheld

I have nothing new to report. If the M1 and M2 are not for sale by the end of the year, I will send out an email.


----------



## mark1958

thanks


----------



## ronalddheld

Anyone acquire an M1 or M2 via Japanese dealers?


----------



## mark1958

I have been wondering the same thing



ronalddheld said:


> Anyone acquire an M1 or M2 via Japanese dealers?


----------



## ronalddheld

I sent out an email a several days ago and have gotten no response back.


----------



## ronalddheld

Pinterest has something there, but i cannot get to it.
時計（WATCH） > MORGEN WERK(モーゲンヴェルク)：e-lifestore
Maybe a better translation will find something useful.


----------



## ronalddheld

I just received an email. It seems they are working another issue. Preordering is now scheduled for mid May, and I have asked for more details.


----------



## ronalddheld

a follow on email has global preordering of all three models.


----------



## mark1958

Well.. i will believe it when i see it


----------



## webvan

Right...did they ever ship in Japan ? Can't remember anyone finding/linking to any actual user reports?


----------



## dicioccio

Just one simple question: why did morgenwerk chose to start to sell in Japan rather than in other countries ?


----------



## webvan

Assuming they've actually sold anything over there, again, no reports whatsoever unless I've missed something ?

If they have maybe there was more of a market or some kind of "sponsor" ?


----------



## chris01

dicioccio said:


> Just one simple question: why did morgenwerk chose to start to sell in Japan rather than in other countries ?


Maybe for the same reason that Citizen has only ever sold its TCs in Japan (whatever that reason is).


----------



## ronalddheld

I am unaware that any watches have been sold. We will see come May if one can preorder. Another good question is when is delivery of the first watches scheduled?


----------



## dicioccio

dicioccio said:


> Just one simple question: why did morgenwerk chose to start to sell in Japan rather than in other countries ?


I have to reformulate my question since the 3 following posts all missed the point...

"Why Morgenwerk, who is not a Japanese manufacturer, planned to start to pre-sell from Japan ?"

Of course I know Morgenwerk did not sell anything, so my question implied "in the near future".

Seiko and Citizen have JDM (Japan Domestic Market) models since Seiko and Citizen are from Japan... Morgenwerk is not, so I wonder why they want to start there. The European manufacturers using high-accuracy movements started to sell their models from here in Europe... Do they think the Japanese market is someway better than elsewhere ?

This is just a question so I would like to know your opinions...


----------



## chris01

dicioccio said:


> I have to reformulate my question since the 3 following posts all missed the point...
> 
> "Why Morgenwerk, who is not a Japanese manufacturer, planned to start to pre-sell from Japan ?"
> 
> Of course I know Morgenwerk did not sell anything, so my question implied "in the near future".
> 
> Seiko and Citizen have JDM (Japan Domestic Market) models since Seiko and Citizen are from Japan... Morgenwerk is not, so I wonder why they want to start there. The European manufacturers using high-accuracy movements started to sell their models from here in Europe... Do they think the Japanese market is someway better than elsewhere ?
> 
> This is just a question so I would like to know your opinions...


OK, I'll try to be a bit more focused.

It seems to me that there is more general interest in the performance vs cosmetics of watches in Japan than in western countries. This may help to explain why JDM includes so many low-volume but high-spec Japanese watches that are not sold elsewhere.

Also, perhaps the manufacturers find it easier to control and service a market that is far more isolated and contained than Europe and North America. High-tech watches need high-tech service centres and this is not a trivial issue if you need to set them up worldwide. It could be that MW has observed this and wants to keep its initial launch tightly controlled.

They will certainly have initial constraints on delivery numbers, and there's not much point in offering their limited volume to markets with a billion people.

Or, being cynical, maybe they don't want their failure to deliver the promised product on time to become too visible too soon.

I don't know about relative pricing but perhaps they feel they can, at least initially, get a better selling price in Japan.

All very academic at present, though.


----------



## dicioccio

Chris, telling you the truth I don't see any reason why the Japanese service would have to be considered better than the Europen one. In fact, just think that here in Europe a high end watch is considered to be mechanical and it requires a lot more assistance than a quartz one. So I don't think that here in Europe (I live in Rome, ITALY) there is a service network worse than the Japanese one.

About the general interest in high accuracy, in Japan you have Seiko and Citizen but here in Europe there are more than 2 manufacturers using the high accuracy movements from ETA (just think of Certina, Christopher Ward, Omega, and Breitling). So, again, I don't see an interest in high accuracy greater in Japan than in Europe.

So I don't understand yet why an European manufactured prefers to start from Japan... Am I miss something ??


----------



## chris01

dicioccio said:


> Chris, telling you the truth I don't see any reason why the Japanese service would have to be considered better than the Europen one. In fact, just think that here in Europe a high end watch is considered to be mechanical and it requires a lot more assistance than a quartz one. So I don't think that here in Europe (I live in Rome, ITALY) there is a service network worse than the Japanese one.
> 
> About the general interest in high accuracy, in Japan you have Seiko and Citizen but here in Europe there are more than 2 manufacturers using the high accuracy movements from ETA (just think of Certina, Christopher Ward, Omega, and Breitling). So, again, I don't see an interest in high accuracy greater in Japan than in Europe.
> 
> So I don't understand yet why an European manufactured prefers to start from Japan... Am I miss something ??


TBH I have no idea either; just a few suggestions as to possible reasons.

I didn't say that Japanese service was better, just more specialised, and that's probably only true for "The Citizen", if you want more than a battery change. Compare that with any servicing for the Sinn UX: nobody can touch it except Sinn in Frankfurt.

Ask MW and, while you're at it, find out when they're actually going to make and sell something.


----------



## ronalddheld

Unfortunately too little data and lots of time for speculation. We will see if the preorders are for all regions.


----------



## Sabresoft

It might be that the watches are being assembled in Japan as I would imagine that such a technology requires some sophisticated manufacturing that a small company might not be able to easily set up. While there is TC capability in Europe, ETA is the only supplier that I am aware of. Japan has two companies that have expertise in both TC and GPS, so I'd wager that they were more likely to have found the capability to manufacture the components there. It is even conceivable that they could be working with either of Seiko or Citizen as these companies do OEM work for non company brands.

While the MW watches would obviously be considered as competitors for both company's high end TC & GPS ranges, there is probably enough room in the market for another player, and as an OEM supplier they would derive revenue from their manufacturing activities.


----------



## ronalddheld

Sabresoft said:


> It might be that the watches are being assembled in Japan as I would imagine that such a technology requires some sophisticated manufacturing that a small company might not be able to easily set up. While there is TC capability in Europe, ETA is the only supplier that I am aware of. Japan has two companies that have expertise in both TC and GPS, so I'd wager that they were more likely to have found the capability to manufacture the components there. It is even conceivable that they could be working with either of Seiko or Citizen as these companies do OEM work for non company brands.
> 
> While the MW watches would obviously be considered as competitors for both company's high end TC & GPS ranges, there is probably enough room in the market for another player, and as an OEM supplier they would derive revenue from their manufacturing activities.


Intersting analysis, Sabersoft. i would have thought the watches would be assembled in Europe even if the parts were outsourced in the East.


----------



## chris01

Sabresoft said:


> It might be that the watches are being assembled in Japan as I would imagine that such a technology requires some sophisticated manufacturing that a small company might not be able to easily set up. While there is TC capability in Europe, ETA is the only supplier that I am aware of. Japan has two companies that have expertise in both TC and GPS, so I'd wager that they were more likely to have found the capability to manufacture the components there. It is even conceivable that they could be working with either of Seiko or Citizen as these companies do OEM work for non company brands.
> 
> While the MW watches would obviously be considered as competitors for both company's high end TC & GPS ranges, there is probably enough room in the market for another player, and as an OEM supplier they would derive revenue from their manufacturing activities.


Interesting to consider the origins of the higher-tech quartz watch movements that are available in volume production:

TC: Europe = ETA, Japan = Seiko & Citizen
RC: Europe = Junghans, Japan = Seiko, Citizen, Casio (assuming that Junghans roll their own)
GPS: Europe = nothing, Japan = Seiko, Citizen, Casio

Have I missed anybody?

Europe & US are a bit lacking in this area!


----------



## everose

I have an impression that the Japanese market has been (and likely continues to be) much more 'open' to the concept of higher end, higher tech, non traditional/non mechanical timepieces, as compared to other major markets. 

Also I have no idea how the sales of GPS 'timekeeping' (not activity/training GPS) watches breaks down internationally but i would bet that Japan is easily be the strongest market for such timepieces. I'm sure the Watch Cos will have access to this kind of data.

So if i were to launch such a timepiece then Japan may seem to be somewhat of a logical and natural starting point, regardless of where i was based or where the watches were actually made.


----------



## artec

@Chris01
What about Garmin? Neither Europe nor Japan, of course, and not a probable co-conspirator for Morgenwerk, but maybe they should be included just for the sake of completeness...though maybe not belonging in the "higher-tech" category you name.


----------



## chris01

artec said:


> @Chris01
> What about Garmin? Neither Europe nor Japan, of course, and not a probable co-conspirator for Morgenwerk, but maybe they should be included just for the sake of completeness...though maybe not belonging in the "higher-tech" category you name.


I'm sure that they have their uses in a specific context but I just can't see them as mainstream watches. I haven't paid them any serious attention, so how do they relate to the three Japanese GPS brands for functionality and usability? Are they from the US? So far, I think that *everose* has given the best summary.


----------



## ronalddheld

Is Garmin excluded because it does not look like a GPS dress watch or because of the digital display?


----------



## artec

I don't know whether Garmin owners treat them as "regular" watches or only use them for exercising etc. Garmin is a US company, based, I think, in KS, and they offer scores of GPS navigation units but their watches may not be engineered in house. I have no quarrel with everose' summary...I just wanted to be sure we were complete.


----------



## chris01

Some exciting news from Morgen Werk: their Japanese site notifies us of a price increase.

Here is Google's translation of the document:

################
March 2015 lucky day
Our suppliers Dear
Notice of Mogen'vu~eruku price revision
Dear Sirs
Zanfuyu of this, I would be delighted and your increasingly your Seiei. Patronage bestowed exceptional for your good offices,
I Thank.
Well, this time, we have let me served as the import agent MORGENWERK of (Mogen'vu~eruku)
The price revision was carried out from April 1, 2015 I will carry out will want your guided.
In response to significant circular weakening these days, becoming difficult it is to maintain the current selling price.
There will depend on that is forced to ask the product of price revisions due to various circumstances.
We would therefore, although there is indeed unwilling, to a change in the selling price than April 1, 2015 for the following products
It was a fact that I am allowed to practice.
Yours truly
Product List of price revision
model-no model case / strap old price new price
MW001-21 steel / steel ¥ 130,000 ¥ 150,000
MW001-22 black steel / black steel ¥ 140,000 ¥ 160,000
MW001-41 titanium / titanium ¥ 170,000 ¥ 210,000
MW001-42 PERRARUS titanium / titanium ¥ 210,000 ¥ 240,000
MW002-42 titanium / rubber ¥ 170,000 ¥ 200,000
MW002-52 titanium / titanium ¥ 180,000 ¥ 210,000
For the price ※, I will have all become a tax
We will continue to improve to a higher level of quality and service, we will continue to strive to satisfy our.
There is indeed excuse me, so that you can look forward to your understanding, thank you.
Martha International Co., Ltd.
President Yu Muramatsu
################

Not really likely to affect anybody at present, is it?


----------



## ronalddheld

Still awaiting the global preordering in May. I sent an recent email out but got no response.


----------



## artec

As Chris says, the price increase affects no-one at the moment, but thank you Chris, for passing it on. It's been so long that I've forgotten which one I'm supposed to be waiting for!


----------



## ronalddheld

artec said:


> As Chris says, the price increase affects no-one at the moment, but thank you Chris, for passing it on. It's been so long that I've forgotten which one I'm supposed to be waiting for!


I am waiting for the M3. Hopefully this is not like waiting for Godot.


----------



## xtratomic

Smoooooke on the waaaaater xD

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk


----------



## wbird

What am I missing? He has one distributor in Asia. Couldn't get worldwide distribution, missed delivery by 2 years, didn't show at baselworld, has no experience with TC or gps, prior watch was the neolog (you've seen the neolog?), doesn't say Swiss or Japanese Quartz so it probably is Chinese, no support or service network, and priced higher than the prior generation citizen satellite wave.

I say go for it. What could go wrong? I look forward to reading the reviews.


----------



## artec

An incurable optimist, apparently!


----------



## ronalddheld

wbird said:


> What am I missing? He has one distributor in Asia. Couldn't get worldwide distribution, missed delivery by 2 years, didn't show at baselworld, has no experience with TC or gps, prior watch was the neolog (you've seen the neolog?), doesn't say Swiss or Japanese Quartz so it probably is Chinese, no support or service network, and priced higher than the prior generation citizen satellite wave.
> 
> I say go for it. What could go wrong? I look forward to reading the reviews.


Certain this post is not sarcastic???


----------



## xtratomic

ronalddheld said:


> Certain this post is not sarcastic???


Of course it is

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk


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## chris01

This is what happens when organisations repeatedly fail to deliver. Everybody gets cynical. Over-promising and under-delivering are the curse of modern times. Reminds me that we're having a UK election in May (Ronald - this is not political, just an observation on human nature ).


----------



## ronalddheld

When the end of May occurs, we will see if one can preorder any of the three watches.


----------



## wbird

I hope I didn't bring morgenwerk down to the level of a politician or a bad contractor. I'm just saying the concept and product is very desirable but you have to question if this is the guy who can deliver it. 

In most instances getting a solid working prototype out to the press and YouTube is usually the easy part, scaling up manufacturing, growing and sustaining the business is the hard part. 

I'm definitely hoping you guys see a product from them. I know a lot of folks on this thread have been waiting a long time for something. I just can't get past all the red flags I get from reading this thread and this forum.


----------



## TicTacman

Tired of waiting... I just bought a nice omega Skywalker x33. Mission accomplished. It was worth to wait


----------



## ronalddheld

TicTacman said:


> Tired of waiting... I just bought a nice omega Skywalker x33. Mission accomplished. It was worth to wait


I understand and congratulations.


----------



## TicTacman

Accuracy test on Skywalker x33
For the last month and for my surprise there is no detectable time deviation of the watch against two different reliable time sources. Keep you posted.


----------



## ronalddheld

TicTacman said:


> Accuracy test on Skywalker x33
> For the last month and for my surprise there is no detectable time deviation of the watch against two different reliable time sources. Keep you posted.


Tictacman you could keep us informed in another thread, perhaps this one: https://www.watchuseek.com/f9/skywalker-vs-z-33-vs-cockpit-b50-vs-b55-1466250.html


----------



## chris01

Please try to contain your excitement, as I am hoping to avoid creating the mindless stampede more usually associated with a new model of iPhone, but Morgen Werk have announced ........ two new versions of the M2, with orange numbers! There's only 50 of each, so run, don't walk, to your nearest dealer.

?????? | MORGENWERK????????????????????


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Please try to contain your excitement, as I am hoping to avoid creating the mindless stampede more usually associated with a new model of iPhone, but Morgen Werk have announced ........ two new versions of the M2, with orange numbers! There's only 50 of each, so run, don't walk, to your nearest dealer.
> 
> ?????? | MORGENWERK????????????????????


I saw them. Not certain if they will be for sale in the US/European markets. Still waiting for the M3.... 
I saw their catalogue but the contents are in Japanese.


----------



## webvan

chris01 said:


> Please try to contain your excitement, as I am hoping to avoid creating the mindless stampede more usually associated with a new model of iPhone, but Morgen Werk have announced ........ two new versions of the M2, with orange numbers! There's only 50 of each, so run, don't walk, to your nearest dealer.
> 
> ?????? | MORGENWERK????????????????????



















They look good! Now the question is whether they'll ever ship, actually have they ever shipped anything? You'd think that someone who'd gone to the trouble of buying a Morgenwerk would own a computer and Google it and end up sharing some pics/comments here or somewhere else on the internet...


----------



## Hans Moleman

webvan said:


> They look good! Now the question is whether they'll ever ship, actually have they ever shipped anything? You'd think that someone who'd gone to the trouble of buying a Morgenwerk would own a computer and Google it and end up sharing some pics/comments here or somewhere else on the internet...


For all the marker alignment fetishists:

Notice how the minute hand aligns on the bottom image but not the top one?

'Sharing on the internet' interesting concept! Doubt it though...


----------



## G. I.

Morgenwerk watches will be shipped with a free copy of 'Duke Nukem Forever'.


----------



## chris01

Hans Moleman said:


> For all the marker alignment fetishists:
> 
> Notice how the minute hand aligns on the bottom image but not the top one?
> 
> 'Sharing on the internet' interesting concept! Doubt it though...


I'm more concerned with the misalignment of product and reality. However, worldwide ordering in May is still a possibility.


----------



## wbird

If there is justice in this world will_f should get one first. Assuming the wait since his first post hasn't crushed him.


----------



## ronalddheld

J


wbird said:


> If there is justice in this world will_f should get one first. Assuming the wait since his first post hasn't crushed him.


Being relatively new here you should not be expected to get yours first, assuming any of us do.


----------



## chris01

wbird said:


> If there is justice in this world will_f should get one first. Assuming the wait since his first post hasn't crushed him.


Absolutely; he's earned it. It's remarkable that a thread about a non-existant (?) product has grown to be the fourth largest in this forum. The other side of that coin is that he has to be the first to buy and review it, if it works at all. I don't usually say this, but we will also need a wrist shot to see if the unconventional watch-antenna-bracelet interface is OK, or just makes it look ridiculous.


----------



## ronalddheld

I sent an email to MW asking for any updates. So far I have not received a reply.


----------



## refugio

Hans Moleman said:


> For all the marker alignment fetishists:
> 
> Notice how the minute hand aligns on the bottom image but not the top one?


Check out the difference in the HOUR hands!


----------



## artec

Since both images show the same time but one of them is illustrating the lume, I think we must conclude that the watch is not running when the photos were taken. I suspect that the shift in the position of the minute hand to line up with the 8 minute marker in the lume shot is due to parallax.... the camera is in a slightly different position. And finally, although I've never held an MW, i would assume that the minute hand can be set anywhere the owner wants, so the relative positions of the minute hand and the second hand are up to the owner, aren't they? 
The alignment fetishists (your word!) surely only care about the alignment between the second hand and the minute markers, don't they? And that seems pretty good in these two shots.


----------



## xtratomic

artec said:


> Since both images show the same time but one of them is illustrating the lume, I think we must conclude that the watch is not running when the photos were taken. I suspect that the shift in the position of the minute hand to line up with the 8 minute marker in the lume shot is due to parallax.... the camera is in a slightly different position. And finally, although I've never held an MW, i would assume that the minute hand can be set anywhere the owner wants, so the relative positions of the minute hand and the second hand are up to the owner, aren't they?
> The alignment fetishists (your word!) surely only care about the alignment between the second hand and the minute markers, don't they? And that seems pretty good in these two shots.


I think that is not an actual photo image, but a computer render.

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk


----------



## artec

*Most recent Morgenwerk announcement*

If I remember correctly, the last announcement from Arne, the owner (?) of the Morgenwerk watch, said that we could expect the release of the sales web-site in "late May". Since today is the last day of the month, I suppose we must accept that, like previous promises, this one has collapsed too.
Should we now give up altogether on Morgenwerk, or is this merely another postponement? Very disappointing, whichever it is!


----------



## chris01

*Re: Most recent Morgenwerk announcement*



artec said:


> If I remember correctly, the last announcement from Arne, the owner (?) of the Morgenwerk watch, said that we could expect the release of the sales web-site in "late May". Since today is the last day of the month, I suppose we must accept that, like previous promises, this one has collapsed too.
> Should we now give up altogether on Morgenwerk, or is this merely another postponement? Very disappointing, whichever it is!


It's very odd that the Japanese web site still appears to have watches available for sale online. Unfortunately you need a Japanese address, at least for ordering and payment. Delivery address may be different but you can't get to that without completing the first form.


----------



## ronalddheld

*Re: Most recent Morgenwerk announcement*

That is correct, world sales were to start in May. No idea what to think.


----------



## artec

*Re: Most recent Morgenwerk announcement*

 I tried to buy one from the website and from one of the retailers but couldn't get any reply. I even asked Higuchi if he could get one for me....he is a dealer after all....but he said he couldn't. I agree that it's odd that the watches are apparently still available if the buyer is Japanese enough. I don't know anyone who is, though. What about trying Seiya?


----------



## wbird

Maybe it's me, but isn't one morganwerk thread enough? Just saying.


----------



## ronalddheld

*Re: Most recent Morgenwerk announcement*

I can merge them if that is the consensus.
If Katsu and Seiya cannot buy them, I would not risk a convoluted method to order one.


----------



## artec

*Re: Most recent Morgenwerk announcement*

I don't know whether Katsu tried...he only said he couldn't, not that he did or didn't. I never asked Seiya... since he's not an AD he might feel free-er to try buying on behalf of a customer...if he were paid up front. I'd be willing to ask him if no-one else wants to!


----------



## chris01

*Re: Most recent Morgenwerk announcement*



ronalddheld said:


> I can merge them if that is the consensus.


Good idea. We wouldn't want to miss exciting news that got posted in the wrong thread.


----------



## ronalddheld

Threads to be merged today.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have just gotten an email with potentially good news. Soon I should be able to post concrete news for our long suffering forum members. For now here is the Twitter account:@MORGENWERKwatch


----------



## ronalddheld

Assuming there will be real Watches for sale this year, is there anyone besides myself who would purchase one?


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> Assuming there will be real Watches for sale this year, is there anyone besides myself who would purchase one?


I can't speak for others, but I'll be awaiting your consumer report. I just hope you don't buy the last one.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> I can't speak for others, but I'll be awaiting your consumer report. I just hope you don't buy the last one.


Is the last one the first one, Chris?
I am waiting for permission and the right time to release more information. Perhaps in the next couple of months.....


----------



## gangrel

I'd consider one. There are obviously numerous factors that will come into play.


----------



## ronalddheld

Good to know there are a few interested. Anyone else?


----------



## Tom-HK

Well, you can count on this fool to be interested, but as I'm done buying for the year, anything too pricey will have to wait a bit.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have no information on pricing right now.


----------



## Horoticus

You can count me as another interested party. 👍🏻


----------



## igna

I was saving fot "The citizen" and the watch savings account was reset because the Certina DS-2 temptation. Now I'm back saving for The Citizen and there has to be good reasons to change my mind. Better wait for all your reports and comments.


----------



## webvan

Wait...after peddling this vaporware for years they are now wondering if they can possibly make some money off the maybe 10 active members of the HAQ forums !?

More seriously could you ask them what happened in Japan exactly, did they actually sell any watches over there ?


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> Wait...after peddling this vaporware for years they are now wondering if they can possibly make some money off the maybe 10 active members of the HAQ forums !?
> 
> More seriously could you ask them what happened in Japan exactly, did they actually sell any watches over there ?


 I can try.


----------



## dicioccio

Just for your information, I've been there in the last weeks and I've been in more than 20 different big watch stores in Tokyo, Kyoto and Kobe: no one among them had any info about MW...


----------



## chris01

Contrary to my own experience of German friends, I think that in this context "Morgen" has the same significance as the Spanish "Mañana", but without the same overriding sense of urgency.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Contrary to my own experience of German friends, I think that in this context "Morgen" has the same significance as the Spanish "Mañana", but without the same overriding sense of urgency.


We will see by the end of the year.


----------



## ronalddheld

More email traffic. As of now I am expecting to be able to provide more concrete information in about two weeks. Since I am just one of you I would not prefer to be lead on once more and again be let down.


----------



## gangrel

So we take a short vacation. Could be worse...could be another round of hibernating...

If they wait too long, I'll talk myself into Citizen AQ4000.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> More email traffic. As of now I am expecting to be able to provide more concrete information in about two weeks. Since I am just one of you I would not prefer to be lead on once more and again be let down.


Ronald, after the effort you have put into keeping us informed about this project, I do hope that they will not disappoint you.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Ronald, after the effort you have put into keeping us informed about this project, I do hope that they will not disappoint you.


So do I but a couple of weeks will tell.


----------



## ronalddheld

I tried a new URL I found and had gotten forbidden on the page.


----------



## gangrel

moregenwerk.eu? I get 'forbidden' on that one. morgenwerk.com gets a redirect to a German ISP. Not encouraging.


----------



## chris01

We need to be careful about the names:

*morgen-werk.com* is their original site that has been under construction forever, displaying the same message in 7 languages
*morgen-werk.de* redirects to the *.com* site
*morgen-werk.eu* does the same as *.de*
*morgenwerk.jp* is their Japanese site, the only one, AFAIK, that has ever displayed anything interesting

*morgenwerk.com* redirects to *inwx.de*, a German ISP and domain host
*morgenwerk.de* does the same as *.com*

There's probably a good selection of others.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> We need to be careful about the names:
> 
> *morgen-werk.com* is their original site that has been under construction forever, displaying the same message in 7 languages
> *morgen-werk.de* redirects to the *.com* site
> *morgen-werk.eu* does the same as *.de*
> *morgenwerk.jp* is their Japanese site, the only one, AFAIK, that has ever displayed anything interesting
> 
> *morgenwerk.com* redirects to *inwx.de*, a German ISP and domain host
> *morgenwerk.de* does the same as *.com*
> 
> There's probably a good selection of others.


True but worth checking while we wait.... Maybe I will have more next week..


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> True but worth checking while we wait.... Maybe I will have more next week..


Absolutely. I just wanted to avoid unnecessary panic about irrelevant web sites.


----------



## G. I.

chris01 said:


> Absolutely. I just wanted to avoid unnecessary panic about irrelevant web sites.


----------



## chris01

G. I. said:


>


Did you spot that Lt. Frank Drebin is wearing a Morgenwerk?


----------



## ronalddheld

I thought that I might have more to post, but it may be another week....


----------



## G. I.

ronalddheld said:


> I thought that I might have more to post, but it may be another week....


Take your time. Morgenwerk is not about being in a hurry.


----------



## Horoticus

G. I. said:


> Take your time. Morgenwerk is not about being in a hurry.


😄


----------



## artec

You never know...they might be like the duck, peaceful and tranquil on the surface but paddling like mad underneath!


----------



## ronalddheld

More emails. I may have something tomorrow. Has anyone recently gotten a PDF file attached to a post?


----------



## ronalddheld

The M1 catalogue has arrived. Unfortunately I cannot get the catalogue to upload. If those interested will send me a PM with their email address, I will send them the catalogue. Ordering instructions are to be sent to [email protected]. Please be patient if I do not swiftly send out an email reply.
Next one is expected next week.


----------



## gangrel

Hmmmm....

Hmmmmmmmm......

Gotta think about it. No, not asking Fearless Moderator for the catalog. Did that.

Big watch. 43.8mm x 14mm tall. A feature I particularly like: rechargeable lithium-ion battery; they say USB charger is separate. That implies a USB port; one can anticipate it's a standard micro-USB. (I can't believe they'd throw in a Type C; Type C is basically brand new.) I like that. Heck, I've got some keychain-style flashlights that have a micro-USB port and a rechargeable little cell. The one lack: a rechargeable system almost begs for a power level indication.

Intrigued...definitely. But the size...that's a concern. Now, if you want an offbeat thought...if this was a *pocket watch*...I might go for it more easily. But remember, I've got the small wrist. I refer you to my Dolce thread. 

Well, I was wondering what I should get myself for Christmas...


----------



## refugio

gangrel said:


> Well, I was wondering what I should get myself for Christmas...


Christmas, what year?


----------



## gangrel

That, we may find out next week. 

But if they're sending out a PDF, one has to think they're just about good to go. Still, accepting pre-orders for something like a 1Q 2016 delivery wouldn't be shocking.


----------



## ronalddheld

All of the catalogue requests have been sent out as of now. I believe for the M1 and M2 one should not have to wait until next year.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> All of the catalogue requests have been sent out as of now. I believe for the M1 and M2 one should not have to wait until next year.


We now live in (a little more) hope.

The pricing seems a bit odd. All four models have the same size and features; only difference is the packaging.

M1-1 normal steel, rubber strap, €1200
M1-2 black IP, rubber strap, €1400
- OK so far
M1-3 black IP titanium watch and bracelet, €1400
- I'd expect a significantly higher price than #1 and #2 for Ti vs steel
M1-X, as M1-3 but full lume dial, €1800
- Seems an awful lot extra for a lumed dial

If those are VAT-inclusive prices, from Germany, it's a decent deal.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> We now live in (a little more) hope.
> 
> The pricing seems a bit odd. All four models have the same size and features; only difference is the packaging.
> 
> M1-1 normal steel, rubber strap, €1200
> M1-2 black IP, rubber strap, €1400
> - OK so far
> M1-3 black IP titanium watch and bracelet, €1400
> - I'd expect a significantly higher price than #1 and #2 for Ti vs steel
> M1-X, as M1-3 but full lume dial, €1800
> - Seems an awful lot extra for a lumed dial
> 
> If those are VAT-inclusive prices, from Germany, it's a decent deal.


As an EU product should the VAT be included in the price automatically?


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> We now live in (a little more) hope.
> 
> The pricing seems a bit odd. All four models have the same size and features; only difference is the packaging.
> 
> M1-1 normal steel, rubber strap, €1200
> M1-2 black IP, rubber strap, €1400
> - OK so far
> M1-3 black IP titanium watch and bracelet, €1400
> - I'd expect a significantly higher price than #1 and #2 for Ti vs steel
> M1-X, as M1-3 but full lume dial, €1800
> - Seems an awful lot extra for a lumed dial
> 
> If those are VAT-inclusive prices, from Germany, it's a decent deal.


As an EU product should the VAT be included in the price automatically?


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> As an EU product should the VAT be included in the price automatically?


That's what I'd expect, but it will depend on where the seller is (they may be non-EU but pricing in €), where they're selling to (EU or not) in their advertising, and just whether they're being difficult. As ever with MW, Ronald, we are anxiously awaiting more from you.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have sent out all off the M1 requests. Catalogue may have minor updates over time. Awaiting the M2 info....


----------



## webvan

Thanks, quite interesting. As for the prices, yes, those shown for consumer goods in Europe would be inclusive of VAT.

Need to go back to page 1 to refresh my memory on the M2 and M3 models now!


----------



## webvan

Thanks, quite interesting. As for the prices, yes, those shown for consumer goods in Europe would be inclusive of VAT.

Need to go back to page 1 to refresh my memory on the M2 and M3 models now!

EDIT - ok so I went back to the original piece of info (3 years ago now!) http://www.ablogtowatch.com/morgenw...atch-is-more-accurate-than-your-mobile-phone/ and with its size the M3 wouldn't work for me.

I'd still like to know what happened in Japan with the Morgenwerk watches apparently available for purchase but that no one appears to have ever seen in the flesh...


----------



## ronalddheld

Webvan I went back to that same blog last night.
I expect to have at least one new file tomorrow but cannot say what time of day.


----------



## chris01

webvan said:


> Thanks, quite interesting. As for the prices, yes, those shown for consumer goods in Europe would be inclusive of VAT.
> 
> Need to go back to page 1 to refresh my memory on the M2 and M3 models now!
> 
> EDIT - ok so I went back to the original piece of info (3 years ago now!) Morgenwerk Satellite Precision Watch Is More Accurate Than Your Mobile Phone | aBlogtoWatch and with its size the M3 wouldn't work for me.
> 
> I'd still like to know what happened in Japan with the Morgenwerk watches apparently available for purchase but that no one appears to have ever seen in the flesh...


The M3 is certainly very big, although all that extra tech has to fit in somewhere. I can't really see the point of having both M1 and M2 models, as the only apparent difference, apart from the numerals on the M2, is the size and weight. From the Japanese site for the two Ti on Ti models -

MW001-41: 43.8 x 14 mm, 138g
MW002-52: 46 x 15 mm, 148g

Surely the M1 is big enough for any normal purpose.


----------



## ronalddheld

I will try the M3 if the weight with a strap is not excessive. No one else seems interested.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> I will try the M3 if the weight with a strap is not excessive. No one else seems interested.


Famous (bible) quote:
And if you act wisely, others will follow.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> Famous (bible) quote:
> And if you act wisely, others will follow.


Only the long time HAQ residences can say if i possess any wisdom.


----------



## artec

Guessing that the M2 and M3 will be more expensive than the most expensive M1, at 1800 Euro, the price of the M3 looks as if it might be getting a bit rarefied! And although I'd be interested in the digital additions to the dial, the size kills the M3 for me, too. I've ordered an M1 and even its size is marginal for me.
I understand that the Japanese trial venture is still going on but don't know what sort of numbers have sold. All the 650 M1s available from this first offering is not going to flood the market, even if they are all sold.
It would be interesting to know what sort of volume is contemplated for continuous production...


----------



## ronalddheld

I have the M1 and M2 manuals. same as before send me a PM with your email address and which ones you want.


----------



## webvan

Thanks for the M1 manual, no additional features on the M2 I take it?



chris01 said:


> We now live in (a little more) hope.
> 
> The pricing seems a bit odd. All four models have the same size and features; only difference is the packaging.
> 
> M1-1 normal steel, rubber strap, €1200
> M1-2 black IP, rubber strap, €1400
> - OK so far
> M1-3 black IP titanium watch and bracelet, €1400
> - I'd expect a significantly higher price than #1 and #2 for Ti vs steel
> M1-X, as M1-3 but full lume dial, €1800
> - Seems an awful lot extra for a lumed dial
> 
> If those are VAT-inclusive prices, from Germany, it's a decent deal.


Upon closer inspection of the brochure, the M1-3 also comes on a rubber strap not a bracelet like the M1-X, still I agree there could be a premium for Ti.

Also is the black IP a good idea? Doesn't this type of coating tend to fade after a while and look shabby?


----------



## chris01

webvan said:


> Thanks for the M1 manual, no additional features on the M2 I take it?
> 
> Upon closer inspection of the brochure, the M1-3 also comes on a rubber strap not a bracelet like the M1-X, still I agree there could be a premium for Ti.
> 
> Also is the black IP a good idea? Doesn't this type of coating tend to fade after a while and look shabby?


My apologies, I think I was conflating the specs on the Japanese web site with the brochure. You are correct, and all the M1-1/2/3 models are listed with a rubber strap and only the M1-X has a Ti bracelet. That kills it for me as I don't wear straps and I hate full-lume dials. Unless there's an M1-3 with a Ti bracelet I'm not interested. Then €1800 is too much anyway and you're probably right about black IP as well.

The M2 brochure is just user instructions, that probably apply to the M1 as well. No prices and nothing about straps/bracelets.


----------



## ronalddheld

No reason for pricing and options in a user's manual.
Hopefully the M2 will be available by the end of the week.


----------



## webvan

M2? Did you mean M3, the M3 manual and brochure? 

How did you order it Artec? Are they asking for pre-payment?


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> M2? Did you mean M3, the M3 manual and brochure?
> 
> How did you order it Artec? Are they asking for pre-payment?


I meant the M2 catalogue.


----------



## artec

I ordered off the pdf catalogue. The order was confirmed and I am to pay by Paypal but have not been asked to do so yet. I understand the watch is to be supplied from stock. All the watches in the only catalogue so far released are M1...M1-1 and M1-2 are steel, then there is M1-Titanium and M1-Edition PERRARUS. Still to come, I understand, are the M2 and M3. I have no information on them but it seems Ronald may have.


----------



## webvan

Well done, I didn't realize they were already taking orders via email. It would be better if something was set up on their website here MORGENWERK but I suppose Paypal gives some safety. Hope they ship your watch soon! Which version did you take?


----------



## ronalddheld

Nothing new on M2 or M3.
We are being given an opportunity to order before the general public.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Wow!
MW's owner is a confident man.

Imagine the fallout from a dodgy watch being send to Artec.

Maybe his stuff is very good...


----------



## Hans Moleman

> receiving the first watches off the assembly tables, while still reminiscing about the three years from prototype to final watch.


Source: https://twitter.com/MORGENWERKwatch/with_replies


----------



## gangrel

That explains why there's no full-scale web-based ordering system. You'd have to be concerned that, once you go live, the initial burst of orders could be overwhelming.


----------



## ronalddheld

How many other have access to order these watches? Besides HAQers who would be in a hurry to buy an expensive quartz watch?


----------



## gangrel

How many orders could they fulfill in short order? 

I'm just speculating that this one's been discussed for 3 years. We don't exhaust the buyer space.  And you may well be right, but this is comparable to, say, the Astrons, altho I'll grant the appeal may well be more narrow.

At this point, I don't think I'm going to get an M1. Given the price point, it's got to be Right. There are a few small things that aren't, for me; with its appearance and rubber strap, I'd *strongly* prefer better water resistance, for example. Well...and the fact that I got the Seiko Japan catalog, when the Dolce came in, and finally got around to browsing through it. The JDM Dolce and Spirit lines...hmmmm.... Not pure HAQ, but radio controlled, and some better looking models.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> How many other have access to order these watches? Besides HAQers who would be in a hurry to buy an expensive quartz watch?


A few hundred Japanese, apparently, if you follow MW's initial marketing model. But did it ever happen?


----------



## webvan

The content ("receiving the first watches off the assembly tables, while still reminiscing about the three years from prototype to final watch.") of the Twitter post that Hans linked to seems to confirm that nothing ever happened in Japan, which is confusing and well, worrying...


----------



## ronalddheld

Not certain ruminating over Japanese site will gain us anything. only someone having a MW watch will.


----------



## chris01

webvan said:


> The content ("receiving the first watches off the assembly tables, while still reminiscing about the three years from prototype to final watch.") of the Twitter post that Hans linked to seems to confirm that nothing ever happened in Japan, which is confusing and well, worrying...


Anyone who doesn't find the entire concept and content of Twitter to be confusing and worrying is probably quite confused.


----------



## webvan

Well in this case Twitter was just a way for them to communicate, sort of, in the absence of pretty much anything else over the past 3 years apart from that ablogtowatch "preview", emails to our fearless HAQ leader and that extravagant advertizing campaign in Japan...


----------



## artec

I was told that a "small batch of watches" was sold in Japan...no details. I am also told that my watch (serial number supplied) will be shipped on Monday and that "the next shipment window for M1-X is around October 31st". 
I don't "do" (or whatever the proper verb is) Twitter but it seems that MW communicates by Twitter, at least sometimes. 
I understood earlier that a website would be opened and that one would be able to buy from that. I don't know if that's still the plan.


----------



## ronalddheld

artec said:


> I was told that a "small batch of watches" was sold in Japan...no details. I am also told that my watch (serial number supplied) will be shipped on Monday and that "the next shipment window for M1-X is around October 31st".
> I don't "do" (or whatever the proper verb is) Twitter but it seems that MW communicates by Twitter, at least sometimes.
> I understood earlier that a website would be opened and that one would be able to buy from that. I don't know if that's still the plan.


Artec, I will be interested in the shipment of your watch, including customs. Of course after you have it a while any thought would be useful for those still undecided.


----------



## artec

I understand that shipping is free. I asked earlier for the watch to be shipped by mail because I've never had to pay duty on a watch that came by post but almost always had to on those that came by FedEx or UPS. I was told that MW had selected FedEx as their shippers and that it couldn't be changed...so I fear I'm likely to get stung by the US Customs.
Do I understand that I'm the only HAQ taking the plunge...the guinea-pig?
I'll be glad to report when it gets here, and maybe write a review after owning it for a bit. 
You make the point that we don't know who besides HAQ are likely to be buyers...who even knows about the watches? Are they being advertised, and if so, how?


----------



## Tom-HK

You're not quite the only one, Artec, but I've had enough things I've ordered fail to turn up that these days I tend to reserve announcements until after the thing has arrived. But if we're putting cards on the table, I have an M1-X incoming. And a Seiko Superior 9983. And a Habring2 Jumping Seconds.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have not problems with FedEx but i am concerned about dealing with Customs. I cannot trailblaze for the group if I want a M3.


----------



## hughesyn

Tom-HK said:


> You're not quite the only one, Artec, but I've had enough things I've ordered fail to turn up that these days I tend to reserve announcements until after the thing has arrived. But if we're putting cards on the table, I have an M1-X incoming. And a Seiko Superior 9983. And a Habring2 Jumping Seconds.


I know it's not HAQ, but Habring2 jumping seconds? Wow.

I checked out the new JLC Geophsic True Seconds in London recently. Aside from the proce (I'm after gold not steel) I want one.
Might look at the Habring. More than likely I'll get a Tresor, it's more in my budget.

Sorry for the non-HAQ post...


----------



## Horoticus

artec said:


> Do I understand that I'm the only HAQ taking the plunge...the guinea-pig?


You are not alone artec. An M1-3 is supposed to ship my way (US) on Monday via Fedex. We shall see. And yes, expect to receive a bill for customs fees. TBD


----------



## webvan

artec said:


> I understand that shipping is free. I asked earlier for the watch to be shipped by mail because I've never had to pay duty on a watch that came by post but almost always had to on those that came by FedEx or UPS. I was told that MW had selected FedEx as their shippers and that it couldn't be changed...so I fear I'm likely to get stung by the US Customs.
> Do I understand that I'm the only HAQ taking the plunge...the guinea-pig?
> I'll be glad to report when it gets here, and maybe write a review after owning it for a bit.
> You make the point that we don't know who besides HAQ are likely to be buyers...who even knows about the watches? Are they being advertised, and if so, how?


Yep Fedex means taxes and "worse" the $20 (or maybe more now) "processing fee"...Wouldn't have that problem in Europe but I'm not sure which one to get ;-) The M1-3 would have my preference but I'm not a big fan of rubber straps (probably "proprietary" too). Did you go for the the M1-X for the bracelet?


----------



## artec

I ordered the M1-X too. I really prefer dark dials but I abhor rubber straps and prefer Ti, so the M1-X is what's available. I envy you the Twin Quartz...it's not only technically interesting but very good looking, at least to my eye.
I had to look the Habring up and admit that I'm baffled. Let me emphasize that no criticism is meant or intended to be implied but aside from accuracy differences, I don't understand the point of a mechanical movement whose the designer has had to twist himself into a pretzel to do something almost all quartz movements do because most of them have to! 
I believe second-by-second movement of the second hand used to be something some 19th century watch designers strove for... is there something different in principle between these and the Habring?


----------



## Sabresoft

I received an email from Arne today indicating that their new website will be up by December. Also while the M1 & M2 are available for pre-order, the M3 would be available in December.

I wish they had more options on straps or a bracelet for most models. I'm not big on rubber straps. I bought a leather strap for my Sinn UX as the rubber made the watch feel heavy. With the leather it wears quite comfortably.


----------



## webvan

Ah so only the M1X is available for shipping? 

I had another look at the brochure and while I'm not a big fan of "plating", re durability, it does have the advantage here of integrating the antennas better than the SS version possibly?


----------



## ronalddheld

Due to weight considerations I am likely to go with the rubber strap.


----------



## hughesyn

webvan said:


> Yep Fedex means taxes and "worse" the $20 (or maybe more now) "processing fee"...Wouldn't have that problem in Europe but I'm not sure which one to get ;-) The M1-3 would have my preference but I'm not a big fan of rubber straps (probably "proprietary" too). Did you go for the the M1-X for the bracelet?


On the other hand, you will save the tax in the EU country, usually 20%. So if the US tax is less than that, you will save money compared to us in the EU.


----------



## Horoticus

ronalddheld said:


> Due to weight considerations I am likely to go with the rubber strap.


My thoughts exactly. Hope I like the strap!


----------



## artec

Mostly for the bracelet, yes. Even if the rubber straps are "custom" (no idea whether they are), they're still rubber and I've never even tried a rubber strap that I could have put up with! I prefer Ti, too, but there is the M1-3 that ticks that box.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> Due to weight considerations I am likely to go with the rubber strap.


It seems unlikely to make a huge difference. On the Japanese website the M1 Ti models have only bracelets, but for the larger M2 they offer both:

MW002-42 Ti+rubber 132g
MW002-52 Ti+Ti 148g
Same numbers for the two M2 versions with orange numerals.

The MW001-41/42 Ti+Ti is 138g


----------



## ronalddheld

I am uncertain I can wear a 130+ gram watch for very long.


----------



## webvan

chris01 said:


> It seems unlikely to make a huge difference. On the Japanese website the M1 Ti models have only bracelets, but for the larger M2 they offer both:
> 
> MW002-42 Ti+rubber 132g
> MW002-52 Ti+Ti 148g
> Same numbers for the two M2 versions with orange numerals.
> 
> The MW001-41/42 Ti+Ti is 138g


I didn't realize that site was still around, odd that Europe/Rest of the World wouldn't get the MW001-41/42 models.



hughesyn said:


> On the other hand, you will save the tax in the EU country, usually 20%. So if the US tax is less than that, you will save money compared to us in the EU.


That's a good point, but did they ask for payment of €1800 or of €1800/1.2=€1500 for the M1X ?


----------



## Tom-HK

The price in the brochure is ex tax. Add 20% if you're purchasing from within Europe. If purchasing from outside Europe, you just pay the sticker price + whatever your local tax authorities add on when it arrives at customs (which is nothing, in the case of Hong Kong).


----------



## webvan

Since you said you had an MX-1 on its way to you I'm going to assume you're correct.

Still, that was discussed before and there is no such mention in the brochure...again I've never ever seen any consumer goods not quoted inclusive of taxes in Europe, especially in a sales brochure, these people really don't do anything properly do they! Can't even start thinking about any warranty issues or whether the watches actually perform as described, oh well let's hope our "guinea pigs" will have good news to share ;-)


----------



## Tom-HK

I admit I was surprised. I had to check twice with Arne, rephrasing the question to make absolutely sure. When he first confirmed that sales outside Europe were tax-free, I expected him to say that the final price for the M1-X was €1,500. When he said it was €1,800, I went back to him to double-check that this was correct and yes, indeed, €1,800 is what I had to pay. Still, if the tech works as advertised, it's still a reasonable price, I think.


----------



## Tom-HK

I went with the M1-X because of the white dial. I generally prefer white dials because the seem cleaner and easier to read, to me. Black dials are sometimes ok, but can make me look a bit gangster.


----------



## ronalddheld

I prefer white dials over black, but do nor expect it for the M3.


----------



## Tom-HK

From reading the manual, one of the features I'm really looking forward to trying is the hand alignment adjustment. I can't stand my Citizen's second hand being off by as much as it is on the climb from 9 to 12. I hope the feature allows for very small and precise adjustments so I can get the hands bang on the markers. I also hope, of course, that the hands can be realigned without having to stop the time-keeping function.


----------



## ronalddheld

I received an updated M1 and M2 catalogues. As per before send me a PM with which ones you want and your email address. Do not panic if I do not start to mail them out until tomorrow.


----------



## Sabresoft

ronalddheld said:


> Is the general consumer more interested in having the current RC watches or GPS watches? That would be where the short term innovation would be. As long as GPS watches use more power and need larger antennae than an RC watch then the overall watch is going to be larger. CSAC watches may be huge or extra large until the power requirements are drastically cut and the chip size is significantly decreased. Someone with greater knowledge than I should chime in.


Sorry for quoting such an old message in this thread, but I was going back through the thread just for the heck of it and noticed just how long this wait has been going on. I'd have sworn it was only two years, not 3 going on 4!

Anyway the reason that I quoted the message was in reference to the general consumer. I doubt that most general consumers know about RC let alone the nuances of GPS or TC.

I was in a jewelry store yesterday as my wife ogled some jewelry, and so of course was browsing the Citizen watches just to see if they had the latest GPS models (they didn't, in fact they didn't have any GPS models let alone the latest).

I was accosted by a sales clerk who started the spiel "never needs a battery". Just for the heck of it I said "Oh I didn't know they had such a thing". He never got into the RC features, of which they had several models, but just reiterated the "never needs a battery" and "it's a Citizen", to which I responded, "never heard of them". Meanwhile under my sleeve was a Skyhawk AT.

Clearly for most consumers "it looks nice" is probably the sum total of their sophistication when it comes to watch buying.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Sabresoft said:


> Sorry for quoting such an old message in this thread, but I was going back through the thread just for the heck of it and noticed just how long this wait has been going on. I'd have sworn it was only two years, not 3 going on 4!
> 
> Anyway the reason that I quoted the message was in reference to the general consumer. I doubt that most general consumers know about RC let alone the nuances of GPS or TC.
> 
> I was in a jewelry store yesterday as my wife ogled some jewelry, and so of course was browsing the Citizen watches just to see if they had the latest GPS models (they didn't, in fact they didn't have any GPS models let alone the latest).
> 
> I was accosted by a sales clerk who started the spiel "never needs a battery". Just for the heck of it I said "Oh I didn't know they had such a thing". He never got into the RC features, of which they had several models, but just reiterated the "never needs a battery" and "it's a Citizen", to which I responded, "never heard of them". Meanwhile under my sleeve was a Skyhawk AT.
> 
> Clearly for most consumers "it looks nice" is probably the sum total of their sophistication when it comes to watch buying.


Most consumers blindly trust the technology.
Any technology. Somehow the boffins will get it right. Right?

Mechanical, quartz and RC; all a big muddle.

Lets focus on straps and bezels. Now that's fun.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> Most consumers blindly trust the technology.
> Any technology. Somehow the boffins will get it right. Right?
> 
> Mechanical, quartz and RC; all a big muddle.
> 
> Lets focus on straps and bezels. Now that's fun.


That is mighty harsh, Hans. Even if true. Since the ads are for "atomic" watches how many consumers think the primary reference standards accuracies apply to those watches?


----------



## Sabresoft

ronalddheld said:


> That is mighty harsh, Hans. Even if true. Since the ads are for "atomic" watches how many consumers think the primary reference standards accuracies apply to those watches?


The truth hurts <grin>

Few people that I meet know much about watches. I even have spoken to people who are wearing a watch and ask if it is mechanical or quartz and they're not even sure which it is. But they liked the look of the watch.

To be fair, looks are a factor for us watch geeks too, as many a conversation here on HAQ attests, but at least we also have somewhat of a clue as to what sort of "engine" is running below the surface. Most general consumers don't know, and don't really care either. That is one reason why I think that TCs are losing out to RC & GPS. All play the accuracy game and all have some downsides:

1. TC continues to get worse (albeit in small increments) until the owner/operator re-syncs;
2. RC has limited geography around the planet where they work;
3. GPS generally needs to be outdoors to sync.

Hence why the MW & Casio RC/GPS watches are so interesting to us as they compensate somewhat for some of the individual shortcomings. The ultimate, short of a wearable CSAC, therefore will have to be the TC, RC GPS watch!


----------



## dicioccio

ronalddheld said:


> That is mighty harsh, Hans. Even if true. Since the ads are for "atomic" watches how many consumers think the primary reference standards accuracies apply to those watches?


This is harsh but it's the truth. For practical everyday use a standard quartz is more than enough. Everything else, anything "more" is just for our pleasure and pride. If you see things from this perspective, Hans just says that we could discuss a lot about accuracy (that is the main goal of this subforum) but in the end what's most easy to be discussed and very objective is the physical aspect of a watch.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Have a look at people who just realized that the last clock they looked at was half an hour slow.
They feel cheated. They were misled! They thought they had half an hour extra, but did not.

We are conditioned to trust the clock. 

And there is a good reason for that. That's how society works best. 
Time dictates us a rhythm, and we all stick to that. 

I do not question the station clock. I trust it.

And I guess most people trust their watch the same way.
They don't care what's under the hood. And why should they?

I don't care how my washer does its thing. I hope the boffins screwed it together the right way.
I have to trust them. And, honestly, I don't care.

I saw a documentary a while ago where a couple bought some very nice tailor made watches. Choose your dial. Choose the hands. Choose the case and strap. Take your time. This will be your perfect watch. Intricate polish on the movement.

A while later they noticed that the kitchen clock displayed the right time and their watches did not.
They did not understand that their very expensive mechanical watch could be less accurate than a cheap quartz kitchen clock.

The more you spend, the more you get. Right?

The watches went back to the repair shop where they were tested. Within spec. 

The sales person had an very interesting chat about Vasco Da Gama and navigation at sea.

Do you as a customer really need to get involved in this nuts and bolts stuff? 
Most simply refuse. And I can't blame them.


----------



## wbird

I was just wondering if the MW uses both the U.S. and Russian satellites? And if there will be interest in using a gps watch like a Fenix to compare performance of the reception.

Just trying to find a use for your Fenix 3 Ron. Maybe you could rent it out to the folks waiting on their MW to start evaluating the reception quality at their location.


----------



## ronalddheld

wbird said:


> I was just wondering if the MW uses both the U.S. and Russian satellites? And if there will be interest in using a gps watch like a Fenix to compare performance of the reception.
> 
> Just trying to find a use for your Fenix 3 Ron. Maybe you could rent it out to the folks waiting on their MW to start evaluating the reception quality at their location.


that is a good idea, wbird. I need more funds for a Hoptroff or a MW.


----------



## mark1958

I went ahead and ordered an M1-3. It will be shipped tomorrow. I know it is a bit of a risk..


----------



## ronalddheld

mark1958 said:


> I went ahead and ordered an M1-3. It will be shipped tomorrow. I know it is a bit of a risk..


Congratulations mark. Another early adopter who can provide data.


----------



## artec

Can you really feel the weight of a watch on your wrist? I don't mean gauge its weight, just feel the presence of a watch? I am completely unaware of it unless I take it off, then I feel its lack for a while. Even deliberately thinking about whether I've got a watch on doesn't make me aware of it.


----------



## wbird

My Chronomat weighs in at around 220 grams. Yeah you know it's on your wrist.


----------



## gangrel

Yes, I can...sometimes. I have an older Seiko solar...one of the earlier models to hit the US. SS case, SS bracelet. 106 grams. It's a tank. On the other hand, I have a Citizen military...thick case, SS...but it's now on a perlon strap. Total weight is 67 grams, but obviously that's all in the case. Perlon weighs basically nothing.  The weight of that one is noticeable at times, but in no way to the degree the Seiko is. It's not just the weight; it's where and how it's carried. That said...177 grams, IIRC? That's 6 ounces. That's notable. If you're using that hand/wrist...typing, mousing, or writing, say...I would expect this would make it more noticeable.

If you routinely wear the hefted, SS case and bracelet watches...you probably become anesthetized. I don't do skinny jeans...but I do skinny watches.  Small, slim, and light. So big and heavy may well be more apparent to me, and others with similar tastes.


----------



## ronalddheld

I find it depends on the strap/bracelet and weight of the case. These days over 100 grams would limit what I could easily do with a left hand.


----------



## artec

Getting away from the weight and size, I'm wondering whether anyone else was under the impression that the MW could tell what timezone it was in? I was, but now that I've seen the owners' manual, it seems clear that the owner has to tell it. My Citizen CC1030-51E, to the contrary, I thought could not tell its owner what timezone it was in, but it can!
On reflection, I don't think it's really much of an advantage to be able to get that information from the satellites...if I were travelling to Europe, for example, I'd set the new timezone before take-off rather than asking the watch on landing. What does anyone else think?


----------



## ronalddheld

artec said:


> Getting away from the weight and size, I'm wondering whether anyone else was under the impression that the MW could tell what timezone it was in? I was, but now that I've seen the owners' manual, it seems clear that the owner has to tell it. My Citizen CC1030-51E, to the contrary, I thought could not tell its owner what timezone it was in, but it can!
> On reflection, I don't think it's really much of an advantage to be able to get that information from the satellites...if I were travelling to Europe, for example, I'd set the new timezone before take-off rather than asking the watch on landing. What does anyone else think?


I prefer to preset the new timezone before I take off.


----------



## Tom-HK

There may have been an occasion or two in my undergraduate days when I'd wake up after a particularly interesting night and not be sure which time zone I was in, but generally I have no issue with this. I suppose automatic time zone detection is a beneficial feature, but the benefit is surely only very minor. My RC Citizen has to be told which time zone it is in, too, but I rather enjoy pushing the button and watching the hour hand move itself into exactly the right position. It's nice to retain a little control, sometimes, in an increasingly automated world.

I tend to change time zones only about twice per year (when travelling between Hong Kong), but maybe if I crossed time lines more frequently it might be something I'd pay more attention to.


----------



## webvan

Sounds like the early adopters of the M1-X should soon be getting their packages? Fedex delivery man about to knock? ;-) Can't wait for first impressions ;-)


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> Sounds like the early adopters of the M1-X should soon be getting their packages? Fedex delivery man about to knock? ;-) Can't wait for first impressions ;-)


What webvan said.


----------



## Horoticus

Arne planned to ship mine early this week but is dealing with international documentation. At least that's what he told me. ;-)

Surprised I haven't heard an update. Anybody else?


----------



## gangrel

I get the distinct impression that faces are starting to turn blue...


----------



## artec

Been blue for a while, now it's just a matter of hue! I got the same info from Arne on Monday, about international shipping formalities with FedEx. Now midnight on Thursday in Germany and no update.


----------



## ronalddheld

I believe Arne is doing what he can, but dealing with international shipping and Customs is not trivial.


----------



## mark1958

I am not very happy. They promised to send me tracking and when i did not get--- they said there was an issue with customs so it was not shipped and said likely the next day.. that was now 4 or 5 days ago and i have not heard back from them


----------



## ronalddheld

Everyone keep us informed about shipping and tracking issues.


----------



## mark1958

I guess when i posted I missed that others were having the same issues. OK so not just me. I am not sure what the issue is though because in general when shipping overseas you have to fill out some additional documents and they go to Fedex etc.


----------



## artec

I believe there are several members who have also ordered M1s. I am among them and have been told by Arne that mine will be shipped by FedEx on Monday.
What intrigues me is how Arne is planning to change what appears to be a sort of a cottage industry into a commercial enterprise. It's nice to be able to exchange chatty e-mails with the boss of the company that makes one's watch but I'd be more confident if I could see evidence of serious, even if limited, production and some kind of marketing structure.


----------



## ronalddheld

I asked about the M3 catalogue but have not gotten a response back.


----------



## Horoticus

artec said:


> I believe there are several members who have also ordered M1s. I am among them and have been told by Arne that mine will be shipped by FedEx on Monday.


FYI, Arne just confirmed the same for my M1.


----------



## mark1958

Mine is shipping on Monday as well.


----------



## ronalddheld

It may be a while before I have any M3 documents.


----------



## Horoticus

Well, it appears to be on the way...


----------



## gangrel

Got to LOVE...and HATE!! tracking.  And wow...customs is all covered, it seems. Next day air. WOOT!

We expect a 2 page initial impressions, with a wall of pictures. Skip work tomorrow...that's an order!



(Edit: PS...you hate tracking when it's NOT tracking.  Or when it's showing a package going from NY to New Mexico...via Seattle. Say whhhatt?)


----------



## artec

Good for you Horotocus...I haven't got any notification yet but any minute, I hope!
I don't want to rain on your parade and I hope you're right about Customs, but my experience with FedEx and Customs is that one gets the bill for Duty a few days after the watch arrives. That way one feels one can't really argue! Not that arguing would do any good...


----------



## ronalddheld

Later means you have the watch in your hands, versus having it stuck in Customs waiting for the paperwork to be processed.


----------



## gangrel

ronalddheld said:


> Later means you have the watch in your hands, versus having it stuck in Customs waiting for the paperwork to be processed.


Last 2 watches I got from Japan...both my HAQs, the Exceed and the Dolce...the imps of the perverse were conspiring. Both hit LA on a FRIDAY. Customs people like their weekends. ARGH!!!


----------



## mark1958

i got a notice from Fed ex that i had to fill out a customs form and provide a lot of information about the watch. This really should have been taken care of by the company. A bit ridiculous. I filled it out and had to make some estimates but will see how that goes tomorrow


----------



## ronalddheld

mark1958 said:


> i got a notice from Fed ex that i had to fill out a customs form and provide a lot of information about the watch. This really should have been taken care of by the company. A bit ridiculous. I filled it out and had to make some estimates but will see how that goes tomorrow


I thought that MW was doing that part?


----------



## Horoticus

ronalddheld said:


> I thought that MW was doing that part?


I had to fill out and submit the same form to Fedex, and it's not the first time I've followed this procedure. Although in my experience it's typically involved vintage watches and private sellers (and other shippers, as well).


----------



## Horoticus

Update: Delivery of my M1 has shifted to tomorrow...o| ;-)


----------



## igna

Horoticus said:


> Update: Delivery of my M1 has shifted to tomorrow...o| ;-)


The myth has to be extended as much as possible before turning into real ... :-x

Now, jokes apart, we are many of us impatient waiting for you to receive those Morgenwerk and read about the impressions, accuracy tests, pictures and so on.

Good luck!


----------



## mark1958

Me too. I filled out the form and now it will come tomorrow instead of today



ronalddheld said:


> I thought that MW was doing that part?


----------



## ronalddheld

mark1958 said:


> Me too. I filled out the form and now it will come tomorrow instead of today


These forms can be emailed back?


----------



## mark1958

Yes i was told to fill out and email back. So i did. It was released from customs and hopefully en route



ronalddheld said:


> These forms can be emailed back?


----------



## ronalddheld

mark1958 said:


> Yes i was told to fill out and email back. So i did. It was released from customs and hopefully en route


That is good to know, thanks.


----------



## Horoticus

Straight out of the box and to the pics!

Outer box








Inside, the black box...
















Cleaning cloth, charger and usb








































































First impression: It's substantial. Glad I chose the titanium version (M1-3). While the pics make it look larger, it is still a big watch (43.8mm). FYI, I have a 7" wrist.

I just started playing with it, so back soon with more impressions.


----------



## artec

I asked for my MW to be held for collection from the FedEx office and received a phone call asking silly questions, including how many jewels the watch had. I didn't (and don't) know. I sent Arne an e-mail telling him the watch was held by US Customs in the US and he got in touch with them (I think via FedEx) and answered their questions. FedEx tracking continued to say the MW was held by Customs till this morning when it said the watch was released at 1.33am and 5.02am (why twice?).Scheduled delivery was given as Pending. I visited the office at which I had asked for it to be held at about 11.30 am and was told the package was en route to St Louis from Newark NJ and was presently in Indiana. A later look at tracking gave "by 10.30am on Wed 10/28/2015" for delivery.
I've bought at least 10 watches from Japan, all were shipped by mail and none was delayed by US Customs; none was charged duty. I've bought three from Europe, one was delivered promptly by FedEx but I got a Customs bill a few days later. One was delivered (don't remember how) and I got no Customs bill...and now this farce. I don't know whose bottom to kick, but suspect FedEx should have asked for more information when they accepted the watches for shipment. Or maybe US Customs were over-zealous?


----------



## Horoticus

Sorry to hear that, artec. Fedex called Monday and said they needed me to complete the "Watch Worksheet", which I did and emailed back to them that night. The watch was released yesterday and delivered today. Fingers crossed it arrives soon.


----------



## ronalddheld

In this electronic form age, Customs problems should just not happen this often.


----------



## gangrel

#1: ohboyohboyohboy we see one!!!  Interesting. Huge. Lug design makes sense, given the size and height; looks like it should flow on over the wrist better than many, at that size. 
Where does the USB plug in?

artec: I suspect it's half FedEx and half customs. I've never had a problem from Japan either, and gotten everything by mail. BUT, coming in from Europe, my luck has been less good with the mail. Problems happened *here*, not across the pond. But...a couple years ago, I picked up some unusual pipes from Italy. They came FedEx, and in at least one case, I did get hit with customs charges. I remember looking at customs issues on watches when I ordered my Exceed; stainless and titanium watches from Japan, appear to avoid the wrath of The Inspectors. Customs regulations, tho, are insanely complex, and *small* details can change everything. You would *think* FedEx would handle this well, but then again, who knows the intelligence level of the sorters/handlers at FedEx? 

As to why it was released twice....at that hour of the morning...failure to perform caffeine uptake, leading to system malfunction?


----------



## jisham

gangrel: I think the two recessed pins on the back case time zone display mate with the U-shaped cradle shown in the fourth picture (the one with the USB cable). I'm guessing the USB cable then connects the cradle to the power.

Am I reading S/N 164/200 correctly? I'm guessing they did sell some in Japan after all.


----------



## ronalddheld

Had no problems with Customs from Japan, but Europe is another matter.


----------



## mark1958

HI..I got mine as well and thanks for posting photos. I have been swamped at work so just had a chance to look it over and set the timezone. I did not get one of those cloths -- i see in your photo. I left the box at work and will look to see if i can find one stuck in there. In terms of the fedex questionnaire--- I just answered (e.g. guessed) best i could.

I have a 6.5 in wrist and it wears better than i anticipated. It is pretty darn light. One issue is the minute and second hand does not perfectly align with all of the lines. I have to look more closely and also can report back.


----------



## jisham

mark1958: If your hands aren't aligned there is a mode to adjust them. Fire up google translate on [can't post links since I'm new here. Go to morgenwerk.jp support qa.html] and look for "the adjustment of the needle". It's a bit of a broken translation, but I hope that's what you're looking for.


----------



## artec

I got mine, too. The minute hand moves only once per minute and mine is very slightly ahead of the marker. There is an instruction for calibrating the hands in the booklet, quite clear and it doesn't seem to be garbled at all. I followed it with no difficulty but the minute hand only moves in increments...very small but the same size as the misalignment, unfortunately. Everything else works perfectly and the buttons do their jobs effectively. 
I have a 7 inch wrist, too and although the bracelet was adjusted at the factory, I had to take a link out. The clasp is a double deployant and there are half-links adjacent to each side for fine adjustment. The full links are 9mm from center to center (measured as best I can with a 6inch rule) and the half links are 6mm. So one can take out 6mm or add 3mm. A paper sleeve with spare links was included. The links are secured together with screws; one tiny screw at one end screwing into the end of a much longer one, so you need a screw-driver at each end to remove one of the fasteners. It helps to have three hands!
Mine is the X model with the white face, luminous all over. I haven't tried it at night yet but it's certainly very easy to read at a glance. 
The date needs a single push at the #2 pusher, the one at 4 o'clock. Then the second hand points to a numeral on the nearly cylindrical white ring separating the dial from the sapphire.
I've been used to a 38mm watch, 10mm thick, made of Ti, and this 43.8mm monster, 14mm (??) thick is a big change. But I'm surprised at how little it seems to draw my attention to its size. Admittedly both the watch and the bracelet are Ti and therefore they don't seem all that heavy but the size is inescapable.
The plastic antenna (?) panels above and below the dial look vulnerable to scratches and they make me a bit nervous...only time will tell, though.
So far, I like it and I shall be very interested to see how accurate it is...or how accurate it becomes.


----------



## mark1958

My minute hand is perfect on some of the numbers but just a tad off on about 8-10 of the 60 marks. So i am not sure if adjustment is going to fix this. Moreover when on sleep mode the second had is about 0.25sec off the 12 mark. I am new to quartz watches as I am a mechanical watch enthusiast. I am not sure if this is something that is observed with quartz watches in general. I had a cheap one a couple years back and it was really off. Anyway, I do like new technology and this is what prompted me to go this route.



artec said:


> I got mine, too. The minute hand moves only once per minute and mine is very slightly ahead of the marker. There is an instruction for calibrating the hands in the booklet, quite clear and it doesn't seem to be garbled at all. I followed it with no difficulty but the minute hand only moves in increments...very small but the same size as the misalignment, unfortunately. Everything else works perfectly and the buttons do their jobs effectively.
> I have a 7 inch wrist, too and although the bracelet was adjusted at the factory, I had to take a link out. The clasp is a double deployant and there are half-links adjacent to each side for fine adjustment. The full links are 9mm from center to center (measured as best I can with a 6inch rule) and the half links are 6mm. So one can take out 6mm or add 3mm. A paper sleeve with spare links was included. The links are secured together with screws; one tiny screw at one end screwing into the end of a much longer one, so you need a screw-driver at each end to remove one of the fasteners. It helps to have three hands!
> Mine is the X model with the white face, luminous all over. I haven't tried it at night yet but it's certainly very easy to read at a glance.
> The date needs a single push at the #2 pusher, the one at 4 o'clock. Then the second hand points to a numeral on the nearly cylindrical white ring separating the dial from the sapphire.
> I've been used to a 38mm watch, 10mm thick, made of Ti, and this 43.8mm monster, 14mm (??) thick is a big change. But I'm surprised at how little it seems to draw my attention to its size. Admittedly both the watch and the bracelet are Ti and therefore they don't seem all that heavy but the size is inescapable.
> The plastic antenna (?) panels above and below the dial look vulnerable to scratches and they make me a bit nervous...only time will tell, though.
> So far, I like it and I shall be very interested to see how accurate it is...or how accurate it becomes.


----------



## hughesyn

The minute hand moves once per minute?

That is very odd, makes it hard to read the time at a glance.
Most movements with seperate motors for the second hand (or no second hand) still move the hour/ minute gears at least 3 times per minute (like some Casio) or twice (Omega X-33).
Presumably the reason is to save energy and make the battery last longer.

Once per minute is either being stingy on power consumption or not realising that watches don't usually work that way. Or imitation of Swiss railway clocks but without the 2 second delay.

Second hands not hitting the markers annoys me. Having a 60 second step minute hand not line up with the markers would be enough to drive me crazy. I think it's a high risk design...


----------



## webvan

Yes I can't remember seeing a minute hand that only moved once per minute, 20/40/60 for the Tag Cal S, or 30/60 for the Omega Ana/Digis 1665/1666 for instance. As for the seconds hand, well ETA are "famous" for some "wavering" (the PC on the Longines PC for instance).


----------



## artec

On mine at least, the minute hand misalignment is so small that you have to be looking for it to find it. Moreover, again on mine, there is no misalignment for about 40 of the 60 markers (I haven't counted!). The second hand moves three times per second which is very odd and seems un-quartz. One advantage is that you can't tell if there's any misalignment there...at least, I can't.
I really don't see that the minute hand's behavior makes it hard to see the time at a glance...I think it's easier, if anything. If you want to know the time to the half- or quarter-minute with a watch whose minute hand moves continuously you have to do more than glance. I do agree that I'd prefer perfect alignment, though.
I don't understand what Hughesyn means by "a high risk design"...high risk of faults, high risk of driving people crazy??? In several ways it's certainly unconventional, though.


----------



## ronalddheld

Perhaps these are problems straightened out when the production line is more mature?


----------



## hughesyn

artec said:


> I don't understand what Hughesyn means by "a high risk design"...high risk of faults, high risk of driving people crazy??? In several ways it's certainly unconventional, though.


By high risk I just meant that it makes poor alignment more noticable. If the minute hand moves more frequently it's less obvious.
Glad to hear it's not too bad.


----------



## artec

Clear now, thank you...and yes, I agree.
As a potential convert to what I still consider monster watches, I'm still surprised at how relatively unobtrusive the size of the beast is, and I wonder whether it will become more or less so. My Citizen GPS watch (CC1030-51E), though a bit less thick, seemed more obtrusive for some reason. I suspect subjective causes!


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## mark1958

I guess mine functions similarly to yours. Yes you have to look at it carefully to see the misalignment but i noticed it right away and that does bug me. The once per minute advancement of the minute hand does not bother me. Yes the second hand movement 3x per second is such that you cannot tell about alignment. Honestly, i am not overly impressed. I was hoping for one nice accurate quartz type watch with analog dial. Most of the offerings that I have seen have not appealed to me or they are too big for my wrist.



artec said:


> On mine at least, the minute hand misalignment is so small that you have to be looking for it to find it. Moreover, again on mine, there is no misalignment for about 40 of the 60 markers (I haven't counted!). The second hand moves three times per second which is very odd and seems un-quartz. One advantage is that you can't tell if there's any misalignment there...at least, I can't.
> I really don't see that the minute hand's behavior makes it hard to see the time at a glance...I think it's easier, if anything. If you want to know the time to the half- or quarter-minute with a watch whose minute hand moves continuously you have to do more than glance. I do agree that I'd prefer perfect alignment, though.
> I don't understand what Hughesyn means by "a high risk design"...high risk of faults, high risk of driving people crazy??? In several ways it's certainly unconventional, though.


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## artec

Since 2006, when I bought my first The Citizen Chronomaster, that's what I wanted, too, a nice accurate quartz watch with analog dial. And for those 9 years, that's what I've had and always come back to, even after a number of excursions. I had, and have, some fairly firm ideas about aesthetics and The Citizens, both battery and Eco-drive, satisfy my requirements in those respects. The MW is the first watch that is both TC and GPS and it's my good fortune that it also satisfies almost all of my aesthetic demands, though it is bigger and thicker than I would have hoped.
You say you're not over-impressed, Mark1958, and I'm sorry that you're disappointed...what is that you hoped for that isn't there? Or what is there that is against your religion? My only beef is size. I like the simplicity and economy of the case, the dial, the hands. I'm surprised and pleased by how well the antenna screens (if that's what they are) seem to be integrated and with how the whole case wraps round my wrist. I'd like to know more about your dislikes, to see if they are things that I might expect to run into at some point in the future.


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## ronalddheld

Size may come down for the MW as it has for the GPS Seikos and Citizens.


----------



## mark1958

My major beefs right now--- the minute hand issue i mentioned. The other issue is the glass dial cover is a bit cheap.. Mark



artec said:


> Since 2006, when I bought my first The Citizen Chronomaster, that's what I wanted, too, a nice accurate quartz watch with analog dial. And for those 9 years, that's what I've had and always come back to, even after a number of excursions. I had, and have, some fairly firm ideas about aesthetics and The Citizens, both battery and Eco-drive, satisfy my requirements in those respects. The MW is the first watch that is both TC and GPS and it's my good fortune that it also satisfies almost all of my aesthetic demands, though it is bigger and thicker than I would have hoped.
> You say you're not over-impressed, Mark1958, and I'm sorry that you're disappointed...what is that you hoped for that isn't there? Or what is there that is against your religion? My only beef is size. I like the simplicity and economy of the case, the dial, the hands. I'm surprised and pleased by how well the antenna screens (if that's what they are) seem to be integrated and with how the whole case wraps round my wrist. I'd like to know more about your dislikes, to see if they are things that I might expect to run into at some point in the future.


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## mark1958

My major beefs right now--- the minute hand issue i mentioned and the second hand alignment when in sleep mode. The other issue is the glass dial cover is a bit cheap and i guess not what i am used to with the sapphire type. ..THe watch feels comfortable and otherwise at this time i have no complaints. Will see if the battery really lasts two months on full charge. Mark



artec said:


> Since 2006, when I bought my first The Citizen Chronomaster, that's what I wanted, too, a nice accurate quartz watch with analog dial. And for those 9 years, that's what I've had and always come back to, even after a number of excursions. I had, and have, some fairly firm ideas about aesthetics and The Citizens, both battery and Eco-drive, satisfy my requirements in those respects. The MW is the first watch that is both TC and GPS and it's my good fortune that it also satisfies almost all of my aesthetic demands, though it is bigger and thicker than I would have hoped.
> You say you're not over-impressed, Mark1958, and I'm sorry that you're disappointed...what is that you hoped for that isn't there? Or what is there that is against your religion? My only beef is size. I like the simplicity and economy of the case, the dial, the hands. I'm surprised and pleased by how well the antenna screens (if that's what they are) seem to be integrated and with how the whole case wraps round my wrist. I'd like to know more about your dislikes, to see if they are things that I might expect to run into at some point in the future.


----------



## artec

I haven't used, or checked, the behavior in sleep mode...another experiment to try. I doubt if I'll try leaving the battery for two months, but I might easily forget it. What's wrong with the sapphire? I can't see any difference between this and any other flat sapphire. Is the flatness the problem?


----------



## ronalddheld

Anyone try the GPS?


----------



## artec

The only connection to GPS is the time synch and I'm pretty sure mine worked when I tried it. The second hand is supposed to go to the 12 and then run backwards for a minute while the watch connects to 6 satellites, decides which will give the best synch and then make the synch. When it's done that it's supposed to give a little beep. Mine stopped running backwards after about 20 seconds and I don't know if it beeped or not, there was a fair amount of background noise and I wasn't listening for the beep because the second hand hadn't run backwards for it's full minute. Next time I'll be in a quieter place and pay closer attention. Anyone else?
The timezone is manual and works fine.


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## ronalddheld

I am interested in how well the GPS synching works.


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## Horoticus

Some additional thoughts and impressions after wearing the watch for about 48 hours (continuous)... Time setting is simple and straightforward. IMHO, it wears well for a big(ger) watch, due to: (a) the lightness of the titanium, (b) the curvature of the lugs, and (c) the integrated rubber strap. It is thick, so may not tuck under a shirt sleeve very easily. Readability is excellent day or night. I have no issue with either the seconds or minute hands and how they move or tell time. When I set the watch to my timezone, it synched exactly to time.gov and after 48 hours it is still (0 +/-).* Therefore, I have not used the GPS calibration as of yet. * Based on visual acuity only. 😃 More pics.


----------



## artec

Thanks for the photos!
Out of curiosity and because I was checking how much my two The Citizens had drifted since January 1st, I also checked my two GPS watches...the MW and a Citizen CC3010. I check by taking a 30 frames per second video of my digital GPS clock, an Arbiter Systems 1093B, with the watch(es) being checked and then examining the videos frame by frame. Both GPS watches were 3 frames fast, ie 0.1 second fast. I don't know how they can be fast but I've noticed that my RC watch is also usually a little ahead of the GPS clock. It may have something to do with the rate at which the digital readout of the GPS clock changes from one digit to the next. The change is not instantaneous, in fact it usually takes 2 to 3 frames to complete and it may be that the time change is actually a little before it first becomes visible?
I agree with Horoticus that it doesn't seem as big or as thick as the numbers suggest. Mine is the M1-X, with the bracelet, and it sits very comfortably and unobtrusively on my 7inch wrist. It does occasionally catch on the inside of my shirt cuff if the cuff is starched, but otherwise it's fine. Its white dial is easily read day or night, too. I noticed that you can't get a date reading if the watch is in sleep mode...fair enough, I suppose. And the first couple of times I tried to take it out of sleep mode, I must have pressed one or other of the buttons (1 and 2 together) a little ahead of the other because it thought I was asking it to run the second hand for two minutes. 
I have to admit that I'm impressed both by the thought that went into the control interface and by the smoothness with which everything has worked...at least so far.


----------



## gangrel

On the external connection...thanks for those pics! I see how they do it. A custom cradle arrangement's not usually a positive, but I can readily see why they adopted it here...even a micro USB would take a lot more space up.

I'm not too surprised that it wears better than its size would suggest. Still...would be nice if they can build one a tad smaller. Does mean this thread's worth continued watching.


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## ronalddheld

I appreciate all of these comments. Should I be able to afford and wear an M3 I would want to try the standard calibration and do at least months long testing.


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## artec

I hope the M3 will soon become available so that you can start. I wonder whether the behavior of the M3 will be markedly different from that of the M1s. 
My test started today and will continue for at least a month. Depending on the result from that it may run for another month or two or I may do another synch and then another month's test. I shall be interested to see whether the effect of the self-correction is visible.


----------



## mark1958

I did the synch a couple of times when i first got the watch. I think about 2 of 5 times it sync with beep. I walked around as in my office even by the window did not sync. When i went outside i got it to beep. I have had mine running since I got it-- so that was Wed afternoon and it is now Sat afternoon and it is still the same best i can see with time.is Since i usually am setting mechanical watches-- not sure how to be more exact at this point. 

The USB port connector attaches well and I have no issue with that. BTW anyone else who has not commented--- notice how the minute hand aligns with the various minute markers?


----------



## ronalddheld

artec said:


> I hope the M3 will soon become available so that you can start. I wonder whether the behavior of the M3 will be markedly different from that of the M1s.
> My test started today and will continue for at least a month. Depending on the result from that it may run for another month or two or I may do another synch and then another month's test. I shall be interested to see whether the effect of the self-correction is visible.


I am expecting the M3 documents soon, but we know delays have occurred and this watch is the more complex in terms of functions.


----------



## webvan

I wonder if they couldn't release a cheaper and smaller non-GPS version of the M1, I mean the auto adapting movement is interesting enough in itself and frankly GPS synch is a bit gimmicky when any Android phone with Clocksync (or iPhone with Emerald) can give you the exact NTP time to synch with...


----------



## artec

I agree that self-adjusting, auto-correcting (whatever one wants to call it) is interesting enough to merit a watch with just that and tc. I may be the only person in the western world without a smartphone so Androids and iPhones don't help me much. Besides, I think it's the notion of the accuracy being available in a watch that appeals rather than being available in a mobile form...at least, it is for me. 
Reverting to Webvan's point, I wonder if Arne might consider that for his next project, after the M3, of course? It could do without the extensions beyond the 6 and 12, as well as being a lot smaller and thinner.


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## ronalddheld

these models have to sell well enough for them to consider other models


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## Hans Moleman

artec said:


> ... The change is not instantaneous, in fact it usually takes 2 to 3 frames to complete and it may be that the time change is actually a little before it first becomes visible? ...


LCD is slow with its changes.
The crystals in the fluid need to turn, and that takes time.

If you're really adventurous/ foolhardy you could attach an LED to the PPS output:









You'll get a blinking light. One blink every second precisely at the start of a second.

If you take your request to a local electronics shop they'll make it for you.
Its only a few dollars worth in material, but it requires soldering.


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## artec

Good idea, thanks! I'll explore how to get it done.


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## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> LCD is slow with its changes.
> The crystals in the fluid need to turn, and that takes time.
> 
> If you're really adventurous/ foolhardy you could attach an LED to the PPS output:
> 
> View attachment 5863154
> 
> 
> You'll get a blinking light. One blink every second precisely at the start of a second.
> 
> If you take your request to a local electronics shop they'll make it for you.
> Its only a few dollars worth in material, but it requires soldering.


How much of a delay is there between the LED display and the LCD display?


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## Hans Moleman

I believe a typical LCD takes 60 ms to change. 
A couple of frames where you scratch your head and wonder; has the one turned into a two yet?

An LED is on in an instant. In the µs (microsecond) range. That takes the guesswork out.

Garmin guarantees the PPS to be exact to within 1 µs (microsecond) . Arbiter a fraction of that.
The PPS is where you read the time from if you want the exact time.
The rest is for-your-information only. 

PPS is like the beep in the 'at the tone it is ten hours, forty minutes and zero seconds, coordinated universal time. Beeeep'.


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## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> I believe a typical LCD takes 60 ms to change.
> A couple of frames where you scratch your head and wonder; has the one turned into a two yet?
> 
> An LED is on in an instant. In the µs (microsecond) range. That takes the guesswork out.
> 
> Garmin guarantees the PPS to be exact to within 1 µs (microsecond) . Arbiter a fraction of that.
> The PPS is where you read the time from if you want the exact time.
> The rest is for-your-information only.
> 
> PPS is like the beep in the 'at the tone it is ten hours, forty minutes and zero seconds, coordinated universal time. Beeeep'.


Good information. Too bad digital displays with TC movements do not use LEDs.


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## Hans Moleman

Thank you.

It takes a while for the crystals to align after a voltage is applied to an LCD segment.

These voltages can be picked up with a sensor just like stepper motor pulses. 

Timing machines do that.


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## ronalddheld

I now have the complete MW catalogue including the M3 and the M3 operatng manual. Ssme method as before for distribution.


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## artec

That's faster than I expected!
I received the M1 catalogue from you as a pdf and have no idea what the "Same method....." was! How do I get the full catalogue?
Is the M3 still the same size as it was in the original information release? I guess that was "A blog to watch"?


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## artec

I have the Arbiter but I have no idea what a PPS is or whether the Arbiter has one. If it does, is it accessible or does one have to climb inside and find it? Or does the suggested LED replace the PPS? Could one make an LED blink every time the LCD starts to change or how would it work?
I never had the book of instructions with the Arbiter. It has a red tell-tale light marked "unlocked" and a green one marked "operate"; the green one is on and the red one isn't. It also has 8 buttons to the right of the LCD window, the top row of 4 marked "Time", "Position", "Event deviation" and "Status", the bottom 4 marked "Setup", "Up", "Down" and "Enter". I've only ever used "Time".


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## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> I now have the complete MW catalogue including the M3 and the M3 operatng manual. Ssme method as before for distribution.


I've been reading the M3 manual and came across:



> In that time, the timepiece connectsup to six satellites and then selects the strongest
> signal for data synchronization.


Strictly speaking that is incorrect.

It takes a fraction of a second for the radio signal to travel from the satellite to earth.
Roughly 0.1 second for the 30.000 km for a satellite at 45 degrees above the horizon.

GPS clocks that take all visible satellites into account don't have that problem.
They compare all the time signals to calculate the position and time from.


----------



## wbird

I'm wondering how it could self correct or auto adjust without a gps clock time. What would the watch use as a reference? Take away the gps and you have a TC watch.

Are you suggesting that you supply the information to the watch to correct? If so, that sounds even less intrinsic then gps.


----------



## Hans Moleman

artec said:


> I have the Arbiter but I have no idea what a PPS is or whether the Arbiter has one. If it does, is it accessible or does one have to climb inside and find it? Or does the suggested LED replace the PPS? Could one make an LED blink every time the LCD starts to change or how would it work?
> I never had the book of instructions with the Arbiter. It has a red tell-tale light marked "unlocked" and a green one marked "operate"; the green one is on and the red one isn't. It also has 8 buttons to the right of the LCD window, the top row of 4 marked "Time", "Position", "Event deviation" and "Status", the bottom 4 marked "Setup", "Up", "Down" and "Enter". I've only ever used "Time".


There are a few manuals on Arbiter's website

And that's where I got the image from the back of an 1093b.

The back, where it has the PPS port. So, have a look at the back.


----------



## webvan

wbird said:


> I'm wondering how it could self correct or auto adjust without a gps clock time. What would the watch use as a reference? Take away the gps and you have a TC watch.
> 
> Are you suggesting that you supply the information to the watch to correct? If so, that sounds even less intrinsic then gps.


Well you would just adjust it yourself using NTP (from any reliable source), the risk of course is that you mess up and then confuse the IC ;-) Generally speaking I don't see any real "value" in RC or GPS syncs as it just replaces a manual sync, there's nothing very spectacular about that, unlike TC, it's just "convenience". In the case of the MW it does actually make more sense I suppose.

Had a look at the M3 manual and there are some pretty impressive features, like the compass and coordinates display, is there any other non hiking/running GPS watch that does the latter? Too bad it's got a 48mm diameter...


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> Well you would just adjust it yourself using NTP (from any reliable source), the risk of course is that you mess up and then confuse the IC ;-) Generally speaking I don't see any real "value" in RC or GPS syncs as it just replaces a manual sync, there's nothing very spectacular about that, unlike TC, it's just "convenience". In the case of the MW it does actually make more sense I suppose.
> 
> Had a look at the M3 manual and there are some pretty impressive features, like the compass and coordinates display, is there any other non hiking/running GPS watch that does the latter? Too bad it's got a 48mm diameter...


Does anyone else consider the M3 heavy?


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## webvan

153 grams doesn't sound too bad, the 17mm thickness on the other hand...


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## artec

Yes, 17mm!!!!!! My M1 is just over 14mm thick and that seems pretty fat. The M3 does seem to have a plethora of capabilities...more than I can find uses for, I think, specially taking into account the bulk and the price.


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## gangrel

Youch. 17mm is 2/3 of an inch.

I haven't asked for the M3 catalog...and I won't. 48x17 and 153g...no. Not even as a pocket watch, as I'd mentioned with the M1.


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## ronalddheld

gangrel said:


> Youch. 17mm is 2/3 of an inch.
> 
> I haven't asked for the M3 catalog...and I won't. 48x17 and 153g...no. Not even as a pocket watch, as I'd mentioned with the M1.


It might make a good small pocket watch. I might have to use it as that vif it were unwearable.


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## ronalddheld

Talking to Arne about the M3. Still on the fence.....


----------



## Tom-HK

My M1-X has just arrived. No.13 of 50. Syn'd with a 'beep' in about ten seconds. Stopwatched to establish a baseline.

I placed the order with Arne at 01.40 GMT on the eleventh of October. It was posted late in the afternoon of the 4th of November in Germany, which means it was past midnight and into the 5th of November in Hong Kong. It arrived mid-morning on the 6th. I didn't have to deal with FedEx or anything. No forms to fill in. No taxes to pay.

My first reaction was that it was surprisingly heavy. I have tried on the Breitling B50, which probably wears even bigger than the M1, and I was impressed by its lightness. The B50 is, of course, titanium, and all my other watches are steel, so I was impressed by how such a big watch could feel lighter than several of my other watches. When I picked the titanium M1, I had sort of had in mind the weight of the B50. I know there are numbers around about the weight of the watch, but I have very little appreciation for numbers in the abstract. The real world feel of the watch, to me, is rather like my Citizen or GS. Not uncomfortable at all, but just a little unexpected from a titanium watch.

I had minor concerns about the complexities of sizing the bracelet, as Arne had not mentioned this to me or offered to take care of it himself. When I put it on, however, it happened to be just the right size. That's a stroke of luck. I don't know what I would have done if it had been a bit tight. In warm weather, my primary watch-wearing wrist is about 19.5 cm.

The all-lume dial isn't quite as white as I had expected, and quickly picks up shades of glowing green whenever the ambient light drops slightly. Walking through shadows, doorways, into slightly less bright rooms, all reveals the glow of the lume.

The minute hand is dead on the markers and I have no problem with the one-minute jumps. The hour hand is also dead on the markers and also makes one-minute jumps. The second hand, with its three-ticks-per-second, is dead on some markers and slightly off others. The hand alignment mechanism does not allow for very fine adjustments of the hands and it did not help to true the second hand in my case.

It certainly is a big watch. It can squeeze under my cuff, but doesn't sit there for long. Looking at it, top down, it doesn't seem unusually large, but whenever you take hold of it to try to make a minor wriggle of adjustment to its position on your wrist, you come up against those fixed, curved lugs that remind you that minor positional adjustments aren't really going to be possible with this watch. Having said that, the antennae lugs aren't as big an issue, aesthetically, as I had thought they would be. I have taken a few pictures to compare to other common HAQs.

Top down








The Incredible Bulk








A DS-2, for comparison








DS-2 and M1-X






















VHP and M1-X








Grand Seiko and M1-X








Exceed and M1-X








Other shots


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## artec

Your excellent and interesting comparison shots certainly make the point about the MW's size effectively, but I agree that it only rarely makes its size an issue when I'm wearing mine. Sometimes putting a shirt or a sweater on, the thickness will catch, otherwise I don't notice it. I also agree about the extended lugs not being a problem, nor is the weight any kind of issue, though it feels heavier than expected. I'm glad you struck lucky with the bracelet and didn't need to grow extra hands.
I hope you continue to be pleased by it!


----------



## Tom-HK

I still find the lugs (and overall height of the watch) to be quite 'challenging' when viewed from a variety of angles. The second wrist shot makes the MW look just comical. But I think the worst viewing angles are generally those that I don't see when I'm wearing the watch. I mostly just see the top-down view or some other view that doesn't catch the lugs in their most shocking perspective. So, from a wearer's point of view, I have no issues with it, but from the point of view of someone looking at that second wrist shot, I'd still have serious reservations about the look.

Looks aside, I am now far more interested in seeing how it performs. I'd be surprised if it makes 0.75 SPY out of the box, or holds it for a whole year. After all, if it could hold that sort of accuracy for months on end, straight from the factory, then it might slightly undermine the case for including a massive, built-in GPS receiver. It will be interesting to see how it does perform, though, and how the rate adjustment mechanism works, once the time comes for that feature to be tested.


----------



## ronalddheld

Those with MW watches do a sync out of the box and a day later. After 2 months report on the offsets.
Only way to afford a watch is to sell another one.


----------



## webvan

I suspect it will need several syncs to find a good self-correcting "pattern", haven't see any guidance in the manual as to how many (and how often) though...has Arne given any in emails to buyers ?


----------



## Tom-HK

webvan said:


> I suspect it will need several syncs to find a good self-correcting "pattern", haven't see any guidance in the manual as to how many (and how often) though...has Arne given any in emails to buyers ?


The advice I have received is: once on the first day; once again on the second day; then once every two months thereafter.


----------



## ronalddheld

Tom-HK said:


> The advice I have received is: once on the first day; once again on the second day; then once every two months thereafter.


That is what I have discussed with him. Testing will determine what the offsets are if one goes the every other month syncing.


----------



## Tom-HK

For those still trying to judge the size and shape of the MorgenWerk, I popped into my local watch shop, this morning, for a few more comparison shots.

Seiko Astron and M1-X















G-Shock GPS / RC hybrid and M1-X















Some sort of dive watch and M1-X















So, it's undeniably big by 'normal' watch standards, but not a real giant in the grand scheme of things. Following Arne's suggestion, I have performed another sync, today and established a new baseline. I shall see how it looks after two months and then sync again.


----------



## Horoticus

Wow, the G-Shock and the Tuna dwarf the MW! I guess it's not so big after all. ;-)


----------



## Tom-HK

A couple of early observations.

*Timing*
The three-ticks-per-second is giving me a bit of trouble with my timings. I usually wait until the second on the reference clock has changed and then react to start the stopwatch. I then wait until the second on the watch has changed and then react to stop the stopwatch. I have found that, for me, this returns very consistent results. I have had trouble with mechanical and Spring Drive watches because my reaction to the watch is usually too quick (resulting in timings that are too short) and also rather inconsistent. The quicker pace of the hand throws my judgement. Well, I'm getting the same problem with the M1. It's made worse by the fact that the second hand is not perfectly aligned and the little pointy end bit of the second hand takes more than one tick to cross the broad hour markers. So it's quite challenging to know when the watch has declared the end of a second.
*Jumping minutes*
This is something I actually quite like. For me, it adds a sense of precision. We are well used to not thinking of a second as having elapsed until the second hand ticks over to it. We look at the second hand and we know which second it is, even though that second has actually passed the very instant the hand landed on it. For the full duration of the second hand's lingering on that marker, we are sure that that is the second we should announce as being the correct time. It is ten-seventeen and fourteen seconds _precisely_. With minutes we're more used to seeing them a bit past the marker. Edging a bit closer to the next marker. There's a certain sort of fuziness about minutes. It's just gone 10.17. Now it's nearly 10.18. The M1's jumping minutes give me a far more precise sense of time than their 3-tick seconds.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Tom-HK said:


> A couple of early observations.
> 
> *Timing*
> The three-ticks-per-second is giving me a bit of trouble with my timings. I usually wait until the second on the reference clock has changed and then react to start the stopwatch. I then wait until the second on the watch has changed and then react to stop the stopwatch. I have found that, for me, this returns very consistent results. I have had trouble with mechanical and Spring Drive watches because my reaction to the watch is usually too quick (resulting in timings that are too short) and also rather inconsistent. The quicker pace of the hand throws my judgement. Well, I'm getting the same problem with the M1. It's made worse by the fact that the second hand is not perfectly aligned and the little pointy end bit of the second hand takes more than one tick to cross the broad hour markers. So it's quite challenging to know when the watch has declared the end of a second.
> *Jumping minutes*
> This is something I actually quite like. For me, it adds a sense of precision. We are well used to not thinking of a second as having elapsed until the second hand ticks over to it. We look at the second hand and we know which second it is, even though that second has actually passed the very instant the hand landed on it. For the full duration of the second hand's lingering on that marker, we are sure that that is the second we should announce as being the correct time. It is ten-seventeen and fourteen seconds _precisely_. With minutes we're more used to seeing them a bit past the marker. Edging a bit closer to the next marker. There's a certain sort of fuziness about minutes. It's just gone 10.17. Now it's nearly 10.18. The M1's jumping minutes give me a far more precise sense of time than their 3-tick seconds.


You can use the jumping minute hand for your timings.
On the reference clock, wait for the second hand to hit 12.

On the M1 you need a one third of a second rhythm to anticipate the minute hand moving.

Thanks for doing those tests!


----------



## wbird

Tom, hope you're having fun with your new watch. I would suggest try timing it by starting it when the MW hits a marker, start your stopwatch, and end based on your reference clock. That might be easier.

Or you could just take a picture with your reference clock in frame. That would be 0.3 accurate.

Assuming you have a good camera, based on you pics, you could achieve anywhere between 0.1 to 0.05 resolution depending on the shutter speed and burst capability of your camera.

On a different note I have to ask how often do you hack your watches? You could hack as often as you want it won't affect your long term findings as long as you record the time delta and length of time when hacked.

I only mention this because it was just a little jarring to see all those accurate watches showing different times on the second hand compared to the MW. Perhaps Honk Kong needs to enact DST and force you to hack.

Looking forward to seeing yours, Artecs, and others initial data.


----------



## Tom-HK

wbird said:


> On a different note I have to ask how often do you hack your watches? You could hack as often as you want it won't affect your long term findings as long as you record the time delta and length of time when hacked.
> 
> I only mention this because it was just a little jarring to see all those accurate watches showing different times on the second hand compared to the MW. Perhaps Honk Kong needs to enact DST and force you to hack.
> 
> Looking forward to seeing yours, Artecs, and others initial data.


I would like to give a modern HAQ at least one full year of timing before hacking it. My timing results always take a while to settle down after a hack. For a vintage Twin Quartz I could be tempted to hack and trim right now, if only I could find a bit more spare time in my day. The Longines VHP falls between vintage and modern, in my mind, and I'll probably hack it and try to trim it before its year is up. My GS and Citizen A010 are both undergoing a year-long test, so although the GS has now lost the plot completely and is nearing 10 seconds off UST with a little over two months to go, I shall resist the urge to play with it until the test is completed. In general, though, I think I would hack a watch in order to show the correct time only if I had decided to wear it regularly and had determined that its rate was under 10 SPY. Otherwise I see relatively little point.

As an edit, I do take the point that it seems quite messy and erratic. That's just me, though. I'm a very disorganised person, generally, and will be lucky if I get as many as three tasks completed in any given day. The messiness that falls around and about me is both a symptom of my disease and a constant reminder to get something done. If all my watches showed more-or-less the right time, I'd probably forget what day it was or where I lived. There is an Order to the universe and I don't want to mess with it.


----------



## wbird

All good Tom I respect the idea of you embracing entropy in your watches and life.

But what did you get on that initial clocking? I was looking forward to yours and Artecs initial numbers. I assumed it was dead on accurate.


----------



## Tom-HK

wbird said:


> All good Tom I respect the idea of you embracing entropy in your watches and life.
> 
> But what did you get on that initial clocking? I was looking forward to yours and Artecs initial numbers. I assumed it was dead on accurate.


Bear in mind that the initial timing is not the crucial factor in plotting a rate. My method may result in a timing that is a fraction of a second off the true value, but as long as the method and its results are consistent then the rate that emerges over time will be accurate. Also, my timings are taken against two reference clocks: time.is and time.gov, which are never perfectly in sync. with each other, on my computer. All that being said, my first timing established a baseline of UST+0.04s.


----------



## Tom-HK

I note there has been an update to their website:

MORGENWERK

Nearly ready for world-wide launch!


----------



## ronalddheld

Those ordering need to do so before December


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> Those ordering need to do so before December


Well, maybe. There's always a chance that they'll have a wider range of specs available. Smaller and lighter is unlikely, though. :-(


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Well, maybe. There's always a chance that they'll have a wider range of specs available. Smaller and lighter is unlikely, though. :-(


I believe these are the models that will be sold starting next month. I need to decide by next week.


----------



## ronalddheld

For the good of the group, I will be placing an order this week. I will keep everyone informed.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> For the good of the group, I will be placing an order this week. I will keep everyone informed.


Well I've heard some excuses for buying a watch, but that's a new one. Much appreciated!


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Well I've heard some excuses for buying a watch, but that's a new one. Much appreciated!


Weren't you the one who claimed you could not have too many watches?


----------



## gangrel

Does this mean "for the good of the group" qualifies as a new 'little white lie' used to justify a purchase?


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> Weren't you the one who claimed you could not have too many watches?


Of course. I just hadn't thought of that one. With your permission I'll borrow it for later use.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Of course. I just hadn't thought of that one. With your permission I'll borrow it for later use.


Maybe insert an HAQ in the phrase.
I had not intended it that way, gangrel, but the older posters here need no encouragement to buy watches only the funds for them.
There are many involved in short term measurements which is highly useful data. I usually take the longer term view with an eye toward aging. Uncertain how the MW will perform over a decade with or without regular syncs.


----------



## Horoticus

Any excuse for a new watch is a good excuse. 😃


----------



## gangrel

Actually, I was kinda teasing.  There's an amusing thread over in Public for little white lies you tell yourself to purchase a watch.


----------



## ronalddheld

No one has offended me for my future purchase. I should give more details maybe around shipping time. What is average time from ordering to arrive in the US?


----------



## artec

I thought Ronald meant he was announcing his order for the "good of the group", not that his purchase was for our benefit but maybe I was wrong!

He hasn't told us which model he's ordering but previous posts have mentioned the M3 with the digital readouts. I'd like to read about that one.


----------



## ronalddheld

artec said:


> I thought Ronald meant he was announcing his order for the "good of the group", not that his purchase was for our benefit but maybe I was wrong!
> 
> He hasn't told us which model he's ordering but previous posts have mentioned the M3 with the digital readouts. I'd like to read about that one.


Either interpretation works based on the individual.
I try not to announce exactly what I bought too far ahead of time as I have had to wait for some watches to arrive for more than a week or two. I should be ordering soon. Maybe it will appear a week afterwards?


----------



## ronalddheld

Placed my order a day early. Now the waiting begins....


----------



## Bill R W

I have just joined WUS and this is my first post. Based on the discussion in this forum and the catalog and manual I received from Arne, I ordered a Morgenwerk M1-3 on Thursday, November 12th. It was shipped on Monday, November 16th from Hamburg and arrived Wednesday morning, November 18th in Minnesota. Unfortunately, I was out of town and I did not get to see it until Thursday night. This my first HAQ watch. I have a couple of mechanical watches and several RC G Shocks. 

I find the Morgenwerk technology intriguing. I ordered the M1-3 because it was smaller than the M2 or M3. It is not a small watch (although it is smaller in size, but not weight, than the Garmin Fenix 2 that I use for hiking and other outdoor activities) but it seems very wearable. Based on comments in this forum, I sync'd it Thursday night, will sync it again tonight, and then will let it run without sync'ing for month. I used the Emerald time app for iPad to check the watch -- it has an audible click every second, which seems to work better than the simple eyeball method when measuring my mechanical watches. The M1-3 was about 1/3 of a second fast by this method when it arrived and was right on after sync'ing. I understand that there are better ways to measure its performance and I will have to work on that.


----------



## Horoticus

Welcome to the forum, @Bill R W, and congratulations on your new M1! More pictures would be most appreciated. :-!


----------



## ronalddheld

A belated welcome, Bill as my phone was temporary dead. Images would be appreciated, at your convenience.


----------



## artec

Another welcome to WUS! I'm another MW owner, and I hope you continue to enjoy yours. As you say, there are several recognized methods of checking accuracy (I use the video method) but I find the protruding lugs of the MW unhelpful. I shall have to work out a modification to take them into account. 
I have the M1-X with the bracelet...how do you like the strap?


----------



## Bill R W

Here are some photos of the M1-3. I looked quickly and did not see any guidelines for posting photos. I hope they are ok. I downsized them to around 600 kb.


----------



## Bill R W

Some pictures comparing the M1-3 to my GMT Master II and Fenix 2 for size. I know the GMT Master II was running about 17 seconds fast earlier today (it runs about 0.75 to 1 second fast per day, at least as I wear it -- not too bad for a mechanical watch). The Fenix 2 is also off. It does not seem to keep particularly accurate time for a quartz watch, after you stop receiving GPS signals. I use it for hiking and outdoor activities, where the GPS and ABC functions are valuable and the timekeeping good enough.


----------



## Bill R W

artec said:


> Another welcome to WUS! I'm another MW owner, and I hope you continue to enjoy yours. As you say, there are several recognized methods of checking accuracy (I use the video method) but I find the protruding lugs of the MW unhelpful. I shall have to work out a modification to take them into account.
> I have the M1-X with the bracelet...how do you like the strap?


The strap seems comfortable, although I have only tried on the watch a couple of times and am not currently wearing it. When I told my wife that I wanted to get the M1-3, she said that was fine as long as she could give it to me as a Christmas present. So we agreed that I could look at the watch when it arrived, try it on, sync it twice, charge it and take a few pictures. But I will have to give it up to my wife today until December 24th.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill thanks for all of their photos. How is the rubber strap to wear?
No updates on my order.


----------



## artec

So you'll have a 4-week test built in to your M1-3 when you next see it! You said in an earlier post that there was an audible "tick" once a second (or was it once a minute?)...you must have much younger ears than I do. I can't hear that or the "beep" it's supposed to make when it syncs...I must find a quieter environment.


----------



## Bill R W

The audible click (each second and louder every 5 seconds) was from the Emerald time app I was using to check the watch, not the watch. The click means I do not have to look from a screen to the watch to check time. Notwithstanding the clicks, I am sure the app is better suited to checking mechanical watches. Will need to explore other methods for the M1-3. The only sound from the watch I have heard was a beep for a successful sync.


----------



## Bill R W

The strap seems comfortable, although as I noted in an earlier post I won't being wearing the watch until Christmas. I hope the strap will be long lasting (and can be replaced if it gets brittle or breaks). I also hope that the plastic inserts (over the GPS antenna?) will not scratch easily. But I think the same inserts are on the bracelet models.


----------



## webvan

Thanks for the pics. The comparisons are particularly interesting as I've tried on a Fenix before and was slightly shocked at how it looked like a hockey puck on my wrist! It seems the MW is closer to the Fenix (supposed to be 16mm) in terms of thickness than to the GMT unfortunately.


----------



## ronalddheld

I find the best way to think about MW watches, is that they are not dress watches.


----------



## Bill R W

My Fenix 2 definitely feels larger on my wrist than the M1-3. The Fenix 2 is definitely a small hockey puck (I think the Fenix 3 is thinner than the 2, but I do not have the 3). I believe GARMIN says the Fenix 2's dimensions are 49x49x17, weighing 85 gm. Another watch site, in reviewing the Fenix 2 said it was 61x59x19 (and again weighing 85). I think the difference in their measurements may be whether you count the lugs. 

So the M1-3 is smaller than the Fenix 2, except in weight. 

I was was more concerned about thickness and I believe the M1-3 is noticeably thinner than the Fenix 2 (but certainly not thin, even compared to a GMT Master II). 

My pictures may not show the difference in thickness that accurately. I may not have had them perfectly aligned.


----------



## Bill R W

I should also have noted that the MW catalog lists the M1-3 at 43.8 X 14, weighing 122 g.

I have not independently measured either the M1-3 or the Fenix 2. I think you would need more than a ruler to do it accurately. One other issue is whether to include the lugs or just the basic case in measuring. I suspect the MW measurements are just the basic case. 

I agree with Ronald that it feels and wears like a sport watch, not a dress watch.


----------



## webvan

The new Garmin FR230 is not a dress watch either and it is a very reasonable/wearable 45x45x11.7.

A cheap electronic caliper can measure the thickness accurately, in fact I just measured my thickest watch, the Bulova "pepsi" 7750 chrono and it came in at 14.8 mm. Still acceptable and based on the pictures I've seen of the MW the 14mm seem a bit optimistic, especially with the GMT master at 12mm ? Anyway this is a bit academic as it is what it is ;-)


----------



## artec

I don't know where the catalogue measurements are taken, or how, but my digital caliper thinks the diameter of my MW1-X across the case just above or below the number 3 pusher is 44.08mm and across the bezel, 42.02mm. I don't know how to measure the 12 to 6 measurement, partly because mine has the bracelet rather than the strap but also because the lugs curve down so much. The thickness, using the same Mitutoyo caliper, is 14.91mm (the caliper read zero before measuring and zero afterwards). 
I'm not familiar with the Fenix in either guise but the Rolex appears to be about the same size as my titanium Chronomaster, 38mm diameter x 10mm thick. That has been my reference point for many years, though I've had bigger watches for short periods at intervals. For whatever reasons, the bigger ones never seemed to last and I always reverted to 38 or 39mm. Now that I've got the MW, I guess I'll find out whether this old dog can learn new tricks.


----------



## ronalddheld

These days weight is more important than width and thickness. Most non classically sized dress watches do not fit under a shirt cuff. I will try to remember to take some images with the Fenix 3.


----------



## webvan

I for one have no problem with weight, on the contrary, a bit heft gives a more qualitative feel, 17mm thickness on the other hand is a "no no" ;-)


----------



## ronalddheld

A bit of next depends on if you have a thick or thin wrist. 
How many owner have had an M1 long enough to see any deviations?


----------



## Bill R W

The GMT is listed by Rolex as 40 mm in diameter. Not sure if that counts the crown. It is thicker than 10 mm too, as I have a thin Oceanus (10 to 11 mm I think) and the GMT is thicker, maybe 12-13 mm. Measurement may depend on whether you count the cyclops. The M1-3 felt good on my wrist, although there are certainly some shirt cuffs it will not fit under. The lugs and strap curved in a way that works for me. I have ordered an electronic caliper so that I can measure them all myself. I will check more at Christmas.


----------



## Tom-HK

ronalddheld said:


> How many owner have had an M1 long enough to see any deviations?


Mine has some deviation, but I suspect it would be best to let it run for two months, sync. again, run it again for a couple of weeks and then see what the rate is. Arne says it needs a sync. every two months in order to deliver on its 1 SPY promise, so it may be that we'll have to get used to a different way of thinking about the delivery of accuracy, and short-term reports might not be as valid for these self-calibrating watches as for traditional HAQs. That said, I am surprised by the amount of deviation that I am seeing, and I am wondering whether mine is an isolated case. After two weeks of ownership, my M1-X is currently about two seconds behind my reference clocks.


----------



## ronalddheld

Tom-HK said:


> Mine has some deviation, but I suspect it would be best to let it run for two months, sync. again, run it again for a couple of weeks and then see what the rate is. Arne says it needs a sync. every two months in order to deliver on its 1 SPY promise, so it may be that we'll have to get used to a different way of thinking about the delivery of accuracy, and short-term reports might not be as valid for these self-calibrating watches as for traditional HAQs. That said, I am surprised by the amount of deviation that I am seeing, and I am wondering whether mine is an isolated case. After two weeks of ownership, my M1-X is currently about two seconds behind my reference clocks.


Did you do the two syncs a day apart initially and no others?


----------



## Tom-HK

ronalddheld said:


> Did you do the two syncs a day apart initially and no others?


Yes. Two successful syncs almost exactly 24 hours apart and nothing since. I should note that I do not wear the watch, save for the occasional few minutes after my GS and Citizen have completed their daily wrist time.


----------



## hughesyn

Tom-HK said:


> Arne says it needs a sync. every two months in order to deliver on its 1 SPY promise


I'm a little confused.

If you need to sync it every 2 months, then clearly it cannot achieve 1 sec/ year.

That seems to imply that it is in fact good for 1 second in 2 months. i.e. 6 seconds per year without sync. Which is basically the same as the best thermocompensated movements that don't have the benefit of tuning themselves against GPS.

Or... it could mean that after a year or so of syncing every 2 months, after that it would achieve 1 SPY without syncing?


----------



## chris01

hughesyn said:


> I'm a little confused.
> 
> If you need to sync it every 2 months, then clearly it cannot achieve 1 sec/ year.
> 
> That seems to imply that it is in fact good for 1 second in 2 months. i.e. 6 seconds per year without sync. Which is basically the same as the best thermocompensated movements that don't have the benefit of tuning themselves against GPS.
> 
> Or... it could mean that after a year or so of syncing every 2 months, after that it would achieve 1 SPY without syncing?


Perhaps we're seeing the same sort of mindless marketing puff that gets attached to cheap RC watches: "accurate to 1 second in 100 million years". A minimal analysis of this nonsense shows it to be just that. Measuring 2 months' worth of deviation and adding six successive values may give a total of 1 SPY, or it may not. I think most of us here would understand 1 SPY to signify that on 31 December the watch showed no more than one second deviation from the previous 1 January, without intervention during the year. Otherwise you have little difference from an RC or GPS watch.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Perhaps we're seeing the same sort of mindless marketing puff that gets attached to cheap RC watches: "accurate to 1 second in 100 million years". A minimal analysis of this nonsense shows it to be just that. Measuring 2 months' worth of deviation and adding six successive values may give a total of 1 SPY, or it may not. I think most of us here would understand 1 SPY to signify that on 31 December the watch showed no more than one second deviation from the previous 1 January, without intervention during the year. Otherwise you have little difference from an RC or GPS watch.


One would think those words mean: after 6 syncs the yearly total deviation is less than a second. I am expecting 1 second every 2 months. but would prefer to be surprised. Is everyone going the sync every other month route? I am thinking about whether in the first year to follow the procedure and then a sync a year after that.


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> One would think those words mean: after 6 syncs the yearly total deviation is less than a second. I am expecting 1 second every 2 months. but would prefer to be surprised. Is everyone going the sync every other month route? I am thinking about whether in the first year to follow the procedure and then a sync a year after that.


So it will take two years to discover whether the watch meets its spec. Well, they do offer a 5-year warranty and that's OK if they're still in business.


----------



## webvan

For the MW to be of any HAQ value this would have to mean that 1 month is needed to estimate the required adjustment factor, like when we estimate how many "taps" are needed on our ETAs to get the proper calibration and reach HAQ accuracy, i.e. +/- 10 spy. What's a bit worrying is that I've never heard of a (non-faulty) TC movement being at +52spy out of the box (2 seconds in 2 weeks) ?

This has been in the back of my mind for a while (actually I see I had posted about it back in this thread in 2012 https://www.watchuseek.com/f9/morgenwerk-778179-3.html#post5674786 !) but we had discussions here about a German based movement (ruhla) that self-corrected too with RC, see https://www.watchuseek.com/f9/rc-clock-error-correction-126744-2.html#post825909 and following posts. I seem to remember finding a watch version but it was rather expensive, well all is relative of course Arcron Atomic Watches ;-)


----------



## ronalddheld

I have one of those: Atomic Chrono-Alarm
Digital Sports Watch
ADWA101


----------



## Bill R W

chris01 said:


> So it will take two years to discover whether the watch meets its spec. Well, they do offer a 5-year warranty and that's OK if they're still in business.


The M-1 manual I received from Arne in pdf form says there is a 2-year guarantee on the watch, not 5 years. The M-2 manual also say 2 years. I would cetainly rather have 5 years.


----------



## chris01

Bill R W said:


> The M-1 manual I received from Arne in pdf form says there is a 2-year guarantee on the watch, not 5 years. The M-2 manual also say 2 years. I would cetainly rather have 5 years.


My mistake: I was thinking of Hoptroff. Same question, though - will they be around long enough for it to matter?


----------



## artec

Wasn't the same company/group in existence making and selling a different product/watch for a few years before the MW came onto the scene? I realise that the same question still arises and since I now have two of them, I certainly hope so.
From the watch worksheet demanded by FedEx and supplied by MW, it appears that the Country of Origin of the "movement that controls the hours/minutes" is Switzerland, it appears likely that the guts of the beast is a modified ETA, with the self-correction being MW's own modification. The sheet replies to another question that there are 4 jewels...does this tie down which ETA movement it is?


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> My mistake: I was thinking of Hoptroff. Same question, though - will they be around long enough for it to matter?


Hard to say for MW, 5 years away. Hoptroff I have more confident in although what watches he would be sellling at that time is unknown.


----------



## Tom-HK

artec said:


> From the watch worksheet demanded by FedEx and supplied by MW, it appears that the Country of Origin of the "movement that controls the hours/minutes" is Switzerland, it appears likely that the guts of the beast is a modified ETA, with the self-correction being MW's own modification. The sheet replies to another question that there are 4 jewels...does this tie down which ETA movement it is?


Not sure which ETA movement might lie underneath, but here's what my M1 looks like with the back off:


----------



## artec

You are much braver than I am Tom (Sorry!)! Have you ever seen a quartz movement that looked anything like that? I haven't but then I haven't seen all that many. I don't see any of the components one commonly sees in quartz watches, whether one can identify them or not. Was there a gasket under the caseback?


----------



## Tom-HK

artec said:


> Have you ever seen a quartz movement that looked anything like that?


Not exactly, although at first glance it did remind me of the 10 SPY 'DeHavilland', which I understand is based around a Ronda movement. Morgenwerk's movement is probably unrelated, though.










artec said:


> Was there a gasket under the caseback?


Yes, there was. I might also mention that the black battery cover appears to be some paper-like material, glued to the battery. I did have a quick peep under the metal cover and saw nothing underneath that resembled any quartz movement I've seen.


----------



## Tom-HK

I have just popped the MW on a timer and quick initial results show it has a 60-second inhibition period. It may have another, longer inhibition period that I haven't seen yet, but I thought I would share this now, in case it slips my mind later.


----------



## ronalddheld

Tom-HK said:


> I have just popped the MW on a timer and quick initial results show it has a 60-second inhibition period. It may have another, longer inhibition period that I haven't seen yet, but I thought I would share this now, in case it slips my mind later.


Could you check for the longer inhibition period, when you get the time?


----------



## wbird

Doesn't Garmin qualify as a Swiss company? Since I really don't want to open up any of my GPS Garmins perhaps Ron might pop open that Fenix for a comparison. I know Garmin doesn't have the metal plate covering the board. Or just compare the FCC compliance info to determine if they match.

I'm just not aware of any ETA GPS movements, and I'm guessing it might be easier to adapt a Garmin to analog than an ETA to GPS. In addition the MW pin charging system looks identical to my Garmin.


----------



## ronalddheld

wbird said:


> Doesn't Garmin qualify as a Swiss company? Since I really don't want to open up any of my GPS Garmins perhaps Ron might pop open that Fenix for a comparison. I know Garmin doesn't have the metal plate covering the board. Or just compare the FCC compliance info to determine if they match.
> 
> I'm just not aware of any ETA GPS movements, and I'm guessing it might be easier to adapt a Garmin to analog than an ETA to GPS. In addition the MW pin charging system looks identical to my Garmin.


No idea how to open up the Fenix 3 back and with what tool.


----------



## wbird

No need Ron there are pics on the web, the MW has that round plate protecting the board, Felix has a square plate, but there are pics with it removed, if a MW owner wants to make a comparison.


----------



## Tom-HK

wbird said:


> No need Ron there are pics on the web, the MW has that round plate protecting the board, Felix has a square plate, but there are pics with it removed, if a MW owner wants to make a comparison.


There are no obvious screws keeping the black plastic shell together, so taking it apart would involve major surgery. So far all I've done is remove two screws and a metal plate, and I've probably already given myself some potential warranty issues. Better not push my luck.


----------



## ronalddheld

That is good to know wbird and Tom. I would prefer not to mangle a watch I might someday sell


----------



## Tom-HK

ronalddheld said:


> Could you check for the longer inhibition period, when you get the time?


I may have time on Friday. I had the watch on the timer for about 20 minutes, yesterday, but the last five or six minutes were affected by EM interference. I shall have to pick a quieter time of day.


----------



## ronalddheld

It appears my watch is on its way. No idea when it will arrive.


----------



## ronalddheld

Due to some effort my watch arrived. The hands did not need calibration, although I tried. I changed the timezone. The display seems dim inside. When I go out next I will try for the first GPS acquisition.


----------



## Tom-HK

I put my M1-X on my MicroSet timer for 1.6 hours, yesterday. Aside from the regular 60-second correction, no pattern emerged. There were several other fluctuations, but they were of varying sizes and their occurance was apparently random. If there is a longer inhibition period then it may be in the region of one hour.


----------



## ronalddheld

I forgot to add: button 1 toggles between day of the week and time zone in time mode. Button. 2 toggles between 24 hour and 12 hour time. I will try the charger next,since I do not know the state of charge.


----------



## ronalddheld

watch was almost completely charged up. Without calibrating either watch here are the unworm AB values.

M3 Fenix 3
-92 ft -66 ft
71.2 F 72 F
1016 1013.7 
not. too bad. i could calibrate both compasses if someone is interested.


----------



## ronalddheld

Should i assume everyone who wanted these watches has already bought one?


----------



## webvan

Looks like it...and it seems like the lucky owners don't have a lot to say about these rare beasts. No news being good news I take it ? ;-)


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> Looks like it...and it seems like the lucky owners don't have a lot to say about these rare beasts. No news being good news I take it ? ;-)


That is a good question. No idea except people are waiting the two months??


----------



## Sabresoft

ronalddheld said:


> Should i assume everyone who wanted these watches has already bought one?


Not a safe assumption. I have just moved recently, and have not yet sold the older house, so my watch budget is currently = zero. Once I sell I will probably order the M3 (hoping that there are still some left at that time).

What I would like to see is real life pictures of the M3 (somehow catalogue pictures frequently don't show the watch as well as private on/off wrist shots do).


----------



## ronalddheld

Here are some real phone pictures.


----------



## Sabresoft

Do the digital displays have backlighting?


----------



## Sabresoft

Oh, and how do you find the rubber strap. I'd rather have a bracelet, but it doesn't look like they offer that as an option. I guess I could always ask Arne as they do have a bracelet on one of their other models.


----------



## ronalddheld

Sabresoft said:


> Do the digital displays have backlighting?


Yes it does. The upper time display is easier to read them the lower date/day display under low light.


----------



## webvan

Is the backlight different between the top and bottom displays?


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> Is the backlight different between the top and bottom displays?


I will have to check.


----------



## Horoticus

Sabresoft said:


> Oh, and how do you find the rubber strap.


I like the strap on my M1-3. It integrates well with the case and fits nicely around my 7" wrist. More pics!


----------



## mark1958

I purchased the M1 and would have gladly waited for the M3 but the watch is too big for my 6.4 inch wrist so that became a no starter. I have worn the M1-- once. I will likely sell mine at some point. I just cannot get overly excited.


----------



## ronalddheld

The M3 is large and too heavy to wear for long.


----------



## ronalddheld

ronalddheld said:


> I will have to check.


Tried twice, the backlight seems uniform to me.


----------



## webvan

Thanks, so what would make the second line less legible ?


----------



## ronalddheld

webvan said:


> Thanks, so what would make the second line less legible ?


Smaller print and/or older eyes.


----------



## artec

I like the black dial and white hands/markers of my M1-1 and quite like the white dial and black hands/markers of the M1-X...personal taste, of course. However, I'm very disappointed with the black coating or plating, whichever it is, on the M1-X bracelet. It gets marked much too easily. The watch case probably does, too, but so far I seem to have been lucky and haven't marked either case (the M1-1 is plain steel and may not be as vulnerable as the black finish on the Ti of the X). I dislike the rubber strap on the M1-1...it catches on everything. But I never liked rubber straps anyway!
I suppose because of the size and weight, both watches have to be very tight on the wrist or they swan around too much. I don't mind having them tight but the loop for the free end of the rubber strap leaves a bit more than half an inch of strap end sticking out, away from the other end of the strap and that contributes to it catching on everything.
So far, and it's only been three weeks, it appears that both watches are much more accurate than I expected. The X has had two satellite syncs, so presumably the internal correction has had at least one opportunity to do its thing. The 1 has had only one sync and is therefore presumably still running on its basic tc rate. I don't want to give any numbers at this stage because I don't think they mean much but the video checks I've made have been encouraging.


----------



## ronalddheld

mine is only two weeks past the second sync.


----------



## jisham

artec said:


> So far, and it's only been three weeks, it appears that both watches are much more accurate than I expected. The X has had two satellite syncs, so presumably the internal correction has had at least one opportunity to do its thing. The 1 has had only one sync and is therefore presumably still running on its basic tc rate. I don't want to give any numbers at this stage because I don't think they mean much but the video checks I've made have been encouraging.


I am very curious to hear everyone's data on the accuracy, when the time is right [pun un-intended, but I'll keep it  ].


----------



## Odrasil

Where can i order the M1? 
Thx


----------



## ronalddheld

Odrasil said:


> Where can i order the M1?
> Thx


Have you seen the catalogue and manuals? If not I suggest you do before ordering.


----------



## Odrasil

Thank you for the reply 
I saw them. Where can i order it? 
Thank you again


----------



## ronalddheld

Odrasil said:


> Thank you for the reply
> I saw them. Where can i order it?
> Thank you again


PM sent


----------



## Bill R W

jisham said:


> I am very curious to hear everyone's data on the accuracy, when the time is right [pun un-intended, but I'll keep it  ].


My M1-3 arrived on November 18th, when I was out of town. I snych'd it on November 19th and November 20th. My wife then put the watch away, as it was to be a Christmas present. I received it back today, 34 days later.

Using the stopwatch method (10 times, discard high and low values, average remaining 8 values), the watch appears to be running about 0.5 seconds fast over the 34 days. Which would be between 5 and 6 seconds per year if performance remained the same.

The watch was not worn during these 34 days and was in a house where the temperature was likely around 67 or 68 degrees Fahrenheit on average. I am a bit new to using the stopwatch method, although I practiced on some Casio RC watches over the last few weeks, where I had turned off the radio synch'ing for a comparison. I used the Emerald time app for iPad as a reference.

While I have tested the watch over only a short time period and am not particularly experienced at testing, the numbers seem promising to me, especially if the next synch triggers some self-correction and improved accuracy.

If I have time, I will try some high speed burst photography tomorrow to see if the result is similar.

Will then synch the watch and then let it run for 2 months withou synch'ing. I will wear it during that time, although not every day.


----------



## Bill R W

A further test after the various holiday events. Using Emerald Time for iPad, I photographed Emerald Time on my iPad and my M1-3 using a Nikon V1 mirrorless camera with its electronic shutter set for 60 frames per second (at that speed the Nikon does not change focus between frames, but that does not matter here). As a partial check, I note that Emerald Time generally seemed to gain 0.1 seconds every 6 frames. 

I noted the frame when Emerald Time changed by 0.1 seconds and then looked for the next frame in which the M1-3 second hand moved (it moves 3 times a second). I then added 1/60th of a second to the Emerald Time reference time (which had not changed) for the number of frames in between. 

Using this method, my M1-3 was 0.61 seconds fast over 35 days (don't think I can call the second digit significant here). Slightly worse than I measured yesterday using the stop watch method, but I expect this is a bit more accurate. Extrapolated to a year, that would be between 6 and 7 seconds fast, assuming performance remained the same. 

I imagine there are delays in Emerald Time and the electronics in the iPad. And maybe the camera is not shooting precisely 60 fps. So I wanted to describe my method, for what it is worth. It may be more useful over a longer period of time.

I realize that that when I snych'd the watch 35 days ago, the only check I did on the M1-3 was to use Emerald Time (with its beeps) and my eyes, although I think using the Emerald Times beeps may be a bit better that simply eyeballing it from the reference to the watch. I could see/hear no difference between the two. But given no better check, I am essentially assuming the watch was synch'd accurately on 11/20. I will do a better check after my next synch. 

Wore the watch today. Found it comfortable and legible. 

I hope that tomorrow's synch and the self-adjusting/correcting features will mean it is more accurate over the next two months.

Look forward to hearing of other's results and methods.


----------



## artec

Interested to read Bill's early results for his M1-3 because his timing method and period are so similar to mine. My MW is an M1-X and the period for which it ran unchanged was 30 days, though mine was worn 24/7. The synch at the start of the 30 days was the second since it had arrived, so it should have given itself an internal correction after the second one. I used a Fuji XT-1 camera, whose movie mode runs at 29.6 frames per second. I also used Emerald Sequoia on my iPad, so results should be pretty comparable. 
I've been using the video method for quite a while but only recently started using Emerald on the iPad, mainly because its use allowed me to put the watch dial on the same plane as the time reference. Before I started using Emerald I was using a satellite clock and I couldn't get the MW dial on the same plane as the digital display on the clock, and hence couldn't focus on both. 
My MW was 2 frames ahead and 3 frames ahead 3 times each, so I called it 2.5 frames, or 2.5/30 sec fast. This prorates to a tad over 1 second a year.
However, since I didn't check the watch reading at the start of the 30 days, I can only assume that the synch put the watch in perfect agreement with the Emerald but have no data for that. So I'm not going to count on this first time check. Next time, probably in a month or 6 weeks, I'll measure from the 12/22 figure of 0.083 fast. 
My second MW (an M1-1) was synched, once, at the same time as the X. Because it was only synched once, it shouldn't have given itself any internal corrections and should therefore have been running at its inherent rate. It was 15/30 (0.50) sec fast against Emerald when I checked the X so at the next check I can use that as a base. The idea is to compare the self-correcting X, as it corrects itself after each synch, against the un-synched, non-self-correcting 1, and we should be able to see the X improve while the 1 doesn't. I'll do a synch on the X every 6 weeks or so, or if it is appearing to drift. I'll do a time check before and after each synch so that I'll have a record both of the effect of the synch and the start of the new test period.
Any comments or suggestions on method will be appreciated.


----------



## Bill R W

Just synch'd my M1-3 in preparation for a 2-month test of accuracy without additional synch'ing. See posts 548 and 549 for my prior tests. 

Checked the M1-3 after synch'ing with Emerald Time for iPad. No discernible time difference to my eyes (and ears, given the app's clicks). 

To be more precise, I also shot 3 sequences of Emerald Time and the M1-3 with my Nikon V1 at 60 fps. Looked for the transition on Emerald Time to a full second, for example from xx:xx:30.9 to xx:xx:31.0.

There was a frame in which I could see Emerald Time showing both xx:xx:30.9 and xx:xx:31.0, as if 31.0 was writing over the top of a fading 30.9. I took this as the beginning of the new second. (This happened in each of the 3 sequences I shot.) 

In each of the 3 sequences this was also the frame in which the M1-3 second hand moved to the start of that same full second. In one case the second hand seemed to be moving in two adjacent frame. I conclude that Emerald Time and the M1-3 are likely showing the same time to within a frame, or 1/60th of a second (0.0167 seconds). Even two frames would be within 2/60ths of a second (0.0333 seconds). So within the limits of my current ability to measure the difference, I will call them even at the start of this 2-month test.


----------



## chris01

Are you ready for this?

MORGENWERK Zeitmesser Official


----------



## ronalddheld

I just received this:

We are counting the days, hours and minutes 'till the launch of our website. At MORGENWERK Zeitmesser Official you will be able to gather more information about our all limited edition watches, find out what is so special about MORGENWERK timepieces and purchase them directly and solely at our online store.
If you want to help us spreading the word about one of the most accurate wrist watches of our time, join us on Twitter, Instagram and tell your friends.
We are looking forward to your visit.


----------



## Bill R W

I synch'd my M1-3 in December, 30 days ago, and plan to go a total of 2 months without another synch as a test. I could not resist checking its accuracy today, halfway through the 2 months. As before, I used Emerald time for iPad as my reference and a Nikon V1 shooting at 60 frames per second to compare Emerald time to the M1-3. The measured difference, annualized (and I know an actual year could be materially different), was between 1 and 1.2 seconds slow. For a baseline, I had checked after the December synch (the beginning of this 30-day period) and the watch was the same as Emerald time to my ability to measure (again using the Nikon V1 at 60 fps). 

This compares to 6.4 seconds fast, annualized over a 35-day period ending just prior to my December synch (after two synchs in November, 24 hours apart, when the watch arrived from Germany), using Emerald time and the Nikon V1at 60 fps. 

This suggests there may be some improvement from the M1-3's self-adjustment feature, although it is certainly not definitive. I have worn the watch some during this 30-day period (maybe 6 or 7 days out of the 30, during waking hours), whereas during the 35-day period I did not wear the watch at all. So maybe it is not exactly comparable. I also did not do an accurate check with my Nikon of the baseline at the start of the 35-day period, although to my eye and Emerald time the watch had seemed spot on after the second November synch. 

I checked the Nikon frame rate against Emerald time, and 60 fps seems fairly close. That is, 0.1 seconds on Emerald time was 6 frames by the Nikon, with some fuzziness due to the fact that Emerald time does not change instantaneously. 

I would estimate (a guess for sure) that my measuring error for the difference in time between Emerald time and the watch would be 1 to 2 frames, or 1/60th to 2/60ths of a second. If my math is right, 2 frames would annualize to about 0.4 seconds a year. 

Of course, I am not counting anything for errors in what Emerald time displays. 

I measured the difference between the watch and Emerald time twice, using the same method with the same result. 

Given the the small difference to be measured, I think using the Nikon is a more accurate way to measure the difference than using the stopwatch method, where my reaction time is likely bigger than the difference to be measured. 

Results so far are promising, I think. But more testing to do.

Looking forward to results measured by others and any suggestions, comments or critiques of my methods.


----------



## artec

I also use Emerald Sequoia on an iPad, video photographed with a Fuji XT-1 (29.7 frames per sec). I didn't have the Emerald delivering tenths so I just compared the appearance of the first sign of change on it to the arrival of the second hand at the full second. The first time I did this, like you I relied on the synch to set the watch at the start of the test, which was 17 days long. The drift was 1.08 spy. The second time, the test was 31 days long and the drift was 6.84 spy. I'm not satisfied that either of these was accurate so after the second (30 day) test, I did a synch and then checked the time. The watch was 1 frame slow against Sequoia, so 1/30 sec, or 0.033 sec. Next time I'll set the sequoia to give tenths and I'll try to set the Fuji to 60 frames per sec. If I can't do that, I've got a Nikon V1 and I can use that instead of the Fuji.
The next test will be on Feb 21 and then after another 30 days (is this a leap-year?).


----------



## jisham

artec said:


> (is this a leap-year?).


$ cal feb 2016
February 2016 
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 
1 2 3 4 5 6 
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 
28 29

yes


----------



## ronalddheld

I will try to check my two months after syncing next week.


----------



## artec

Thank you...saved a lot of fingers! I guess 16 *is* divisible by 4.
So the test after Feb 21 will be March 22.


----------



## eychenne

Hello, i would like to buy one of those watches? Could you help me? How to proceed? Many thanks for your help!!!


----------



## Bill R W

I suspect most of the forum members who bought watches to date arranged for the purchase by e-mailing Arne at the company. However, the company's website is now up and it looks like you can purchase a watch online using the website.


----------



## Igorek

I like the M3 a lot but not for 2400 Euros plus it is way too big at 48mm


----------



## ronalddheld

Igorek said:


> I like the M3 a lot but not for 2400 Euros plus it is way too big at 48mm


And the heaviest of the three versions.


----------



## ronalddheld

After 3 months the deviation by eyeball is less than a second.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Source: MORGENWERK



> Therefore, the MORGENWERK caliber utilizes thermo-compensated quartz that helps to maintain a constant operating temperature.


It makes you wonder ...


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> View attachment 7034601
> 
> Source: MORGENWERK
> 
> It makes you wonder ...


About what, Hans? We knew the MWs would be TC.


----------



## Hans Moleman

The quartz helps maintain a temperature?
I guess that explains the ice all over the place.
"At least my watch keeps me warm"

Somehow an oven controlled quartz got mixed up in here.


----------



## chris01

Hans Moleman said:


> The quartz helps maintain a temperature?
> I guess that explains the ice all over the place.
> "At least my watch keeps me warm"
> 
> Somehow an oven controlled quartz got mixed up in here.


The first watch to abolish the seasons. I wonder if you can select permanent hot or cold.


----------



## mikahe

Why compensate for the temperature if you can control it? ;-)


----------



## chris01

mikahe said:


> Why compensate for the temperature if you can control it? ;-)


If you're that good you could just make time whatever your watch said it was.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> The quartz helps maintain a temperature?
> I guess that explains the ice all over the place.
> "At least my watch keeps me warm"
> 
> Somehow an oven controlled quartz got mixed up in here.


WE all know here there are no OCXO in a quartz watch. 
Maybe what MW has to say is not well translated?


----------



## mikahe

This is German version: "Klima–Kompensierend

Quarz–Oszilatoren als Taktgeber reagieren empfindsam auf ihre Umgebungstemperatur. Abweichungen in der Ganggenauigkeit sind bei herkömmlicher Verwendung die Folge. Für unsere MORGENWERK Kaliber verwenden wir deshalb thermokompensierte Quarze, deren Betriebstemperatur weitestgehend konstant gehalten wird. Möglichen Gangabweichungen wirken wir so entgegen, gleich wo Sie Ihren Zeitmesser tragen."

I think the message that this gives is that MW (sales people?) claim that their caliber has not only temperature compensated for but also internal (oscillator) temperature control.


----------



## chris01

mikahe said:


> This is German version: "Klima-Kompensierend
> 
> Quarz-Oszilatoren als Taktgeber reagieren empfindsam auf ihre Umgebungstemperatur. Abweichungen in der Ganggenauigkeit sind bei herkömmlicher Verwendung die Folge. Für unsere MORGENWERK Kaliber verwenden wir deshalb thermokompensierte Quarze, deren Betriebstemperatur weitestgehend konstant gehalten wird. Möglichen Gangabweichungen wirken wir so entgegen, gleich wo Sie Ihren Zeitmesser tragen."
> 
> I think the message that this gives is that MW (sales people?) claim that their caliber has not only temperature compensated for but also internal (oscillator) temperature control.


"... we therefore use thermocompensated crystals whose operating temperature is kept largely constant."

Does anybody believe that? More likely that there's a marketing person who speaks German and English but not Watch.


----------



## mikahe

Does anybody have MW and infrared camera? Let's assume that there's some internal junction at +60..+70 degC even when watch is in temperature say -20 degC. That should show up in thermographic image and could possibly even be felt by touching as warmth. Would this energy consumption fit to MW profile, which has USB rechargeable energy for 3 months or so.


----------



## gangrel

mikahe said:


> Does anybody have MW and infrared camera? Let's assume that there's some internal junction at +60..+70 degC even when watch is in temperature say -20 degC. That should show up in thermographic image and could possibly even be felt by touching as warmth. Would this energy consumption fit to MW profile, which has USB rechargeable energy for 3 months or so.


60 or 70 degrees C would be untouchably hot to causing burns. In degrees C, the target point would probably be about 30-35.

Now, do some further analysis.

#1: say your target is body temp...about 35C. How warm do you keep your house in winter...probably closer to 20. The heater's going to have to be active, off and on, all the time it's not on your wrist. 
#2: say you target about 30...now wear it outside in the summer heat. How do you *cool* it?

As far as battery life: the atomic watches both mention that running in full atomic mode, with the cesium oven, is not sustainable...battery life is, IIRC, less than an hour, for both.


----------



## ronalddheld

Power requirements would disallow a watch with a OCXO. Look at the power required to run a CSAC.


----------



## Bill R W

I checked my M1-3 after letting it run for 62 days and 8 hours after its last synch. As before, I used Emerald Time for iPad as a reference and used Nikon V1 video at 60 fps to compare them. I had set a baseline after the last synch. The M1-3 was 1 second and 3 frames slow or 1.05 seconds slow. This annualizes to 6.1 seconds slow. I would estimate an error range of +\- 1.4 seconds annualized (counting a possible +\- 0.1 seconds at either end of the interval for Emerald Time based on the discussion in the reference time thread and 2 frames on the resolution side). 

This is likely worse than the drift I measured over the first 30 days of this period, but still I suppose in a HAQ performance range. Then the watch was measured 1.2 seconds slow, annualized, with an error estimate of +\- 2.8 seconds annualized (same error elements, but shorter interval). 

Plan on more testing, particularly if I can get my new GARMIN 18x LVC set up to output a PPS to an LED. 

I have worn the watch probably 3 or 4 days most weeks, which I had not done before the previous synch. So this could affect the self-adjustment algorithm. But I would not think it affect the difference between the first 30 days of the current period and the last 32 days. 

I also knocked the the watch off my nightstand with my arm one night, sending the watch to land on a hardwood floor with some force. Did not appear to affect the hands position and Arne thought that it would not affect the timekeeping. I also exchanged e-mails with Atakan, one of the Morgenwerk co-founders. They have been very responsive. 

The drop did cause the 3d button to stick in the pushed-in position, so the watch attempted to synch repeatedly (but did notsynch, as it was inside). It took me a while to understand why the second hand was running backwards (which it does while attempting a synch). I pulled the button out to stop the synching attempts, but the button is now a bit askew. 

Arne said I could send the watch back to Hamburg and they would look at the button and let me know what it would cost to fix it. (Makes sense to me that it would not be a warranty repair, as it was my fault knocking it off the nightstand.) I might not have bothered with this if it was merely cosmetic, as the 3d button will still trigger a synch when pushed, but it has made the button prone to stick. So I will send it back this weekend. Too bad, as I have enjoyed wearing the watch.


----------



## Tom-HK

I found that if I pop the back off my M1-X, the movement pretty much just drops right out and the pushers are quite easy to get to. Would you risk having a quick peek before sending it back? It might be something really straight forward that you can fix.


----------



## Bill R W

Tom-HK said:


> I found that if I pop the back off my M1-X, the movement pretty much just drops right out and the pushers are quite easy to get to. Would you risk having a quick peek before sending it back? It might be something really straight forward that you can fix.


Interesting idea. I'll think about it. But you are likely braver -- and more handy -- than I am.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Interesting idea. I'll think about it. But you are likely braver -- and more handy -- than I am.


Might be worth a try, if you have the correct tools.


----------



## Bill R W

Wonder if you could lose you warranty if you open up the watch. Understand the warranty does not cover this item, but still could cover other issues.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Wonder if you could lose you warranty if you open up the watch. Understand the warranty does not cover this item, but still could cover other issues.


If they read this thread, it would be yes.


----------



## wbird

Bill, maybe I read it wrong on their site but isn't the accuracy of the MW supposed to be 0.75 s/yr? 

Sorry I won't be seeing results from you for awhile while they repair your watch and you have to start the process of calibration and waiting again.


----------



## ronalddheld

wbird said:


> Bill, maybe I read it wrong on their site but isn't the accuracy of the MW supposed to be 0.75 s/yr?
> 
> Sorry I won't be seeing results from you for awhile while they repair your watch and you have to start the process of calibration and waiting again.


Doesn't that involve several GPS syncs per year?


----------



## Bill R W

wbird said:


> Bill, maybe I read it wrong on their site but isn't the accuracy of the MW supposed to be 0.75 s/yr?
> 
> Sorry I won't be seeing results from you for awhile while they repair your watch and you have to start the process of calibration and waiting again.


The website and manual at times seem to just say simply the watch should be within 0.75 seconds per year offset. Other times they seem to indicate that 0.75 seconds per year assumes 8 synchs over the course of a year.

I generally thought they meant the watch needed 8 synchs a year to stay within 0.75 seconds. If that is correct, 0.75 seconds is generally over a period of 1/8th of a year between synchs. +\- 0.75 seconds over 45.6 (365/8) days is +\- 6 seconds a year annualized.

Sounds like Ronald understood it similarly. I will go back and look more at the website, manual and an e-mail or two from Arne.


----------



## Bill R W

Copied from Morgenwerk website (Bold added):

"High resolution timekeeping

A MORGENWERK watch receives its time signal with atomic precision from GPS-Satellites. Thermo-compensated quartz oscillators, shielded from influences of external factors are able to maintain extremely accurate frequencies. For further accuracy, we have developed a software that monitors potential deviations of individual movements. A microprocessor then calculates corrective algorithms to compensate for the time lapse of
the quartz. This way a MORGENWERK remains uniquely accurate to the pulse of time. *Expressing this accuracy in numbers, our movements get to a minimal off-set of +/- 0.75 seconds per year. *To put this into perspective, an interval that minute resembles a measure of 16cm (6.3") in the distance between Berlin and Paris or 72 meters (236ft), in the distance between the earth and the moon.

Self-compensation

Thermo-compensated quartz ocsillators are not a new invention, yet there are ones of quality and then less accurate versions. For our MORGENWERK timepieces, we use solely the oscillators of quality, not ending there with striving to achieve an ideally-functioning clockwork. We are the first makers of chronometers that add an additional component to control the chrono- matic aberration: a microprocessor that maps the frequency of the clocking oscillators. The processor compares the atomic time signal received from a
GPS satellite during a time sync of the watch and the time given by the watch's oscillators. From this difference, correcting parameters are calculated to compensate the quartz. By repeating this practice, the learning software is able to reach a maximum accuracy for each individual movement. *Through this process, a MORGENWERK accomplishes with only eight synschronisations per year, a minimal aberration of up to +/- 0.75 seconds.*"


----------



## Bill R W

Copied from page 39 of M1 manual (English section). No mention of synchs required for +\- 0.75 offset.

"MOVEMENT:


· MSC1 high precision quartz movement, self-correcting, shock resistant up to 1000G 
· Off-set up to +/- 0.75 sec./year 
· Operating temperature -10°C to +60°C 
· Recharging temperature 0°C to +40°C 
· Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, date, time zone and daylight savings time setting"


----------



## wbird

Kind of complicated to determine if the watch is meeting specs. If I read the replies correctly if you follow the sync protocol you should always be less than 0.75s off. If you don't sync frequently you could be 6.0s off. Possibly higher since there is no reference sync to do corrections.

Since I check all my watches when I receive them, especially my expensive mechanical watches to make sure they are working properly, how do you owners define in spec for the MW.


----------



## ronalddheld

Before the latest website, my interpretation was <1 s/y with 6 syncs over a year. I will try to email Arne to get some clarification. If you wait until december 2016, i can tell you the performance of my watch.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Before the latest website, my interpretation was <1 s/y with 6 syncs over a year. I will try to email Arne to get some clarification. If you wait until december 2016, i can tell you the performance of my watch.


+\- 1 second over 1/6th of a year (6 synchs a year evenly spaced) and +\-0.75 seconds over 1/8th of a year (8 synchs a year evenly spaced) both annualize to 6 seconds a year.

I have assumed that performance over an interval that annualized to +\- 6 seconds a year or better would be in spec. Of course, the spec does not address an annual period, so perhaps this would not apply if you let it run a year with no synchs.


----------



## dicioccio

ronalddheld said:


> Before the latest website, my interpretation was <1 s/y with 6 syncs over a year. I will try to email Arne to get some clarification. If you wait until december 2016, i can tell you the performance of my watch.


According to that (and this is also my interpretation) the accuracy is the same of a very good TC watch. The Citizens are rated 5 spy so if you divide this by 6 you are in the same spec range of the MW. In this case, I can't see any additional benefit by the "self-calibration", am I wrong ? In fact I assume that the self calibration is effective when no GPS sync is available. In other words, after a given number of syncs the watch should learn how to self calibrate itself and gain a better accuracy over a "standard one" (that is the accuracy of a standard TC watch). Again, did I misunderstand anything ?


----------



## Bill R W

I asked Arne several questions by e-mail a bit ago and when I e-mailed last night to ask, he said I should feel free to share with the forum. I have edited out some general hellos and material about dropping my watch as not of general interest and have spliced Arne's answers in (shown in bold that I added) so that they follow each question. Arne and his co-founder Atakan have been quite responsive to questions. Question 2 and Arne's answer assumes 8 synchs per year. He labels his answer 2.1 as I had had two questions numbered 2 in my e-mail.

1. Is it important for either time accuracy or battery life over time to charge the watch on any particular schedule. Say first of every month? Or is it better to let the battery run down so that the watch shows low power through the operation of the second hand before recharging?

*about 1. *
*there is no particular schedule for charging. all our durability and power consistency tests have been run on »full to empty« cycles. after all the watch should be as convenient as possible, so you can safely use it until the second hand indicates the decline in battery power. our battery has a lifetime of +/- 500 charging cycles. since there are only 4 to 5 cycles needed per year, there are 100+ years that the watch can run of this battery alone.*

2. Is there a recommendation for how often to synch the watch, particularly when first purchased? Based on comments in the WatchuSeek HAQ forum, I synched the watch when I received it, then 24 hours later, and then waited 30 days and synched a third time. I was now planning to wait 60 days to check performance and check the accuracy, before trying a 4th synch. I like the fact that the watch runs with HAQ accuracy without having to synch every day. Would seasonal temperature differences -- summer versus winter -- suggest synching after seasonal changes to allow the self-adjustment feature to deal with seasonal changes in temperature? Or does the TC feature mean this is not needed?

*about 2.1*
*the watch is constantly learning. so the more syncs, the better it can learn about the reaction of the oscillators to the fluctuations of the environment in this particular watch. that said (and considering that a sync uses a chunk of the battery power) it is absolutely enough to just sync it twice according to what you have read in the forum and from then on just eight times per year, to keep the movement on track. the syncing pattern can be irregular, there is no particular need to sync precisely every 6.5 weeks.*
*but yes, after a period of stronger deviations of the temperature the watch was operating in, it is helpful to the performance map if synced after.*

2. Is it possible to buy an additional charging bracket? I would like to do that, if possible, as if I were to lose the bracket while traveling, I would be unable to charge the watch. Not an issue for the cable, as the cable seems standard USB.

*about 2.2*
*yes it is possible to purchase an additional charging bracket. we charge 45€ for this part and can ship it to you any time. but I would like to postpone that if you allow me, until we have figured out in more detail what happened to your no. 3 button and how we are going to proceed with that.*

3. Will you be making a solar charging station? I recall early articles on Morgenwerk watches suggested this was part of the company's plans.

*about 3.*
*solar charger is off the table for the moment. but I will not stop to think about a more or even most convenient solution for the future. If we change something there, we will inform through our newsletter as well as to the owners separately.*

4. Will it be possible to buy replacement bands if one wears out?

*about 4.*
*yes it is possible to purchase a replacement strap. please let me know when you need a new one and I will forward you more information about that.*


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## Bill R W

dicioccio said:


> According to that (and this is also my interpretation) the accuracy is the same of a very good TC watch. The Citizens are rated 5 spy so if you divide this by 6 you are in the same spec range of the MW. In this case, I can't see any additional benefit by the "self-calibration", am I wrong ? In fact I assume that the self calibration is effective when no GPS sync is available. In other words, after a given number of syncs the watch should learn how to self calibrate itself and gain a better accuracy over a "standard one" (that is the accuracy of a standard TC watch). Again, did I misunderstand anything ?


I have assumed that the Morgenwerk "self-adjustment" feature should improve an individual watch's intrinsic accuracy between synchs and maybe adjust for seasonal differences and changes in the oscillator over time (e.g., aging of the crystal). I have even hoped it might cause the watch to do better than stated specs over time. Have only had my watch since November. Still testing, so no definitive evidence so far. But I do like my M1-3, both as a watch to wear and for its technology.


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## artec

I have understood that the self-correction (aka learning) capability of the MW functions one per synch, and that the correction resulting then becomes essentially part of the tc quartz.

..or am I wrong?


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## wbird

All good information, but what is the accuracy spec? Or, do you have to wait till after 8 syncs over the course of a year, than measure it the following year after its made corrections to truly measure its accuracy.


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## ronalddheld

wbird said:


> All good information, but what is the accuracy spec? Or, do you have to wait till after 8 syncs over the course of a year, than measure it the following year after its made corrections to truly measure its accuracy.


Ask me in December how it did since I plan on no syncs until then.


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## wbird

Ron, I guess that's a worst case scenario test for the watch. Assuming 0.75s per 45 days or about 6 s/yr if it is gains or looses 1s or less every 2 months it's in spec taking that approach. I think.

Theoretically though if it learns or calibrates with each sync. Another approach would be to give 2 more synchs in the next three months (once every 45 days). Allow it to run with no additional syncs, than measure it at the end of the year. I think that is a little closer to the intent of the watch design. Under this scenario it might perform better than 6 s/yr.

Strangely enough if you don't do the syncs you don't know if the most interesting feature of the watch works. After all these years you sort of know to expect from a TC movement in terms of accuracy. If you measure and sync say every two months and you keep seeing 1s drift you can conclude its a 6 s/yr watch and the calibration does nothing. If on the other hand with each sync you measure less drift, than you can conclude the calibration is improving the watch accuracy.

Either way, the question remains the same no matter what approach you take, did it meet MW specs.


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## ronalddheld

wbird said:


> Ron, I guess that's a worst case scenario test for the watch. Assuming 0.75s per 45 days or about 6 s/yr if it is gains or looses 1s or less every 2 months it's in spec taking that approach. I think.
> 
> Theoretically though if it learns or calibrates with each sync. Another approach would be to give 2 more synchs in the next three months (once every 45 days). Allow it to run with no additional syncs, than measure it at the end of the year. I think that is a little closer to the intent of the watch design. Under this scenario it might perform better than 6 s/yr.
> 
> Strangely enough if you don't do the syncs you don't know if the most interesting feature of the watch works. After all these years you sort of know to expect from a TC movement in terms of accuracy. If you measure and sync say every two months and you keep seeing 1s drift you can conclude its a 6 s/yr watch and the calibration does nothing. If on the other hand with each sync you measure less drift, than you can conclude the calibration is improving the watch accuracy.
> 
> Either way, the question remains the same no matter what approach you take, did it meet MW specs.


I decided to do the year test as others would report on the multi syncing per year.


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## Bill R W

artec said:


> I have understood that the self-correction (aka learning) capability of the MW functions one per synch, and that the correction resulting then becomes essentially part of the tc quartz.
> 
> ..or am I wrong?


artec --

Do I recall that you have two Morgenwerks and were planning to compare the performance between the two, one synched periodically and one running without synching other than when you first got it? Interesting comparison if you are doing that.


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## Bill R W

wbird said:


> Ron, I guess that's a worst case scenario test for the watch. Assuming 0.75s per 45 days or about 6 s/yr if it is gains or looses 1s or less every 2 months it's in spec taking that approach. I think.
> 
> Theoretically though if it learns or calibrates with each sync. Another approach would be to give 2 more synchs in the next three months (once every 45 days). Allow it to run with no additional syncs, than measure it at the end of the year. I think that is a little closer to the intent of the watch design. Under this scenario it might perform better than 6 s/yr.
> 
> Strangely enough if you don't do the syncs you don't know if the most interesting feature of the watch works. After all these years you sort of know to expect from a TC movement in terms of accuracy. If you measure and sync say every two months and you keep seeing 1s drift you can conclude its a 6 s/yr watch and the calibration does nothing. If on the other hand with each sync you measure less drift, than you can conclude the calibration is improving the watch accuracy.
> 
> Either way, the question remains the same no matter what approach you take, did it meet MW specs.


Agree with your thoughts.

Not sure what a lawyer would say the promised specs are. But that is not so relevant to me. Your first paragraph is what I would expect as a customer to be the meaning of in spec, given what I have seen from the company. And 6 SPY is not so bad, particularly if you can set the watch fairly precisely by synching, something I could not do with The Citizen (which I do not have, but hope at some point to get).

If the Morgenwerks truly learn from synching, as I expect and hope, you should get better annual performance in year 2 running 12 months without synching if you did a number of synchs over the first year (whether 6 or 8). I hope it might even be better than 6 SPY then. But too soon to tell.


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## Bill R W

Clocked said:


> I've never been a fan of ana-digi faces. I feel like the watch face gets too busy and you can't truly appreciate it.


The M1 and M2 models are analog only. I have an M1-3 which is all analog and has a fairly clean face, particulary in comparison to other GPS synching watches.

The M3 models are analog-digital.


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## gcs190

About M3: Does anyone have a comparison with RANGEMAN, Mudmaster, MTG or MRG? 

Thank's


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## ronalddheld

gcs190 said:


> About M3: Does anyone have a comparison with RANGEMAN, Mudmaster, MTG or MRG?
> 
> Thank's


You are looking for a comparison review? I am not aware that has been to done with all of those watches.


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## gcs190

ronalddheld said:


> You are looking for a comparison review? I am not aware that has been to done with all of those watches.


Sorry, whistshot. To compare size.


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## Tom-HK

gcs190 said:


> Sorry, whistshot. To compare size.


I posted a few size comparison shots (including one with a G-Shock Hybrid Wave Ceptor), back on page 46.


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## ronalddheld

I received an email from Arne. Be says sales are fine but did not quantify it. He also claimed for learning algorithm is working better than expected as some users are getting under a second in 6 months.


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## Michael Reichmann

Tom-HK said:


> I posted a few size comparison shots (including one with a G-Shock Hybrid Wave Ceptor), back on page 46.


TOM,

Since the one that you used (or own) for the size comparison has a full-lum dial, could you please comment on ist look and effectiveness?

Thanks,

Michael


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## Bill R W

Tom-HK said:


> I posted a few size comparison shots (including one with a G-Shock Hybrid Wave Ceptor), back on page 46.


I think Tom' pictures are of an M1-X which is smaller than the M3. I posted some comparison pictures of my M1-3 (with a GARMIN Fenix 2 and a GMT Master II), the case of which is the same size as Tom's M1-X, and thus also smaller than the M3. My pictures are on page 48 of the thread.

I find the M1-3 comfortable in size to wear. But definitely a sport watch, not a dress watch, and might not fit well under all shirt cuffs. I bought the M1 rather than the M2 or M3 in part because it was the smallest of the Morgenwerks.

My M1-3 is in Hamburg for a repair, as I dropped it and had some issues with button #3. Hope to have it back soon. Could post size comparison to a Gulfmaster when it gets back, if useful.


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## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> I received an email from Arne. Be says sales are fine but did not quantify it. He also claimed for learning algorithm is working better than expected as some users are getting under a second in 6 months.


The MW website shows the number of watches by edition and the ones remaining for purchase. Presumably the difference equals the number sold, unless they sold ones that were not numbered.

Good or to hear the adjustment mechanism may be working well. Looking forward to getting my M1-3 back so I can start testing again.


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## alex-w

I'm unreasonably drawn toward ana-digi. I hope there's some promotion near the end of the year, but it looks like they are made for orders.


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## Bill R W

My MW1-3 just returned this morning from a three-week stay in Hamburg. Button 3, which was knocked askew when I knocked the watch off my nightstand was repaired. They also replaced the unit that makes a beep when the unit sychs, as this was not working after the fall. (No charge for the sound unit, I paid for the button. Seemed fair to me. Not cheap, but repairs to nice watches never seem to be. Also bought an extra charging bracket.) 

Synch'd the watch this morning. Interesting that it behaved differently than before I sent it back. Before I sent it in, when you pressed button 3 to start a synch, the second hand went to the 12 o'clock position and then ticked counterclockwise until the earlier of 60 seconds or the watch synch'd. This is also what the manual describes. 

This morning when I synch'd the watch by pressing button 3, the second hand went to the 9 o'clock position, and stayed there for a while, then later moved one tick along. The watch later beeped and resumed normal operation. So I assume it synch'd. Synching took more than a minute, I believe, as I saw the minute hand move twice during the synch. 

I have e-mailed Arne and Atakan to ask if they have changed something in the synch'ing operation. 

I checked the watch against my GARMIN 18x LVC PPS to see how accurate the synch was using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps. The watch was 15 frames slower to get to the start of a second than the PPS, or 37.5 milliseconds slow.


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## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> My MW1-3 just returned this morning from a three-week stay in Hamburg. Button 3, which was knocked askew when I knocked the watch off my nightstand was repaired. They also replaced the unit that makes a beep when the unit sychs, as this was not working after the fall. (No charge for the sound unit, I paid for the button. Seemed fair to me. Not cheap, but repairs to nice watches never seem to be. Also bought an extra charging bracket.)
> 
> Synch'd the watch this morning. Interesting that it behaved differently than before I sent it back. Before I sent it in, when you pressed button 3 to start a synch, the second hand went to the 12 o'clock position and then ticked counterclockwise until the earlier of 60 seconds or the watch synch'd. This is also what the manual describes.
> 
> This morning when I synch'd the watch by pressing button 3, the second hand went to the 9 o'clock position, and stayed there for a while, then later moved one tick along. The watch later beeped and resumed normal operation. So I assume it synch'd. Synching took more than a minute, I believe, as I saw the minute hand move twice during the synch.
> 
> I have e-mailed Arne and Atakan to ask if they have changed something in the synch'ing operation.
> 
> I checked the watch against my GARMIN 18x LVC PPS to see how accurate the synch was using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps. The watch was 15 frames slower to get to the start of a second than the PPS, or 37.5 milliseconds slow.


Along with the repairs,you got a firmwear upgrade?


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## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Along with the repairs,you got a firmwear upgrade?


Wondered if that was what it was. Will let the group know what Arne and Atakan say. I also asked if they have any way for a user to update firmware.


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## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Along with the repairs,you got a firmwear upgrade?


I had an e-mail from Arne this morning. He said they had not upgraded or changed the firmware on my MW1-3. They also preserved the information the watch had in its memory of prior synchs and related adjustments.

He said what I described in connection with a synch was "most curious and sounded like a severe recalibration through transport."

Not sure what that is. Will synch again today and see what happens. Will let Arne and the group know.

Makes me me wonder if the synch results I reported yesterday are accurate and/or representative.

Arne did not address the question about whether a user can upgrade the firmware on the MW watches. Given the USB charging connection, it's hard to imagine they would not have built in that capability. On the other hand, I am not sure that other GPS and RC watches from traditional watchmaking companies have user upgradable firmware. But it is in GARMIN GPS watches. I have updated the firmware on my Fenix 2 many times.


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## Bill R W

I am in Chicago today and initially tried to synch my M1-3 in an office building a couple of times, standing next to floor-to-ceiling west and north facing windows. The watch acted normally this time -- the second hand went to 12 o'clock position and ticked counterclockwise. It did not synch and I assume being inside meant it was not getting a sufficient signal. I later went outside the building and tried again. The watch again acted normally and synched within 15-16 seconds.


I am glad it seems to be working correctly. The onetime (I hope) anomaly is a bit of a mystery.

Unfortunately, my GPS PPS setup is at home, so I can't test the accuracy of the synch. Using the eyeball method and Emerald Time for iPad, I can't see any difference.


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## mikahe

Bill R W said:


> This morning when I synch'd the watch by pressing button 3, the second hand went to the 9 o'clock position, and stayed there for a while, then later moved one tick along. The watch later beeped and resumed normal operation. So I assume it synch'd. Synching took more than a minute, I believe, as I saw the minute hand move twice during the synch.


Could it be that after being serviced the watch had lost the GPS almanac info (as if not synced or rather received any GPS data for a long time, say a week or two)?. In this case the GPS time reception would take more time than normally when/if sync is done with a few days in between. Does MW manual say something about this? It's very normal for any GPS receiver device so this might explain it.


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## Bill R W

mikahe said:


> Could it be that after being serviced the watch had lost the GPS almanac info (as if not synced or rather received any GPS data for a long time, say a week or two)?. In this case the GPS time reception would take more time than normally when/if sync is done with a few days in between. Does MW manual say something about this? It's very normal for any GPS receiver device so this might explain it.


The difference was more than taking extra time, which by itself I would not have thought odd under the circumstances. Normally when you enter synch mode for an M1, the second hand goes to the 12 o'clock position and ticks backward or counterclockwise until 60 seconds reached or a successful synch, whichever is earlier.

Yesterday it did not do that, although I only tried once. Today it did that and synched normally once I got outside.


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## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> The difference was more than taking extra time, which by itself I would not have thought odd under the circumstances. Normally when you enter synch mode for an M1, the second hand goes to the 12 o'clock position and ticks backward or counterclockwise until 60 seconds reached or a successful synch, whichever is earlier.
> 
> Yesterday it did not do that, although I only tried once. Today it did that and synched normally once I got outside.


Need more samples to determine whta is going on?


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## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Need more samples to determine whta is going on?


I will try a couple more synchs over the next few days to see what happens. Not sure why the anomalous behavior happened or whether it will happen again. If I do not see it again, may not have an explanation beyond Arne's somewhat cryptic comment. Not that I would be unhappy if it simply worked normally now.


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## mikahe

Is there nothing stated in the user manual? E.g. in Citizen F150 a short press of button A in 4 o'clock shows with second hand if the previous GPS sync was successful (OK dial mark between 12 and 1 or NO between 11 and 12). When you continue the press for 2 seconds, seconds hand moves to RX TME mark between 10 and 11. After the time sync second hand moves back to show the OK or NO result.


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## Bill R W

Arne e-mailed me this morning with a explanation of the behavior I saw the other day when I tried to synch my M1-3 when it came back from Hamburg. He and Atakan had continued to think about it, as they did not expect "mysterious" behavior from the watch's software. 


According to Arne the watch has a "leap second reception function." In this mode, the watch's second hand does just what I observed. It takes a while and uses a fair amount of battery power. Arne says this function is accessed by pressing button #3 for 8 seconds.

I am not sure how long I pressed the button, but this is possible. I did press the button for a short time and a synch did not start. So I pressed it for a longer time, maybe 8 seconds.


I do not recall seeing this function/mode mentioned in the manual. I have asked Arne if it is something that will be needed the next time we get a leap second. Will let the group know what he says.


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## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Arne e-mailed me this morning with a explanation of the behavior I saw the other day when I tried to synch my M1-3 when it came back from Hamburg. He and Atakan had continued to think about it, as they did not expect "mysterious" behavior from the watch's software.
> 
> 
> According to Arne the watch has a "leap second reception function." In this mode, the watch's second hand does just what I observed. It takes a while and uses a fair amount of battery power. Arne says this function is accessed by pressing button #3 for 8 seconds.
> 
> I am not sure how long I pressed the button, but this is possible. I did press the button for a short time and a synch did not start. So I pressed it for a longer time, maybe 8 seconds.
> 
> 
> I do not recall seeing this function/mode mentioned in the manual. I have asked Arne if it is something that will be needed the next time we get a leap second. Will let the group know what he says.


I do not recall reading about this in the manual. The Astrons reload the leap seconds table twice a year, january and July, AFAIR.


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## Bill R W

mikahe said:


> Is there nothing stated in the user manual? E.g. in Citizen F150 a short press of button A in 4 o'clock shows with second hand if the previous GPS sync was successful (OK dial mark between 12 and 1 or NO between 11 and 12). When you continue the press for 2 seconds, seconds hand moves to RX TME mark between 10 and 11. After the time sync second hand moves back to show the OK or NO result.


Here's what the M1 manual says. Page 29 in the English section.

"Receiving a time signal

Enter reception mode by pressing button 3. The second hand moves to the 12 o'clock position and reception is initiated. The second hand moves counter clockwise for 60 seconds. In that time the timepiece connects to six satellites and then selects the strongest signal for time and date synchronization. A short »beep« confirms successful signal reception. Should no signal be received, the Morgenwerk will return to normal time indication silently.

Please make sure to stand close to a window when searching for a signal inside a car or building. Also, stand clear of high objects or buildings to asure better reception when outside."

I am not sure if there is a way for the watch to indicate it has synched, other than the beep or seeing the second hand go back to normal operations before the full 60 seconds has elapsed. So you may have to watch the watch during the synch process. Of course, in the MW watches, synchs are not automatic and are user initiated. Also, you may be able to tell the watch has synched if the synch has eliminated prior accumulated time drift since the last synch.


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## mikahe

Bill R W said:


> According to Arne the watch has a "leap second reception function." In this mode, the watch's second hand does just what I observed. It takes a while and uses a fair amount of battery power. Arne says this function is accessed by pressing button #3 for 8 seconds.
> 
> I am not sure how long I pressed the button, but this is possible. I did press the button for a short time and a synch did not start. So I pressed it for a longer time, maybe 8 seconds.


This is exactly the "user error" that I just did with my Citizen. I pressed the A button long enough (7 seconds) to start the leap second info reception. The seconds hand made another round around the dial and then landed to RX TME for the painstaking close maximum, about 13 minutes. During this time minute hand worked normally, but seconds hand was frozen.

I didn't know or remember what I started until I took a look at the manual using my phone. Or course that wasn't harmful, just waste of solar battery reseve, which is close to full anyway.


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## Bill R W

Bill R W said:


> Arne e-mailed me this morning with a explanation of the behavior I saw the other day when I tried to synch my M1-3 when it came back from Hamburg. He and Atakan had continued to think about it, as they did not expect "mysterious" behavior from the watch's software.
> 
> 
> According to Arne the watch has a "leap second reception function." In this mode, the watch's second hand does just what I observed. It takes a while and uses a fair amount of battery power. Arne says this function is accessed by pressing button #3 for 8 seconds.
> 
> I am not sure how long I pressed the button, but this is possible. I did press the button for a short time and a synch did not start. So I pressed it for a longer time, maybe 8 seconds.
> 
> 
> I do not recall seeing this function/mode mentioned in the manual. I have asked Arne if it is something that will be needed the next time we get a leap second. Will let the group know what he says.


The Morgenwerk website says the following

"Leap second adjust

The astronomic time scale (UT1) is calculated by the rotation of the earth against reference points in space. It is the foundation of all timekeeping. But the rotation of the earth is not constant and subject to fluctuations. Consequently, the length of each year differs from the preceding one. In currently produced watches, the clocking medium calculates seconds strictly as a constant. That does not go along well with the deviations of the earth's rotation. Discrepancies are unavoidable and need to be corrected in irregular intervals. In order to correct the natural deviations of the world time (UTC) displayed on a watch to correspond with the astronomic time (UT1), the leap second was then in the early '70s introduced. Since this
introduction, a leap second has been either added or subtracted in irregular intervals to the UTC-time to correct this discrepancy. MORGENWERK movements are orientating themselves at the atomic measured GPS time, not recognizing the deviations in the earth's rotation, and clocking the second scientifically as a constant as well. Since the corrected time information cannot be received directly from the satellite clocks, it has to be downloaded in the form of an information protocol from the satellite. MORGENWERK watches use an integrated function to download the corrected protocols at the push of a button, and then adjusts the internal clock accordingly."

Not sure if we have to initiate a download of leap second protocols by pressing button #3 for 8 seconds or whether this happens periodically as Ron mentioned for the Astrons. Literally the website seems to say we have to press a button to do this. Assume it is not part of the regular synching process, given regular synchs are fairly quick. Not addressed in manual.


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## wbird

It seems to me if you don't tell your MW you are correcting for a leap second and just do a routine sync. The self correction aspect of the watch will think the movement is running to fast or slow and correct. In essence it will mistakenly over compensate, resulting in poor accuracy in the future.

The rest of the text is a little confusing, GPS atomic clocks are adjusted all the time, and this includes for leap seconds. All existing GPS watches see this after they sync, so the MW will see it too. 

Again just a theory, an email could probably confirm or refute. But I have to believe a leap second if it's not accounted for would seriously mess with the self calibration feature.


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## Bill R W

wbird said:


> It seems to me if you don't tell your MW you are correcting for a leap second and just do a routine sync. The self correction aspect of the watch will think the movement is running to fast or slow and correct. In essence it will mistakenly over compensate, resulting in poor accuracy in the future.
> 
> The rest of the text is a little confusing, GPS atomic clocks are adjusted all the time, and this includes for leap seconds. All existing GPS watches see this after they sync, so the MW will see it too.
> 
> Again just a theory, an email could probably confirm or refute. But I have to believe a leap second if it's not accounted for would seriously mess with the self calibration feature.


I thought GPS clocks in the satellites do not include leap seconds, but are adjusted to track ground-level atomic clocks (mostly adjustments for relativity effects, I think). The satellites broadcast leap second protocols so that other clocks, using distributed time from GPS, can convert GPS time to UTC or other standard time. So not sure if a failure to load the latest leap second data would affect the self-adjustment feature. Rather might just lead to the watch being off by a full second (plus any accumulated drift since the last synch) but not affect the rate of the watch.

From NIST website --

*"What is GPS time?*

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a constellation of satellites each carrying multiple atomic clocks. The time on each satellite is derived by steering the on-board atomic clocks to the time scale at the GPS Master Control Station, which is monitored and compared to UTC(USNO). Since GPS time does not adjust for leap seconds, it is ahead of UTC(USNO) by the integer number of leap seconds that have occurred since January 6, 1980 plus or minus a small number of nanoseconds. However, the time offset from UTC is contained in the GPS broadcast message and is usually applied automatically by GPS receivers. "

I think after the most recent leap second, GPS time is ahead of UTC by 17 seconds.

I will pass along anything further I hear on this from Arne, who is quite good about answering questions in my experience.


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## artec

I have two MWs, one of which was synched (I wish we could find a better past tense for the verb "to synch"!) when I got it in November and one (an M1-X) which I intended to synch every two months. Unfortunately, the M1-X started turning the minute hand over when the second hand was nowhere near the zero. I had been wearing the watch 24/7 and thought I must have somehow bashed it during the night so I stopped wearing it at night. I zeroed all the hands and for a time all was well. Then I noticed that it was doing the same thing again. I was fairly sure I hadn't bashed it but zeroed it again and stopped wearing it. Then it did the same thing again when I wasn't wearing it at all.
I e-mailed Arne and was told to send it back for "revision". They sent me a free FedEx label and told me to see that everything was really well padded. I got another e-mail saying they had received it and had scheduled an appointment for it to be revised on Thursday, tomorrow.
In the meantime, the other MW, the M1-1, was synched once, when I got it, and has been charged periodically but no more synchs. When I've had it six months (end of May), I shall check how it's doing (video vs Emerald Sequoia). I haven't decided what to do with it after that first six months. I might give it one more synch and see how a second six months compares with the first, ie see how much effect the self-correction has, or I might let it go for a whole year.
All this is precursor to agreeing that a leap-second would throw the self-correction for a loop. When I get word from Arne that they are sending my M1-X back, I'll ask him if there's a way to keep the self-correction honest. I'll post his response, if any.


----------



## Bill R W

Given the way I think the GPS UTC offset works, I suspect the watch will not know it is off by a second unless it gets an updated leap second download (and if it gets the updated leap second information, it will apply it and not be off). So I suspect a failure to get updated leap second information will not affect self adjustment. But not sure and will ask Arne as I have e-mailed him about this feature already.


----------



## ronalddheld

The last leap second was before any of us got our MW watches. No reason for the leap second tables on the GPS satellites to change until they have to add no LS entries.


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## wbird

Guess I should have said the signal sent to the watch is also updated as needed. But more importantly if the MW is taking leap seconds into account by using an alternate sync in order to maintain the self calibration accuracy, that's impressive. It shows a well thought out engineering approach. Hope that's the case.


----------



## mikahe

Here's list of leap seconds added: Table 1 : Relationship between TAI and UTC


----------



## jisham

artec said:


> I have two MWs, one of which was synched (I wish we could find a better past tense for the verb "to synch"!)


Sunked? ;-)


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## artec

Sunch?


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## ronalddheld

I asked for technical details on leap second processing, but have yet to hear back from Arne.


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## wbird

Sanched?


----------



## Bill R W

Synched my M1-3 today. Normal synch behavior. No leap second data acquisition.

Checked the watch immediately after synching against my GARMIN 18x LVC PPS output, using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps.

The M1-3 was 30 milliseconds slow versus the PPS output.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Synched my M1-3 today. Normal synch behavior. No leap second data acquisition.
> 
> Checked the watch immediately after synching against my GARMIN 18x LVC PPS output, using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps.
> 
> The M1-3 was 30 milliseconds slow versus the PPS output.


Good stuff.

Do you mind doing another one like that, say one hour later, Bill?

My guess is that the satellite positions could come into play here.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Good stuff.
> 
> Do you mind doing another one like that, say one hour later, Bill?
> 
> My guess is that the satellite positions could come into play here.


I'll try that this weekend. Interesting. I also note that the accuracy immediately after a synch was not that much better for the GPS-based MW than the RC G Shocks and Oceanus watches that I tested just after a synch and discussed in the Reference Time thread. (Very small sample, so not clear what kind of variability one might see.) Of course, the MW will run more accurately without a synch. The 30 ms result was also similar to what Chris saw when testing a Citizen GPS watch after synching.


----------



## Hans Moleman

The satellite orbits at 20.000 km. The signals take at least 66 ms to get here. Longer, if the satellite is closer to the horizon.

The Citizen and MW are all happy with receiving just one satellite. Not at all like the nit-picking Garmin GPS18, that demands a lock.

At least the Citizen and MW didn't have a 70 ms offset. That would be *very* lazy.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Synched my M1-3 today. Normal synch behavior. No leap second data acquisition.
> 
> Checked the watch immediately after synching against my GARMIN 18x LVC PPS output, using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps.
> 
> The M1-3 was 30 milliseconds slow versus the PPS output.


how much of the 30 ms is due to the motor pulse delay?


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> how much of the 30 ms is due to the motor pulse delay?


I don't know. How would you measure or determine that?

Visual and video methods are looking to when hands move or displays change. A watch certainly could have a more accurate internal time. I recall Emerald Time tech support noting that the internal time kept by the app was more accurate than what the app was able to display on a 60 hz iPad screen.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I don't know. How would you measure or determine that?
> 
> Visual and video methods are looking to when hands move or displays change. A watch certainly could have a more accurate internal time. I recall Emerald Time tech support noting that the internal time kept by the app was more accurate than what the app was able to display on a 60 hz iPad screen.


Chris had some interesting measurements earlier. It takes a few milliseconds to move a second hand along.

Quite an important observation; the internal time could be a lot more accurate than the displayed one. It is quite hard to communicate time:


the Garmin GPS18 knows the time accurate to tens of nanoseconds and communicates the time to the outside world via a wire. It puts 5 volts on this PPS whenever a new second starts. It needs to schedule that for the closest clock cycle. That is its main limitation, its CPU frequency.
An app calculates the time from other servers and measured network delays. It displays that time on a screen and is therefore limited by screen refresh rates and scheduling constraints.
A quartz watch moves the second hand whenever the crystal has vibrated 32000-odd times. It takes a while to get the rotor and all the gears to move.
In the old days, the ships at anchor would look at a signalling station and look for a ball that was dropped precisely at noon.


----------



## chris01

Hans Moleman said:


> Chris had some interesting measurements earlier. It takes a few milliseconds to move a second hand along.
> 
> Quite an important observation; the internal time could be a lot more accurate than the displayed one. It is quite hard to communicate time:
> 
> 
> the Garmin GPS18 knows the time accurate to tens of nanoseconds and communicates the time to the outside world via a wire. It puts 5 volts on this PPS whenever a new second starts. It needs to schedule that on a clock cycle. That is its main limitation, its CPU frequency.
> An app calculates the time from other servers and measured network delays. It displays that time on a screen and is therefore limited by screen refresh rates and scheduling constraints.
> A quartz watch moves the second hand whenever the crystal has vibrated 32000-odd times. It takes a while to get the rotor and all the gears to move.


While there is a certain academic interest in the accuracy of reference sources - 1nS / 1uS / 1mS - it's all a bit irrelevant when you consider the setting and timing of almost any watch that you can think of. Since most watches require the seconds to be hacked manually against a reference, consistently getting better than, say, 100 mS is pure luck. Then timing the watch depends on what you time. The start of hand movement (or LCD update) or the completion including the final settling period? Clearly we don't usually have any means of checking the internal timing and relating it to the displayed time (whatever that may mean). For self-hacking watches the performance can be very variable. The initial results of Hoptroff TC + Bluetooth were pretty disappointing, while the current GPS watches appear to be rather better (but closer to exactly what time is another question). How accurately will Hoptroff's atomic pieces be set?

I suggest that a reference source consistent to 1 mS is easily good enough for any practical purpose with our current watches. You cannot set the time closer than that, and measuring SPY over very short periods is rather pointless, given the multiplied error inherent in one day's test, and the seasonal variability with ambient temperature.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> While there is a certain academic interest in the accuracy of reference sources - 1nS / 1uS / 1mS - it's all a bit irrelevant when you consider the setting and timing of almost any watch that you can think of. Since most watches require the seconds to be hacked manually against a reference, consistently getting better than, say, 100 mS is pure luck. Then timing the watch depends on what you time. The start of hand movement (or LCD update) or the completion including the final settling period? Clearly we don't usually have any means of checking the internal timing and relating it to the displayed time (whatever that may mean). For self-hacking watches the performance can be very variable. The initial results of Hoptroff TC + Bluetooth were pretty disappointing, while the current GPS watches appear to be rather better (but closer to exactly what time is another question). How accurately will Hoptroff's atomic pieces be set?
> 
> I suggest that a reference source consistent to 1 mS is easily good enough for any practical purpose with our current watches. You cannot set the time closer than that, and measuring SPY over very short periods is rather pointless, given the multiplied error inherent in one day's test, and the seasonal variability with ambient temperature.


The default for Hoptroff atomic watches is via NTP(app).


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> The default for Hoptroff atomic watches is via NTP(app).


Don't they use Bluetooth, with its inherent latency, to communicate with the phone app? Hoptroff only claims 30 mS accuracy in time setting.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Chris had some interesting measurements earlier. It takes a few milliseconds to move a second hand along.
> 
> Quite an important observation; the internal time could be a lot more accurate than the displayed one. It is quite hard to communicate time:
> 
> 
> the Garmin GPS18 knows the time accurate to tens of nanoseconds and communicates the time to the outside world via a wire. It puts 5 volts on this PPS whenever a new second starts. It needs to schedule that for the closest clock cycle. That is its main limitation, its CPU frequency.
> An app calculates the time from other servers and measured network delays. It displays that time on a screen and is therefore limited by screen refresh rates and scheduling constraints.
> A quartz watch moves the second hand whenever the crystal has vibrated 32000-odd times. It takes a while to get the rotor and all the gears to move.
> In the old days, the ships at anchor would look at a signalling station and look for a ball that was dropped precisely at noon.


Of course, the externally displayed time is the only one I can see and use. And so far, the only one I can attempt to measure, unless I have sophisticated electronics equipment.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Of course, the externally displayed time is the only one I can see and use. And so far, the only one I can attempt to measure, unless I have sophisticated electronics equipment.


Too right.
And the time it takes for the second hand to move is constant. It plays no part in rate calculations.


----------



## ronalddheld

chris01 said:


> Don't they use Bluetooth, with its inherent latency, to communicate with the phone app? Hoptroff only claims 30 mS accuracy in time setting.


Yes it is via BT. Is 30ms what has been seen with NTP syncs?


----------



## wbird

Apple doesn't seem to have a problem hitting 50 ms via Bluetooth. So it's not hard to imagine Hoptroff achieving 30 ms. Which leads me to ask what is the MW spec?

I also have to agree with Chris, what is internal time anyway, and if internally it's super good and the display is crap that's good? I would think the only thing that matters is the displayed second hand accuracy. Am I wrong or confused.


----------



## ronalddheld

Evrn if the internal time is much better than 30 ms, how do you ascertain that, without knowing all of the delays?


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> Evrn if the internal time is much better than 30 ms, how do you ascertain that, without knowing all of the delays?


As Hans pointed out, the delay between 'watch true time' and 'watch displayed time' is not greatly significant for simply measuring the rate of a watch. Unless, of course, the display delay varies with different hand movements, e.g. at certain times the tick of the second hand may be preceded or followed by the movement of the minute and hour hands, or the updating of more than one LCD digit.

However, the unknown delay affects the absolute accuracy of the displayed time. For most watches it's hardly an issue but I'm not sure that I'd be very satisfied with my £25K atomic watch, accurate to 1.5 mS per year, that was already 20 years out when freshly hacked. This is what Hoptroff claims.


----------



## Bill R W

wbird said:


> Apple doesn't seem to have a problem hitting 50 ms via Bluetooth. So it's not hard to imagine Hoptroff achieving 30 ms. Which leads me to ask what is the MW spec?
> 
> I also have to agree with Chris, what is internal time anyway, and if internally it's super good and the display is crap that's good? I would think the only thing that matters is the displayed second hand accuracy. Am I wrong or confused.


I have not seen a spec for the accuracy of the synching process for MW watches. Only a rate spec -- 0.75 seconds per year with 8 synchs (which would annualize to 6 SPY as a matter of arithmetic, but we have not had them long enough to know how one would run if left for a year without synching and synching is necessary for the self-adjustment process).

Agree only displayed time time is useful for a user. Internal time, if different, interesting only to understanding how the watch works.


----------



## ronalddheld

I only did the two syncs. I will check the offset Monday.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Good stuff.
> 
> Do you mind doing another one like that, say one hour later, Bill?
> 
> My guess is that the satellite positions could come into play here.


Synched my M1-3 twice today. An hour apart as suggested by Hans.

The watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow (15 frames) compared to the GARMIN PPS output after the first synch. After the second synch, one hour later, the watch was 26.3 milliseconds slow (10.5 frames) compared to the PPS. This compares to 30 milliseconds slow (12 frames) when I synched the watch on 3/31. In each case, compared to the PPS output of my GARMIN 18x LVC using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps.

Clearly some variability in sync'ing accuracy, as I think my PPS signal is accurate to a millisecond or better (see the discussion under reference time for more details) and 400 fps video should give a 2.5 millisecond resolution.

According to MW, the watch looks for up to 6 satellites before synching. The website says *"In detail, through GPS reception, the watch receives signals from up to six satellites from which the least distorted are chosen to calculate the reference time."* Not clear whether this includes a position fix if enough satellites are available.

I think at this point, I will try the 8 synchs a year recommended by MW and see how the watch does. It will give me a few more data points on the accuracy of satellite synchs. It will also let the watch -- and its self-correction feature -- see a full year's cycle of weather and temperature here in Minnesota. Might then be tempted to let it run on its own for a longer period.


----------



## Bill R W

One other interesting -- at least to me -- point. When the watch was moving both the second hand and the minute hand (the minute hand only moves once per minute when the second hand hits the 12 o'clock position), the transition occurred 5 milliseconds later (2 frames) than the transition to the start of a new second when only the second hand was moving (comparing the other 4 new second transitions in the 5-second video clip). You could also see some bounce on the minute hand over 2 or 3 frames after it first moved. 

The fact the the M1-3 moves the second hand 3 times per second also complicates comparing the watch to a reference time, as you have to be careful to determine the watch's start of a new second. This can be complicated if parallax makes it harder to match the second hand to the second markers, given the angle of view/photo.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Synched my M1-3 twice today. An hour apart as suggested by Hans.
> 
> The watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow (15 frames) compared to the GARMIN PPS output after the first synch. After the second synch, one hour later, the watch was 26.3 milliseconds slow (10.5 frames) compared to the PPS. This compares to 30 milliseconds slow (12 frames) when I synched the watch on 3/31. In each case, compared to the PPS output of my GARMIN 18x LVC using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps.
> 
> Clearly some variability in sync'ing accuracy, as I think my PPS signal is accurate to a millisecond or better (see the discussion under reference time for more details) and 400 fps video should give a 2.5 millisecond resolution.
> 
> According to MW, the watch looks for up to 6 satellites before synching. The website says *"In detail, through GPS reception, the watch receives signals from up to six satellites from which the least distorted are chosen to calculate the reference time."* Not clear whether this includes a position fix if enough satellites are available.
> 
> I think at this point, I will try the 8 synchs a year recommended by MW and see how the watch does. It will give me a few more data points on the accuracy of satellite synchs. It will also let the watch -- and its self-correction feature -- see a full year's cycle of weather and temperature here in Minnesota. Might then be tempted to let it run on its own for a longer period.


I have read that the MW uses a couple of satellites and then picks the one with the strongest signal. It only uses one satellite. And the variability in offset after a synchronization seems to confirm this.

MW however, writes different things. If they purposely like to muddy the waters, I don't know. Let's hope not.

If there is a 10 ms uncertainty in the synchronization, then the rate calculation needs to take that into account. 10 ms over one day is 4 seconds extrapolated over a year. A rate calculation needs to be done over a week or so.

The 10 ms roughly matches my  earlier calculation.

Not sure if I understand this:
Are you saying that the second hand is 5 ms late when the minute hand has to move first? Its computer can only schedule one hand at a time?


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> I have read that the MW uses a couple of satellites and then picks the one with the strongest signal. It only uses one satellite. And the variability in offset after a synchronization seems to confirm this.
> 
> MW however, writes different things. If they purposely like to muddy the waters, I don't know. Let's hope not.
> 
> If there is a 10 ms uncertainty in the synchronization, then the rate calculation needs to take that into account. 10 ms over one day is 4 seconds extrapolated over a year. A rate calculation needs to be done over a week or so.
> 
> The 10 ms roughly matches my  earlier calculation.
> 
> Not sure if I understand this:
> Are you saying that the second hand is 5 ms late when the minute hand has to move first? Its computer can only schedule one hand at a time?


I plan to use the measurement of the time offset as a baseline for my next rate calculations. If I do this, the difference would not have an effect on rate calculations and observed drift, I think.

On the minute hand and second hand both moving -- I had a 5 second 400 fps video clip which had 5 new second transitions. 4 of them were 11 frames behind the PPS. The one second going from XX:XX:59 to XX:XX+1:00 was 13 frames behind the PPS. The transitions before and after this in the same clip were 11 frames slower, so I don't think it affects rate overall. Both the minute hand and the second hand started to move in the same frame. Maybe an internal processing point? 2 frames slower is 5 milliseconds at 400 fps.

(On my numbers -- I had a second clip shot just after this clip, following the same synch, where the watch measured 10 frames slower than the PPS, but which did not include a second where both hands moved. I interpret the difference between 10 and 11 frames as a resolution difference, averaged them and used 10.5 frames as my observed offset. 10.5 x 2.5 ms = 26.25 ms.)


----------



## Bill R W

It occurs to me that small differences in synching accuracy could have an impact on the watch's self-adjustment feature. For example, would my M1-3 conclude that it was 11.25 milliseconds off over an hour because of these two synchs and make a self-adjustment to its rate based on that? Maybe that was your point, Hans, rather than the effect on my subsequent rate measurements? 11.25 milliseconds in an hour as a rate of drift would annualize to 98 seconds in a year. 

As a matter of design, I wonder if the watch should have a minimum period of time over which to measure a rate difference to make a self-adjustment correction, to avoid an erroneous correction based on mere synching variation over a short period. Perhaps it does?


----------



## jisham

Bill R W said:


> One other interesting -- at least to me -- point. When the watch was moving both the second hand and the minute hand (the minute hand only moves once per minute when the second hand hits the 12 o'clock position), the transition occurred 5 milliseconds later (2 frames) than the transition to the start of a new second when only the second hand was moving (comparing the other 4 new second transitions in the 5-second video clip). You could also see some bounce on the minute hand over 2 or 3 frames after it first moved.


Somewhat related, is an interesting problem I've observed:









At first I thought the odd blue inhibition averages occurring exactly 1 day apart was a PPS reference loss due to bad and repeating GPS constellation geometry.

In hindsight I think it was the *date wheel rotating* on this VHP PC ! My collection rig didn't account for this so it threw off the average. It probably does skew the overall average slightly, but I feel the one bad inhibition average a day is weighted out by the other good ones.

Now a minute or hour hand move would occur far more often and might be a real source of error. I've taken to ignoring pulses within a certain window of the first detected pulse.. but this assumes the hour/min/date pulses occur after the seconds hand, and within the time that I ignore. (Or at least that the first of these pulses is on the "true" second).


----------



## ronalddheld

Before release Arne did not recommend frequent resets, as it would not help the learning algorithm.


----------



## Bill R W

I don't think the delay I saw when both the minute hand and second hand moved would create any longer term rate error. The 5-second clip in which I saw this had 5 transitions to new seconds. The one in which both hands moved was the middle one of the 5. The 2 second transitions before the one in which both hands moved and the 2 second transitions after it, all had the same delay versus the PPS. So it seems to me that the delay for moving both heads was not adding to any cumulative error. More a display question at a point in time than a rate issue.


----------



## ronalddheld

After 6 months, an eyeball check shows about a second off.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Before release Arne did not recommend frequent resets, as it would not help the learning algorithm.


I will be interested to see how my M1-3 runs over the next week or two to see if there is any evidence that synching twice over an hour, with a difference in synching accuracy in the two synchs, has any rate impact through the self-correction algorithm. If it does and is negative for accuracy, it might make sense to do another synch after a week or two to counteract it and then start on the 8 synchs per year program that I was planning on.


----------



## Hans Moleman

> I will be interested to see how my M1-3 runs over the next week or two to see if there is any evidence that synching twice over an hour, with a difference in synching accuracy in the two synchs, has any rate impact through the self-correction algorithm. If it does and is negative for accuracy, it might make sense to do another synch after a week or two to counteract it and then start on the 8 synchs per year program that I was planning on.


Sounds like you're having fun Bill.


----------



## Hans Moleman

> At first I thought the odd blue inhibition averages occurring exactly 1 day apart was a PPS reference loss due to bad and repeating GPS constellation geometry.
> 
> In hindsight I think it was the date wheel rotating on this VHP PC ! My collection rig didn't account for this so it threw off the average. It probably does skew the overall average slightly, but I feel the one bad inhibition average a day is weighted out by the other good ones.
> 
> Now a minute or hour hand move would occur far more often and might be a real source of error. I've taken to ignoring pulses within a certain window of the first detected pulse.. but this assumes the hour/min/date pulses occur after the seconds hand, and within the time that I ignore. (Or at least that the first of these pulses is on the "true" second).


 Great daily wobble! It nicely illustrates how a rate varies over time.

If you keep that up for long enough, we'll see a seasonal wobble.


----------



## jisham

Hans Moleman said:


> Great daily wobble! It nicely illustrates how a rate varies over time.
> 
> If you keep that up for long enough, we'll see a seasonal wobble.


My desk can be a pretty hazardous environment for a watch. I surprised I get a week of measurements without interruption... I can't even imagine a year. I have thought about stitching together plots on the same axes....


----------



## Hans Moleman

jisham said:


> My desk can be a pretty hazardous environment for a watch. I surprised I get a week of measurements without interruption... I can't even imagine a year. I have thought about stitching together plots on the same axes....


It is quite hard to come up with an illustrative picture.

The zoom level either hides every detail, or doesn't show anything long term.

You almost need something in flash.


----------



## jisham

Hans Moleman said:


> It is quite hard to come up with an illustrative picture.
> 
> The zoom level either hides every detail, or doesn't show anything long term.
> 
> You almost need something in flash.


I fear I'm tugging the thread off-topic again... but general measurement techniques seem to pop up everywhere around here.

I get a little spoiled with the gnuplot zoom feature, gives me the best of both  I record all the tick offsets and inhibition averages to text files, so I could always import them into something else. I'm not so good with flash.

There's really just two ways I use this - shorter measurements (10 min -- few hours) when I'm initially checking/adjusting the rate of a watch, and then longer (days+) to verify the rate is set correctly, but mostly to get a strong average offset that I use as an input to a spreadsheet for longer term accuracy tracking.


----------



## Bill R W

I sent Arne some questions after our recent discussion of leap second data and the possible consequences of failing to get the data after a new leap second. Received an answer this morning. My questions are numbered below. His answers are in bold italics after each question.

1. Do the MW watches receive leap second data automatically, say in January and July of each year to pick up potential leap seconds in December and June? Or must a user press button #3 for 8 seconds after a new leap second in order for the watch to pick up revised leap second data? The discussion of leap seconds on the MW website seems to imply the latter, as it refers to "at the push of a button." Or is the answer something else?

_*reception is manually due to energy preservation. reception mode drains battery so we want user to have full control and recharge before and after. we do special owners mailing after leap second change is announced, explaining the function as well as in service and owners section on website going online later this year.*_

2. If a MW watch fails to get updated leap second data, what happens?

_*user will know due to lack of confirmation and can repeat process.*_

One group thinks the watch will see it is one second off, causing an erroneous self-adjustment correction under the MW algorithm.

_*this group thinks incorrect*_

Another group thinks the watch won't know it is off by one second after a new leap second unless it gets new leap second data, so there will be no rate impact and the watch will simply be off by a second, plus any accumulated drift since the last synch. This group assumes that the watch uses the GPS-UTC offset to affect the time the watch displays, not the rate of the watch. Like a mini-UTC-to-time-zone offset.

_*this group is right*_

3. Does the watch keep internal time on GPS time (understanding it uses its own TC oscillator between synchs), using the GPS-UTC offset and the offset from UTC to determine the time displayed at any one point?

_*correct*_

4. Can a user update firmware through the USB charging cable and port, should MW update its firmware? (I have done this a number of times for my GARMIN Fenix 2 which is admittedly not a watch focused on highly accurate time display.)

_*no updates via usb*_


----------



## wbird

All good info, but the question I'm still confused with is the sync and self calibration technique. Let me see if I can explain. 

We know the GPS signal includes the UTC offset and this is in the packet of info sent to your watch, that you have to manually sync, that there are two ways to sync, the display tells if the sync was successful, and that there is a self correction aspect to the MW.

Why do you need or have a special way to sync for leap seconds? What its purpose? The standard sync will receive the UTC offset info, unless the receiver only grabs the GPS time, and will only grab the UTC offset when asked. This doesn't seem to be the case on your initial standard sync your display was not off by a bunch of seconds.

Of course if you don't sync when a leap second occurs the watch will be off by 1s and no correction to the calibration will occur how would it know it's off? But when you do a normal sync after a leap second the processor will receive the updated time and UTC info and jump a full second.

Now if the self calibration is performed by always checking the GPS time of the watch without the offset vs. the GPS signal without the offset, why would you need a second sync method?

The self calibration has to check the rate of the watch vs. a standard to determine what correction is required. If it routinely captures the UTC info as a separate packet it already knows not to apply it to the self correction. But if it just captures the whole signal with the offset than you would need the second method to sync.

The IC can't act as its own reference, so I'm still confused. Either the leap second method to sync doesn't have a purpose or it is needed for the self calibration. What am I missing.


----------



## ronalddheld

Maybe the software does not always check for the leap second update on every sync?


----------



## Bill R W

I think it may work like this --


GPS time does not change when there is a leap second. UTC changes when there is a leap second. 


Currently, UTC = GPS time - 17 seconds


Equivalently, GPS time = UTC + 17 seconds


17 seconds is the net number of leap seconds added since 1/6/1980 when GPS time was established as a standard. 


The MW watches keep internal time based on GPS time. The watch's internal (GPS) time is reset in connection with the GPS time received in a normal synch. This synch is used to adjust the watch's internal rate using the self-adjustment algorithm. 


Normal synchs do not update the watch's leap second information. Leap seconds when added do not affect the watch's internal (GPS) time or cause a rate adjustment. 


The watch displays time based on its internal (GPS) time with two adjustments. First, it subtracts a leap second adjustment (currently 17 seconds if the watch has the most recent leap second data, as it should) from internal (GPS) time to get to UTC. This adjustment would be based on the most recent leap second data the watch has received. 


Second, the watch adjusts for the difference between UTC and the time zone selected to be displayed.


So today if you set your MW watch for Chicago time, the watch would display a time equal to internal (GPS) time - 17 seconds - 6 hours (or - 5 hours if DST)


(This ignores the nanoseconds level differences between the satellites' GPS time and ground based atomic clocks. And, of course, the watch's internal (GPS) time is subject to drift between synchs.)


Based on what Arne said the MW watches do not update leap second data unless the user causes leap second data to be downloaded by pressing button #3 for 8 seconds. He says this preserves power. Also makes some sense, as leap seconds are added only occasionally and with advance notice. 


Interested to see if others have a different understanding.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Maybe the software does not always check for the leap second update on every sync?


I think that is what Arne is saying. The watch does not update its leap second data in a normal synch. Rather, the watch updates its leap second data only if you press button #3 for 8 seconds to trigger leap second data downloading.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I think that is what Arne is saying. The watch does not update its leap second data in a normal synch. Rather, the watch updates its leap second data only if you press button #3 for 8 seconds to trigger leap second data downloading.


The Astron takes 'up to 18 minutes to receive leap seconds data'.
Clearly something to avoid.

SEIKO WATCH | Instructions for Receiving Leap Second Data on Seiko Astron GPS Solar Watch


----------



## ronalddheld

From a power standpoint, no need to check leap seconds, as the table is updated no more than twice a year.


----------



## wbird

I understand I think. Since the offset info is sent only once every 12 minutes, as Hans pointed out with the Astron it could take quite a while to sync. Citizen says leap second could take anywhere from 36s to 13 min with their Sat Wave watches. Depends on if you get lucky and sync right when the signal is sent.

Garmin and Suunto GPS watches are constantly in contact with the satellite's when in use so this isn't a problem. Of course there is considerable battery drain in this case. With the MW and others not much of a battery drain in 18 minutes but obviously quite a long time to wait and not move the watch.

Clearly the MW can do its self calibration using just internal gps to gps signal.

Does this sound right? Does make me wonder if GLONASS works in a similar manner or if this would speed up the process.


----------



## ronalddheld

Does GLOSASS satellites even use the same GPS format for distributing their ephemerides and other information?


----------



## Bill R W

wbird said:


> I understand I think. Since the offset info is sent only once every 12 minutes, as Hans pointed out with the Astron it could take quite a while to sync. Citizen says leap second could take anywhere from 36s to 13 min with their Sat Wave watches. Depends on if you get lucky and sync right when the signal is sent.
> 
> Garmin and Suunto GPS watches are constantly in contact with the satellite's when in use so this isn't a problem. Of course there is considerable battery drain in this case. With the MW and others not much of a battery drain in 18 minutes but obviously quite a long time to wait and not move the watch.
> 
> Clearly the MW can do its self calibration using just internal gps to gps signal.
> 
> Does this sound right? Does make me wonder if GLONASS works in a similar manner or if this would speed up the process.


Yes, I think it sounds right -- that the MW can update its time and self-adjust based on getting the GPS time signal without needing to check leap second data. If there is a new leap second down the road and an MW owner does not manually cause his or her watch to pick up new leap second data, the watch will be one second off, but the watch's rate and self-adjustment feature would not be affected.

I don't know how glonass handles leap seconds.

I think the Fort Collins signal used by RC watches has leap second information. Don't think it takes as long to download. But don't know details as to how it works.


----------



## Bill R W

In testing synch accuracy last weekend, I synched my M1-3 twice an hour apart. The watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow after the first synch. After the second synch an hour later, the watch was 26.3 milliseconds slow. In each case, the watch was measured against a GARMIN 18x LVC PPS output with Nikon V1 400 fps video.

Ronald pointed out that synchs close in time are not recommended by Arne. 

I have been interested to see if the watch would interpret this difference between the accuracy of the two synchs -- 11 milliseconds in an hour -- as drift by the watch over that hour and make an erroneous rate adjustment.

I checked the watch yesterday after 5 full days from the second synch. The watch was exactly in step with the PPS output. No observed difference at 400 fps. So the watch gained 26.3 milliseconds over 5 days. I believe the PPS output is accurate to a millisecond or better (as discussed in the reference time thread) and the 400 fps video gives 2.5 millisecond resolution. So maybe each measurement should be viewed as accurate to +\- 2.5 milliseconds. 

I know that 5 days is a relatively short period of time for a measurement of drift and any errors in measurement are magnified when you annualize results from a short period. But, given the measurement accuracy I expect, this period still seems long enough to see if the watch made a large rate adjustment (11 milliseconds over an hour would annualize to over 90 seconds). 

Gaining 26.3 milliseconds in 5 days annualizes to about 2 SPY. While I want to see how the watch does over longer periods, this 5-day measurement suggests that the watch has not made a large erroneous self-adjustment based on the difference in accuracy of the two synchs.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> In testing synch accuracy last weekend, I synched my M1-3 twice an hour apart. The watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow after the first synch. After the second synch an hour later, the watch was 26.3 milliseconds slow. In each case, the watch was measured against a GARMIN 18x LVC PPS output with Nikon V1 400 fps video.
> 
> Ronald pointed out that synchs close in time are not recommended by Arne.
> 
> I have been interested to see if the watch would interpret this difference between the accuracy of the two synchs -- 11 milliseconds in an hour -- as drift by the watch over that hour and make an erroneous rate adjustment.
> 
> I checked the watch yesterday after 5 full days from the second synch. The watch was exactly in step with the PPS output. No observed difference at 400 fps. So the watch gained 26.3 milliseconds over 5 days. I believe the PPS output is accurate to a millisecond or better (as discussed in the reference time thread) and the 400 fps video gives 2.5 millisecond resolution. So maybe each measurement should be viewed as accurate to +\- 2.5 milliseconds.
> 
> I know that 5 days is a relatively short period of time for a measurement of drift and any errors in measurement are magnified when you annualize results from a short period. But, given the measurement accuracy I expect, this period still seems long enough to see if the watch made a large rate adjustment (11 milliseconds over an hour would annualize to over 90 seconds).
> 
> Gaining 26.3 milliseconds in 5 days annualizes to about 2 SPY. While I want to see how the watch does over longer periods, this 5-day measurement suggests that the watch has not made a large erroneous self-adjustment based on the difference in accuracy of the two synchs.


Good to hear.
It is quite hard to design a good self correction mechanism. It looks like it is at least, slightly sophisticated.

What if the 11 milliseconds were caused by a change in wearing pattern?
How long would it take the MW to catch up to that?

No doubt you'll find out.
|>


----------



## beretta

Hi everyone I am a new member joined to be part of the Morenwerk discussion
I have been reading the forum on these watches and decided to take the plunge and by one
I ordered the M3 on Thursday 22nd of April the watch arrived Monday 25th very good service well packaged 
my first impression is very good the watch has a quality feel mine is numbered 191 of 300.
it would be nice to hear from other M3 owners with there thoughts or any Morgenwerk work owners for that matter
I have always craved HAQ watches ever since my father came home from Japan in the late 70s with a Seiko lcd quartz
the idea of a watch that is thermocompensated and able to sync with the gps time and learn is it goes was to great to resist.
hope to hear from other Morgenwerk owners on accuracy battery life and general what these watches are like to live with


----------



## ronalddheld

beretta said:


> Hi everyone I am a new member joined to be part of the Morenwerk discussion
> I have been reading the forum on these watches and decided to take the plunge and by one
> I ordered the M3 on Thursday 22nd of April the watch arrived Monday 25th very good service well packaged
> my first impression is very good the watch has a quality feel mine is numbered 191 of 300.
> it would be nice to hear from other M3 owners with there thoughts or any Morgenwerk work owners for that matter
> I have always craved HAQ watches ever since my father came home from Japan in the late 70s with a Seiko lcd quartz
> the idea of a watch that is thermocompensated and able to sync with the gps time and learn is it goes was to great to resist.
> hope to hear from other Morgenwerk owners on accuracy battery life and general what these watches are like to live with


Welcome to the forum. Have you read the posts in this thread and searched the forum for other MW references?


----------



## beretta

Yes have read the forum I was just trying to prompt some new info especially on the M3


----------



## ronalddheld

beretta said:


> Yes have read the forum I was just trying to prompt some new info especially on the M3


There are fewer owner of the M3. What would you like to ask me about it?


----------



## beretta

Yes any feedback would be good


----------



## beretta

how is the watch for accuracy if you don't sync with gps also I have noticed if I put my watch in power save mode the minute hand only moves once a minute but in normal mode ie with the digital display on the minute hand moves at 20 sec 40 sec and on the minute.
Ment to put this on previous post but hit the wrong button not easy on my iPhone with my large fingers.


----------



## ronalddheld

After 6 months, an eyeball check shows about a second off. Not worn and digital display off, with only the GPS two syncs.


----------



## beretta

Sounds good so if you sync 8 times a year as quoted on there web site + or - 0.75 per year is possible?
Is there a reason you haven't worn the watch?


----------



## ronalddheld

beretta said:


> Sounds good so if you sync 8 times a year as quoted on there web site + or - 0.75 per year is possible?
> Is there a reason you haven't worn the watch?


That is what the site says, although I am close after a half year. The first year is for doing a check for the offset with only initial syncs.


----------



## Bill R W

Just finished a 30-day time test for my M1-3. (Started the testing process again after getting my watch back at the end of March after repairs at MW in Hamburg.) Immediately after my last synch, it was 26.3 milliseconds slow. Today it was 10 milliseconds fast. So over 30 days, the watch gained 36.3 milliseconds or so, which annualizes to a bit better than 0.5 SPY fast. The watch was compared to the PPS output of my GARMIN 18x LVC using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps (using Emerald Time to make sure I have the correct second). 

A couple of interesting items. First, it seems clear that the watch has not made any significant erroneous self adjustments based on the two synchs I did 30 days ago only an hour apart. As noted above, after the first synch, the watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow. After the second synch, only 26.3 milliseconds slow. Given 11 milliseconds difference in an hour annualizes to over 90 SPY, I wondered if it might trigger an adjustment, even though the difference was based on variation in synching accuracy, not drift. 

Second, I did a few interim measurements during the 30 days and the results varied a bit, so that the watch's rate was not uniform over the 30 days. Not that any result was bad. Worst result annualized to around 3 SPY fast. I did not do this very scientifically, using the same intervals and looking to differences in wearing patterns and weather. May try to look at this more closely. 

I have been planning to do a synch every 45 days or so (8 per year) as recommended by MW for a year so the watch sees a full year of wearing and weather differences. But it is tempting to see how long the current good performance might go on without a synch.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Just finished a 30-day time test for my M1-3. (Started the testing process again after getting my watch back at the end of March after repairs at MW in Hamburg.) Immediately after my last synch, it was 26.3 milliseconds slow. Today it was 10 milliseconds fast. So over 30 days, the watch gained 36.3 milliseconds or so, which annualizes to a bit better than 0.5 SPY fast. The watch was compared to the PPS output of my GARMIN 18x LVC using Nikon V1 video at 400 fps (using Emerald Time to make sure I have the correct second).
> 
> A couple of interesting items. First, it seems clear that the watch has not made any significant erroneous self adjustments based on the two synchs I did 30 days ago only an hour apart. As noted above, after the first synch, the watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow. After the second synch, only 26.3 milliseconds slow. Given 11 milliseconds difference in an hour annualizes to over 90 SPY, I wondered if it might trigger an adjustment, even though the difference was based on variation in synching accuracy, not drift.
> 
> Second, I did a few interim measurements during the 30 days and the results varied a bit, so that the watch's rate was not uniform over the 30 days. Not that any result was bad. Worst result annualized to around 3 SPY fast. I did not do this very scientifically, using the same intervals and looking to differences in wearing patterns and weather. May try to look at this more closely.
> 
> I have been planning to do a synch every 45 days or so (8 per year) as recommended by MW for a year so the watch sees a full year of wearing and weather differences. But it is tempting to see how long the current good performance might go on without a synch.


Pretty much flawless then. Excellent.
Plus or minus 3 seconds per year is easily caused by temperature variations. It would surprise me if it had made a rate correction for that, if it had a chance to.

It will be a challenge to see it making any correction. You need to stop wearing it or something. That will be a while off.

Good idea to track it for a year in 'normal mode'.


----------



## Bill R W

Checked my M1-3 today, 42 days after my most recent synch. The watch was 107.5 milliseconds fast, compared to 26.3 milliseconds slow after the prior synch. Watch compared to GPS PPS signal using 400 fps Nikon V1 video. I assume the PPS is accurate to the nearest millisecond or better and the resolution of the video method is about 2.5 milliseconds. So should be a pretty good measurement. 

The drift over the 42 days annualizes to approximately 1.2 seconds fast per year. Pretty good, although not as good as it was doing at 30 days (where drift annualized to less than 0.5 seconds fast per year). I have seen some variation on interim measurements I made over the 42 days. The cumulative drift at one point annualized to around 4 seconds fast per year. Not bad cumulatively, but if you look at the short periods where the variation came in and annualize them, the annualized drift was quite a bit worse. The variation I was seeing in the shorter periods partially cancelled out over the longer cumulative period. 

Perhaps this is fairly normal in a TC watch. I wore it 3 or 4 days most weeks, but not the same every week. Weather has also varied some over the period, with warm and cold spells. 

I may look at the watch's rate over a series of weekly tests to see what patterns I see.


----------



## Bill R W

I synched my M1-3 today after measuring its drift over the previous 42 days.

Immediately after today's synch, my watch was 35 milliseconds slow, measured against my Garmin 18x LVC PPS output using 400 fps Nikon V1 video.

I did the same measurement after the 3 most recent synchs of my M1-3. While I have mentioned these 3 measurements in prior posts (either in this thread or in the reference time thread), I thought it would be useful to keep a cumulative table. Time difference in milliseconds. Positive (negative) means slow (fast) versus the GPS PPS.


3/31/16304/3/16, 5 pm37.54/3/16, 6 pm26.35/15/1635

The average difference was 32.8 milliseconds slow, based on these 4 measurements.

These are point in time difference measurements, not a measurement of the watch's rate or drift.


----------



## Hans Moleman

It remains a game of chance.

Short term lurches do not work their way into the long term. But they might! 

Look at Leicester. Scientifically impossible.


----------



## ronalddheld

It would be helpful to see the learning algorithm, but i expect it is proprietary.


----------



## Bill R W

I checked my M1-3 today, 22 days into my current 45-day period between GPS synchs. I had looked at the watch and Emerald Time for iPad yesterday and could see no difference between them. 

Today when I checked using my GARMIN GPS PPS output and 400 fps video, to my surprise, the watch seemed to be nearly a third of a second off. That seemed odd, as that much difference would normally be visible to the eye when compared to Emerald Time and I would not expect the watch to be off a third of a second (or anything close to that) over a single day. 

At first I thought I might be using the wrong tick of the watch to signal a new second. The M1-3 ticks three times a second. If the second hand is not precisely on the second markers (my M1-3 is pretty good on that score, but not perfect) and if you have any parallax error in your point of view, there can be some ambiguity in picking the right tick to compare visually to your reference time. 

My 400 fps video lasts for 5 seconds, so I have taken to checking over a 5-second period that includes the 60th second of a minute, when both the second hand and the minute hand move together. This allows you to be sure you are getting the right tick, both for that second and the seconds on either side of it. (It also seems to cause the movement at the new second to be 3-5 milliseconds slower than when only the second hand moves. And viewed in 400 fps video, the second hand and the minute hand do not move exactly at the same time, although I can't see the difference with just my eye.)

When I checked the 60th second in my video clip today, I noticed that the minute hand and the second hand seemed out of synch by around a third of a second (i.e., the minute hand seemed to move when the second hand was one tick past the 60th second/12 marker). It occurred to me that the second hand had gotten slightly out of alignment. I then remembered that I had hit the watch against a door frame yesterday. A fairly strong knock, but there was no mark on the watch and I did not think further of it at that point. I now think that knock caused the second hand to go out of alignment by approximately one tick. 

I realigned the second hand using the procedure outlined in the M1-3 manual. The minute hand alignment was fine.

I then retested the watch against the GPS PPS and it was only 8 to 9 milliseconds fast. Taking into account the baseline when I last synched the watch (35 milliseconds slow), the watch had gained 43 to 44 milliseconds over 22 days, which annualizes to approximately 0.36 SPY fast. 

I mention this, in part, because getting the right tick and making sure the hands are aligned can make a difference when trying to measure small differences between a watch and reference time.


----------



## Hans Moleman

You were just lucky you knocked it yesterday. Would you remember in a week?

Well spotted though.

It is a feature:



> In a MORGENWERK, the movement is equipped with a torque release system that prevents the need for untimely repairs. As soon as the watch exceeds the tolerable range of stress on impact, the gears release themselves temporarily from their static positions. Afterwards, the released hands can be calibrated with an integrated function of the watch. This allows for less mechanical wear and tear and a much longer lifespan of its parts.


source

How would you know it's out and a realignment is needed?

Answer: you don't. Check regularly.

Ship's chronometers, the mechanical variety, are checked daily. Oddities are taken very, very seriously.


----------



## Bill R W

You are right that I might not have remembered the knock a week later.

If you look at the 60th second when the minute hand and second hand move together, you may spot a misalignment of the second hand. Indeed, if it it as much as a third of a second off, as mine was, you might even spot it with your eyes, without high speed video. 

Of course, the watch's hand calibration feature is also a check on alignment and is quite easy to do.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Ah yes.

Follow the second hand at the top. Makes sense. And you've mentioned it before.


----------



## ronalddheld

Maybe ever\yone needs to realign the hands before taking measurements?


----------



## AlexanderDyer

That seems cool. I value accuracy indeed but for me, once the accuracy goes beyond a second, the tactile appreciation that I feel begins to diminish as it becomes more of a concept than any practical function in my day to day use of a timepiece on my wrist. To each his own and I can certainly understand the draw.


----------



## jisham

AlexanderDyer said:


> That seems cool. I value accuracy indeed but for me, once the accuracy goes beyond a second, the tactile appreciation that I feel begins to diminish as it becomes more of a concept than any practical function in my day to day use of a timepiece on my wrist. To each his own and I can certainly understand the draw.


Agreed, accuracy less than a second may not be practical, but where you do see it is when you only need to reset the watch once a year, or only on battery changes, rather than once a week or once a month.

I am lazy and don't mind applying engineering to enhance my laziness


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Maybe ever\yone needs to realign the hands before taking measurements?


It is relatively easy and quick to check the hands alignment and correct if necessary. This is from page 25 of the M1 manual. I suspect the M2 is similar; perhaps the M3 steps might be different.

"Calibrating the hands

The movement of your Morgenwerk timepiece is equiped to withstand agitation of up to 1000G. A torque release prevents the mechanics or hands from being damaged should this amount of G-force be exceeded.

To calibrate the hands after a strong shock press button 1 and 3 for 2 seconds, to enter cali-bration mode. Press button 1 or 2 to adjust the second hand onto the 12 o'clock position. To calibrate the hour and minute hands proceed with the button 3, then again adjust the hand using button 1 or 2.

To terminate the calibration mode press button 3."


----------



## ronalddheld

Nore that there are three models, perhaps with slightly different hands calibration methods?


----------



## wbird

Now I'm interested 1000G. That's something like 21000 miles per hour or entry velocity of a meteorite impact. I guess the hand feature activates at a little lower velocity though. But I really want to see the video to confirm that spec.

Didn't this watch have to go back because it fell?


----------



## Bill R W

wbird said:


> Now I'm interested 1000G. That's something like 21000 miles per hour or entry velocity of a meteorite impact. I guess the hand feature activates at a little lower velocity though. But I really want to see the video to confirm that spec.
> 
> Didn't this watch have to go back because it fell?


Yes. I knocked my M1-3 off a night stand a few months ago and it fell to a hardwood floor propelled with some force (from my arm) beyond just gravity. On that occasion, the hands were fine and timekeeping was unaffected (as far as I could tell). But button 3 was stuck pushed in (I think the watch landed on button 3), so the watch kept trying to synch. When I pulled the button out (so the watch would stop trying to synch), the button was crooked. It seemed to work when I pushed it, but it also seemed to want to stick in the pushed-in position. So I sent it back to MW to be fixed.

It is odd that a watch that is supposed to handle 1000g's would have a problem falling from a nightstand, even with a little extra force. I suppose when you hit a hard surface, the deceleration happens over a very short distance, so maybe there is a fair amount of force for a short time? But I would be surprised if it was 1000g's.


----------



## wbird

You're kind of right. With shock if the impact is only on a 1mm surface of your watch, than if you drop it from 1m that would be 1000g. So if your night stand is 1.1m you're out of luck. So don't let it fall from your dresser.


----------



## gangrel

wbird said:


> Now I'm interested 1000G. That's something like 21000 miles per hour or entry velocity of a meteorite impact.


No. 1000G is an acceleration, not a velocity. They don't translate. A fall resulting in a hard impact can translate to a very high G-rating because it occurs in a very, very short time frame. The situation is very similar to pressure versus mass. A 120 pound woman wearing 1/4" base heels...if even half her weight is carried by the heel, you have 60 pounds compressed into 1/16th square inch...so the actual pressure approaches 1000 pounds per square inch. For comparison, a diver sees this pressure at about 650 meters deep.

If you drop a steel ball bearing from 400 feet, it will fall for 5 seconds. At the end of that time, its velocity will be 160 feet per second. Assume we drop it onto a *very* hard, flat surface, to get close to perfect rebound. The ball bearing hits, and its velocity changes from 160 f/s DOWN, to (let's say) 100 f/s UP...in, what, 1/20th of a second? Let's just go with those numbers. The acceleration in that time is the change in velocity divided by the time...so 260 f/s divided by 1/20th of a second...or 5200 feet per second per second. Or about 160G.

And if that 1/20th of a second is way too long...if it's 1/50th of a second, you're up to about 400G.


----------



## wbird

Here is the definition of shock and deceleration from web. Just for clarification. It's from Wikipedia 

"After a free fall from a height 
h
the shock on an object during impact is 
h/d* g, where 
d
is the distance covered during the impact. For example, a stiff and compact object dropped from 1 m that impacts over a distance of 1 mm is subjected to a 1000 g deceleration."


----------



## Tom-HK

I see Morgenwerk has had a write-up:

Morgenwerk Satellite Precision M3 Watch Review | aBlogtoWatch


----------



## ronalddheld

Tom-HK said:


> I see Morgenwerk has had a write-up:
> 
> Morgenwerk Satellite Precision M3 Watch Review | aBlogtoWatch


You beat me to it, Tom.


----------



## Tom-HK

ronalddheld said:


> You beat me to it, Tom.


Well there was another report, a month ago:

Morgenwerk M1-3 | Watch Review - WatchReport.com | Real. Honest. Reviews. | Authentic Watch Reviews |

Am I also the first to spot that one? If so, is there a prize?


----------



## ronalddheld

Tom-HK said:


> Well there was another report, a month ago:
> 
> Morgenwerk M1-3 | Watch Review - WatchReport.com | Real. Honest. Reviews. | Authentic Watch Reviews |
> 
> Am I also the first to spot that one? If so, is there a prize?


I did not see that one. No you are not getting my M3 as a prize. Too poor buying watches to distribute any costly prizes.


----------



## Bill R W

I synched my M1-3 yesterday after measuring its drift over the previous 46 days.

Immediately after the synch, my watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow, measured against my Garmin 18x LVC PPS output using 400 fps Nikon V1 video. 

I did the same measurement after the 4 most recent synchs of my M1-3. While I have mentioned these 4 measurements in prior posts (either in this thread or in the reference time thread), I thought it would be useful to keep a cumulative table. Time difference in milliseconds. Positive (negative) means slow (fast) versus the GPS PPS. 


3/31/16304/3/16, 5 pm37.54/3/16, 6 pm26.35/15/16

6/30/1535

37.5


The average difference was 33.25 milliseconds slow, based on these 5 measurements.

These are point in time difference measurements, not a measurement of the watch's rate or drift.

As mentioned before, I am planning to synch the watch approximately every 45 days or so -- 8 times a year -- as suggested by the MW website for a year to check synching accuracy and drift. Will post a cumulative table periodically. Results so far suggest synching accuracy in the 25 to 40 millisecond range. Interestingly all are slow so far. None were faster than my PPS output.


----------



## Bill R W

Checked my M1-3 yesterday, 46 days after my most recent synch. The watch was 272.5 milliseconds slow, compared to 35 milliseconds slow after the prior synch. Watch compared to GPS PPS signal using 400 fps video.

The drift over the 46 days annualizes to approximately 1.9 seconds slow per year. Interestingly, the watch generally ran fast in the immediately prior 42-day test cycle (1.2 seconds fast, annualized in that test).

Not it sure if this is evidence of the watch's correction feature, given that for the first 21 of this new 46-day period, it also ran fast, at an annualized rate of 0.9 seconds. (In a prior post I had miscalculated this first 21-day drift as 0.36 seconds fast, annualized, because I changed my spreadsheet so that it missed the baseline measurement. Only this calculation was affected and I have corrected my spreadsheet.) The watch then slowed down to go slow on a cumulative basis over the 46 days.

I probably wore the watch more this cycle and the weather is generally warmer. I have been out of town a fair amount lately, so I have not done a systematic check of the watch over the shorter included periods (maybe weekly) to check on variation.


----------



## ronalddheld

Can anyone explain the ~30 msec offset on syncing? Could it be a processing timespan? A delay in starting a motor?


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> Can anyone explain the ~30 msec offset on syncing? Could it be a processing timespan? A delay in starting a motor?


MW uses only one satellite to get the time.

A 'proper' GPS clock needs at least 4. And a lot more time to do its thing.

I mentioned it before

Let me know if I need to explain that a bit better.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans, you mean this one:

This shows one quarter of the earth surface, on the right bottom, and one quarter of a GPS orbit. To scale.

A: The shortest distance to a satellite happens when it is right overhead. 20.000 km.
B: The longest distance happens when it is above the horizon. About 20.000 km + 6.000 km (earth radius)

If you receive a signal from a satellite, it is between 20.000 and 26.000 km away.
That signal takes between 67 ms and 87 ms to get to the receiver; a 20 ms uncertainty.

Mr. Moderator reads every post but does not remember every post.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> MW uses only one satellite to get the time.
> 
> A 'proper' GPS clock needs at least 4. And a lot more time to do its thing.
> 
> I mentioned it before
> 
> Let me know if I need to explain that a bit better.


That would explain the variation I see. But does it explain why the variation is seemingly centered around 30 milliseconds slow? With this math, shouldn't you be able to adjust your results for an average expected delay? If you did this, I would expect the variabilty would be around a mean error closer to zero.


----------



## ronalddheld

From the MW website:

GPS satellites are equipped with Rubidium-based atomic clocks in order to dertermine time as accurately as possible. Absolute accurate timekeeping is essential for the position calculation process of GPS navigation systems. The satellite time signals can be read by corresponding receivers. MORGENWERK timepieces are equipped with passive GPS antennae, and therefore receive their reference time signal from the satellite atomic clocks, at best under the open sky and everywhere in the world. In detail, through GPS reception, the watch receives signals from up to six satellites from which the least distorted are chosen to calculate the reference time.
If the GPS reception is inhibited, as in indoor spaces, the watch through its sophisticated quartz movement remains accurate and continues to show the precise time until the next sync with the satellite is performed. This method nullifies the necessity of setting the watch manually, as such precision could never be performed by human hands anyway. Further GPS satellite signals have the benefit of being received anywhere in the world. The day-to-day suitability of radio-synchronization systems, such as seen in radio watches, is far exceeded with GPS.


----------



## ronalddheld

From the MW website it says it uses up to six satellites.


----------



## Bill R W

MW never says that they compute a position from the signals, which I think takes at least 4 satellites if you also want altitude. And the MW watches do not have the ability to select a time zone automatically from their position, as the Seiko, Casio/Oceanus, GARMIN, and some of the Citizen GPS watches can do. 

So perhaps a MW watch simply averages the output of the least distorted signals it receives out of up to 6 signals. The M1-3 synching process is fairly quick in my experience, perhaps because it is not trying to compute position. 

I would still think they could back out an average expected delay so that the variabilty would be around 0 as a midpoint, rather than around 30 milliseconds or so slow. With 20 milliseconds of variability based on Hans' calculation, you might expect a range of results 20 milliseconds wide, but centered on 0. Say 10 milliseconds slow to 10 milliseconds fast. 

Of course, I only have 5 data points so far, so it is possible I have simply not seen examples where the watch synchs and ends up a few milliseconds fast. 

An an interesting question, even if it does not create any particular practical issues in use.


----------



## ronalddheld

If practicality were an issue, this forum might not exist, or be a shadow of it's current self. I did email for a technical explanation, now waiting for a response.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> If practicality were an issue, this forum might not exist, or be a shadow of it's current self. I did email for a technical explanation, now waiting for a response.


Look forward to hearing the technical explanation. I am interested in precision and the engineering of watches in and of itself, apart from any practicality.


----------



## t_mano

Another owner of M3-1. Number 81 of 300. I gave up hope of getting one of these in 2014 and was surprised they were available now. Ordered on Sunday night, on my wrist Tuesday Morning. Bit lumpier than the Astron, but very minimalistic. I am sue the 2012 version had a second hand. Still not decided if it would be better with or without.
I have sent an email to MW 
1) on how often the sync needs to be done. Somewhere in this thread, it was stated every 45days as I could not spot this on their website.
2) The watch was already pre-set for UTC. Is there any particular instructions I need to follow, if I want to try myself.

On the whole... I am pleased with the Sunday Night impulsive spend.


----------



## ronalddheld

t_mano said:


> Another owner of M3-1. Number 81 of 300. I gave up hope of getting one of these in 2014 and was surprised they were available now. Ordered on Sunday night, on my wrist Tuesday Morning. Bit lumpier than the Astron, but very minimalistic. I am sue the 2012 version had a second hand. Still not decided if it would be better with or without.
> I have sent an email to MW
> 1) on how often the sync needs to be done. Somewhere in this thread, it was stated every 45days as I could not spot this on their website.
> 2) The watch was already pre-set for UTC. Is there any particular instructions I need to follow, if I want to try myself.
> 
> On the whole... I am pleased with the Sunday Night impulsive spend.


Congratulations. Did you read the manual which tells you how to set local time? You have to at least, sync twice a day apart.


----------



## t_mano

ronalddheld said:


> Congratulations. Did you read the manual which tells you how to set local time? You have to at least, sync twice a day apart.


Thanks, I've set it to local time but missed the Sync part, will look again. Arne has replied to my email, for the above queries and more.

p.s. I do recall, one of your posts in 2012-3 mentioniing Morgenwerk is where your path lies.


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## gcs190

I have also purchased, my M3 is 34/300.


----------



## ronalddheld

t_mano said:


> Thanks, I've set it to local time but missed the Sync part, will look again. Arne has replied to my email, for the above queries and more.
> 
> p.s. I do recall, one of your posts in 2012-3 mentioniing Morgenwerk is where your path lies.


I do have one but do not recall what number. Just looked it up:26.


----------



## t_mano

update: I could not find any details on when and how frequently to sync to GPS for the M3-1 manual. Arne from MW has responded, twice in the first few days then every 2 months, however M3-1 will maintain its accuracy for 6 months.


----------



## ronalddheld

t_mano said:


> update: I could not find any details on when and how frequently to sync to GPS for the M3-1 manual. Arne from MW has responded, twice in the first few days then every 2 months, however M3-1 will maintain its accuracy for 6 months.


You should be able to find my 6 month estimate in this thread.


----------



## t_mano

So there are 3 M3 owners on this thread, with serial numbers 26,34,81 of 300, if my eyesight and memory serves me right. Did not perform a sync on opening the box, 4 days ago, as it was spot on. Performed a sync this morning and will do another in couple of days time. I now appreciate the GPS sync is needed as part of the self learning mechanism.


----------



## icqcq

So, gents (and ladies...?), I've been going through this thread, looking for something like 'a review,' because I like the looks and idea of the watch, but - and forgive me if there is a nice, solid, thorough review tucked away somewhere - I'm simply curious as to how owners like this watch? I saw that one went up for sale in February - a quick turnaround - but there really aren't that many out there (and most of the owners appear to be right here). And this thread seems rather focused on the question of tech and accuracy. Even the 1-series watch looks big to me, but the downcurved 'lugs' mean that the strap heads right where it needs to go, so it probably wears smaller than the numbers suggest. How's the lume? How's the weight? How's the strap (one owner here complained that it caught on everything)? Did MW work out the kinks before launch? It looks like two people have knocked or dropped theirs, one requiring return to MW, the other requiring a recalibration of the hands... I'm just wondering if there's someone here with enough experience with the watch to sum up their experience thus far, give the rest of us an insight, decide whether to invest (the dollar is strong right now!), or to wait, or even to pass. I'm wondering what it's like to live with every day: for me, a watch is a single-purpose object: to tell the time. Obviously, accuracy isn't really a question with this, and legibility looks excellent, but I'm curious to know what it's like to wear daily.

Thanks, and if someone _has_ reviewed the watch properly, I apologize, and please: direct me to it!


----------



## icqcq

So I should understand from the underwhelming response that:

a) there are no reviews
b) every one of the 732 replies to this thread constitutes one part of the collaborative review, which is ongoing
c) there's an extensive review of the Morgenwerk watches here, but, like reading Leo Strauss, you can't, unless you already know how
d) that you're each and all madly working on an extensive review of your watch right this very now
i. that each of those reviews consists of nothing but mathematical formulae, graphs, and the discussion of numbers that are preceded by a string of zeros, and a decimal point
ii. that each of these reviews comes to a different conclusion about the technical specifications, accuracy, and proper methodology by which such conclusions must be reached
iii. the reviews all rely upon such unusual and specialized vocabulary as wobble, 1000Gs, a 120lb woman in 1/4" heels, milliseconds, inhibitions, latency and the infamous ghost quotes 
e) that no one buys a Morgenwerk as a watch: an MW is merely The Physical Manifestation of the Godhead of Temporality, and to subject it to anything so pedestrian as 'a review' would impinge upon said divinity, and that you collectively consider its physical manifestation as a wristwatch to be... a side-effect, a sort of unavoidable and unfortunate horological particularity

Of course, wandering back through 732 posts about such things - as I just did - was quite entertaining in a nerdy way, and it turns out that Tom-HK - who sold his watch in February - came the closest to a review of anyone here that I could find. But it was precisely the wandering back through 732 posts of wobble, 1000Gs, a 120lb woman in 1/4" heels, milliseconds, inhibitions, latency and ghost quotes that was responsible for the ennui that enveloped me the first time I tried to find a review on the MW watches. This time I fortified myself with The Pogues and, more specifically, simply skipped anything without pictures.

Thanks to you all,


----------



## alex-w

... yes.


----------



## t_mano

First impressions from ordering to wearing it for nearly a week instead of a long term review.

Background mid-century age, engineer. Wrist just over 7 inches, watch worn on LH and and Right Handed. Keyboard/mouse jocky these days.

Ordering: Website easy to use. Placed order on Sunday, Confirmation received with order number indicating the item will be despatched the same day. (Monday). Doorbell rang on Tuesday morning, 20minutes later on my wrist.

Watch was well packed, nicely presented. Already set to UTC, so enabled DST for summertime. Instructions booklet good, in German and English, covers all aspects of setting the watch functions. Have to read it couple of times.

Quickly checked the various functions of the watch, all worked good. Glad the watch has a rubber strap, instead of metal. No issues with the rubber strap catching anything, may be due to my wrist size , allowing the strap end to land where it does not protrude.

Comparing to Seiko Astron, again some may argue its big, heavy and bulky. Used to the Seiko since 2012, no problems. Except have to be mindful of bashing it against door frames etc... MW3 will need me to me more careful as it feels more bulkier in size. Have to be extra careful of the 2 side windows for the GPS antenna is located.

OK, Kitchen scales indicate Seiko-Astron to be 118gm to 158gm for MW3-1
Depth Seiko = 15mm , MW3-1 = 17mm.
Length of metal body to straps ie..12 to 6, Seiko= 56mm MW3-1 = 66mm

Yes its bulkier and heavier than the Seiko, however its not noticeable to be during the day. On the bedside table during the night. Have to wear the strap tight as the 158gm can easily flop around due to gravity / kinetic energy.

Pre-check before the mandaotory sync to GPS during the first few days did not show any drift by eye. From where I am, Sync completed well within 25 Seconds. Have worn it with the Digital Display enabled and without, looks good to me either way. No one in the office has noticed or commented on the watch, assuming it cannot be a big deal to mention or has not been prominient enough to provoke a conversation. However, my son and daughter mentioned its too big as a watch.

Certainly, cannot wear the watch with long sleeves. Also, if you had the need to poke your hand into a car engine bay, good idea to take the watch off first. Have to be careful when putting it on or off the wrist to make sure its not dropped.

The other main reason which attracted me to the watch initially was the uncluttered Alalogue/Digital face which made me prefer the M3 over the M1 or M2. The fact the Digital element can be switched off gives it another bonus point.

The Digital Display, requires daylight or some good lighting it to see the full display clearly. The backlight does help in the dark.







Have to excuse the hairy hand, taken some pictures of the Seiko and will be replaced by the MW3.

Have been busy to respond quickly, better late than never.


----------



## gcs190

I have a review (spanish) with many pictures, but I can not put no links or photos....


----------



## Hans Moleman

gcs190 said:


> I have a review (spanish) with many pictures, but I can not put no links or photos....


Is this the review?

Thanks for review!


----------



## gcs190

Hans Moleman said:


> Is this the review?
> 
> Thanks for review!


Yes, it's that one! Thanks for linking.


----------



## beretta

I own number 191


----------



## gcs190

beretta said:


> I own number 191


photo please...


----------



## Bill R W

Some impressions as an owner of a Morgenwerk. Not a review. My MW is my first, and to date, only HAQ.


As an initial bottom line, I like my M1-3 and would buy it again. 


I bought an M1-3 last year. Received it in November. The online ordering, shipping and payment processes worked fine, although it would have been great to be able to see the watches in person first. I posted pictures, including size comparisons, in a couple of prior posts. 


I was initially looking at Seiko, Citizen and Casio Oceanus GPS synching watches. I decided to buy a Morgenwerk because I liked the fact that MW combines a HAQ movement and the self-adjustment feature with GPS synching. I also liked the style. The clean, uncluttered watch face appealed to me more than the relatively busier faces on the Seiko, Citizen, and Casio Oceanus GPS watches. 


I ruled out the M3 model because it is the largest of the three MW models and seemed to me a bit big for a daily wear watch. In addition, I have a couple of Garmin GPS watches that I use for hiking, canoeing and other outdoor activities. The Garmin watches add GPS navigation features to the altimeter, barometer and compass functions, so seem better suited to outdoor activities than the M3, which I think only uses GPS to synch time. The Garmin watches are large and are not great on timekeeping precision when not connecting to GPS satellites, but when I use them outdoors they are regularly synching with satellites so this is not an issue. 


I liked the style of both the M1 and M2 models. I picked the M1-3 because it was the smaller of the two. I picked the titanium model because it was lighter. 


My watch has a rubber strap. I have found it comfortable to wear and have not had any issues with it catching on things. The lugs curve and fit my wrist nicely. The watch is thick enough that it will not fit comfortably under the cuff of the long sleeve shirts I often wear for work. As a result, I generally do not wear it to the office. Instead I wear it when not working or when I work from home. 


I made a number of posts on the watch's synching accuracy and precision between synchs. Generally the watch has synched to with 25-40 milliseconds of my GPS PPS signal and when measured over various 30-45-60 day periods (counting only measurements made since I had a GPS time signal to compare it against), it has run to better than +\- 5 SPY on an annualized basis (usually quite a bit better). I am currently synching the watch about every 45 days or so as recommended by the MW website. I believe that other members are running their watches for longer periods between synchs as a test.


I like the fact that it does not need to synch very often to maintain accuracy and that you do not need to be in range of the various time radio signals to synch. 


The watch is clearly more than accurate enough for any practical use. But I admire accuracy and precision, and the engineering and technology used to achieve it, on its own, apart from any practical need. 


I hope the self-adjustment feature will deal with any timing issues as the quartz crystal ages, but it is too soon to tell. 


The watch synchs fairly quickly when I am outside in my backyard, generally taking less than 30 seconds. It takes longer if you need to obtain or update leap second data, something that will be necessary at the end of this year.


Battery life is good. It easily goes 2 months between charges. (I suppose more frequent synching could shorten this.) I have generally been charging it after synching, so about every 45 days and before one is needed. You can extend the time between charges significantly by turning off the second hand. I tried this to see what it looks like, but prefer to have the second hand tick. It would be great if the watch had solar charging similar to the Seiko, Citizen and Casio Oceanus GPS watches. Maybe in a future model. 


The second hand ticks 3 times per second. I would generally prefer once per second, but 3 times per second is ok. The hands line up with the marks on the dial pretty well. Not perfectly though. My (less expensive) analog G Shocks are a bit better at lining up. 


Arne and others at the company have been very responsive, answering questions by e-mail.


As noted in a prior post, my watch had to be returned for service after I knocked the watch onto a hardwood floor. Timekeeping was not affected, but one of the buttons was knocked askew. Not ideal, but things happen. I sent the watch in and it was repaired. Not a warranty repair, which was ok. Would have been more convenient to take it to a US dealer or repair site than to send it to Hamburg. But it worked to send it to Hamburg. 


Also as noted in one of my posts above, the second hand was one-third of a tick out of alignment after I accidentally hit the watch against a door frame. Fairly strong forces for a short time in such a collision. You can easily re-align the hands using a built-in function of the watch and the buttons. (My analog G Shocks do this automatically.) As Hans Moleman pointed out, this is a feature. The hands release to protect watch's mechanism when there is a significant shock. 


At some level, my only concern is the long-term viability of the company, given they are a start up and small compared to Seiko, Citizen and Casio. I hope they sell enough watches to keep going. 


As noted above, I would buy this watch again. And if they produce a somewhat thinner model with solar charging built-in, I will likely buy another one.


----------



## Bill R W

icqcq said:


> So, gents (and ladies...?), I've been going through this thread, looking for something like 'a review,' because I like the looks and idea of the watch, but - and forgive me if there is a nice, solid, thorough review tucked away somewhere - I'm simply curious as to how owners like this watch? I saw that one went up for sale in February - a quick turnaround - but there really aren't that many out there (and most of the owners appear to be right here). And this thread seems rather focused on the question of tech and accuracy. Even the 1-series watch looks big to me, but the downcurved 'lugs' mean that the strap heads right where it needs to go, so it probably wears smaller than the numbers suggest. How's the lume? How's the weight? How's the strap (one owner here complained that it caught on everything)? Did MW work out the kinks before launch? It looks like two people have knocked or dropped theirs, one requiring return to MW, the other requiring a recalibration of the hands... I'm just wondering if there's someone here with enough experience with the watch to sum up their experience thus far, give the rest of us an insight, decide whether to invest (the dollar is strong right now!), or to wait, or even to pass. I'm wondering what it's like to live with every day: for me, a watch is a single-purpose object: to tell the time. Obviously, accuracy isn't really a question with this, and legibility looks excellent, but I'm curious to know what it's like to wear daily.
> 
> Thanks, and if someone _has_ reviewed the watch properly, I apologize, and please: direct me to it!


As noted by Tom HK above, there is a recent review of the M3 on ablogtowatch.


----------



## icqcq

Thanks to those who have replied. I did find the BTW review, but... well, reviewers review, and the people who buy and wear a watch have significantly different expectations, experiences, and feedback, which is why I came here.

The M1 is the most interesting to me because of size, but I find myself wanting a bit of each of the models... the grey markers on the steel, the weight of the titanium, the bracelet of the GITD... ultimately, however, I think the size of the current models - which always receives a comment by the wearers - excludes the MW from my shortlist. As BillRW states, a later version will undoubtedly be capable of achieving a more manageable size, something even _I_ could wear everyday, under a shirt cuff, and without knocking on doorways. I will say the design - especially of the M1 - is just about perfect to me: legibility above all, accuracy a close second. I hope they will carry over the design strengths as they size down over time; I find the M2 and M3 to be busier than I like.

Again, thanks to those who provided long-term feedback; whether they consider them reviews or not, to have someone's experience and opinion stated concisely is a big help.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> I synched my M1-3 yesterday after measuring its drift over the previous 46 days.
> 
> Immediately after the synch, my watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow, measured against my Garmin 18x LVC PPS output using 400 fps Nikon V1 video.
> 
> I did the same measurement after the 4 most recent synchs of my M1-3. While I have mentioned these 4 measurements in prior posts (either in this thread or in the reference time thread), I thought it would be useful to keep a cumulative table. Time difference in milliseconds. Positive (negative) means slow (fast) versus the GPS PPS.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 3/31/16304/3/16, 5 pm37.54/3/16, 6 pm26.35/15/16
> 
> 6/30/1535
> 
> 37.5
> 
> 
> The average difference was 33.25 milliseconds slow, based on these 5 measurements.
> 
> These are point in time difference measurements, not a measurement of the watch's rate or drift.
> 
> As mentioned before, I am planning to synch the watch approximately every 45 days or so -- 8 times a year -- as suggested by the MW website for a year to check synching accuracy and drift. Will post a cumulative table periodically. Results so far suggest synching accuracy in the 25 to 40 millisecond range. Interestingly all are slow so far. None were faster than my PPS output.


Here is Arne-s explanation:

it has to be remarked that measuring the accuracy by using the described method is not accurate.
since this is the method used in this case I will explain the reason for the fluctuation in the different measurements given by your forum member.


while the actual clocking component is spot on after a sync there are several steps in getting the time information from clocking device to the hands. these steps involve the cueing of different procedures on a computing level as well as sleeping and wake up delays when it comes to moving the hands mechanically. a very small delay in transferring the information from clocking component to hands is possible. since the processes in the computation cue do not always have the same order and depending on the position and gravitational influence on the watch in the moment of gear movement, this delay varies.
going with the results given by your forum member that would mean a delay of 5 - 9 milliseconds, in our lab results the delay is much shorter of course


----------



## chris01

ronalddheld said:


> Here is Arne-s explanation:
> 
> it has to be remarked that measuring the accuracy by using the described method is not accurate.
> since this is the method used in this case I will explain the reason for the fluctuation in the different measurements given by your forum member.
> 
> 
> while the actual clocking component is spot on after a sync there are several steps in getting the time information from clocking device to the hands. these steps involve the cueing of different procedures on a computing level as well as sleeping and wake up delays when it comes to moving the hands mechanically. a very small delay in transferring the information from clocking component to hands is possible. since the processes in the computation cue do not always have the same order and depending on the position and gravitational influence on the watch in the moment of gear movement, this delay varies.
> going with the results given by your forum member that would mean a delay of 5 - 9 milliseconds, in our lab results the delay is much shorter of course


Even allowing for the language issues, this sounds like a useless excuse. "The internal clock is dead accurate but unfortunately the hands don't adequately display the fact." Welcome to the real world of watches, where displaying the correct time externally is just as important as knowing it internally. Until we can wire our brains directly to the electronics, this is what we have to live with.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Here is Arne-s explanation:
> 
> it has to be remarked that measuring the accuracy by using the described method is not accurate.
> since this is the method used in this case I will explain the reason for the fluctuation in the different measurements given by your forum member.
> 
> 
> while the actual clocking component is spot on after a sync there are several steps in getting the time information from clocking device to the hands. these steps involve the cueing of different procedures on a computing level as well as sleeping and wake up delays when it comes to moving the hands mechanically. a very small delay in transferring the information from clocking component to hands is possible. since the processes in the computation cue do not always have the same order and depending on the position and gravitational influence on the watch in the moment of gear movement, this delay varies.
> going with the results given by your forum member that would mean a delay of 5 - 9 milliseconds, in our lab results the delay is much shorter of course


Interesting and thanks for checking with Arne.

I can understand that a watch would have internal processing and mechanical delays. And they could very a bit from time to time.

On the other hand, as another forum member noted somewhere in the MW thread or the Reference Time thread, it does seem fair to judge a watch by the time it displays to a user. It is the only "time" we have access to.

Apple noted in discussing the Apple watch that the human eye cannot detect differences of 50 milliseconds or less. So the delays I have seen would generally not be visible to a user's eye. And, of course, I could never set a watch that accurately by hand.

Hans has pointed out in earlier posts that where a watch does not determine its own position, there is likely some uncertainty in synching, as satellites are in different positions and the watch does not know exactly where it is with respect to the satellites. I think this uncertainty was in the range of 20 milliseconds. My GPS PPS output that I use for testing should not have this error, as it has a position fix before it outputs the PPS signal.

Arne concludes that there could be 5-9 milliseconds of internal delay. I was certainly seeing a bigger difference than that. Perhaps there is inaccuracy in my methods.

400 fps video would seem to have a resolution of around 2.5 milliseconds. I have tested the video against the GPS PPS and it is 397 fps. That means 2.52 milliseconds per frame, so not much different.

There is an interpretive question about when the watch's second starts, when you are using a visual method. I use the first visible movement in the watch's second hand. That seems consistent with Arne's explanation.

Garmin says the Garmin 18X LVC PPS output is accurate to a microsecond. I have it set to display a PPS signal only if it has a position lock, so it should be this accurate. There is wire travel and LED lighting delay, but it seems reasonable to conclude, as we did in the Reference Time thread, that the PPS output as viewed by when the LED starts to light is accurate to at least the nearest millisecond.

So unless there is other error, I would think my setup would measure to within +\- 5 milliseconds? But I am not an experimental scientist and may be missing something. And perhaps this is a topic more for the Reference Time thread than the MW thread.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have asked Arne about a "proper" measuring technique and hopefully he will get back to me in a month. After that I will ask about the M3 delays.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> I have asked Arne about a "proper" measuring technique and hopefully he will get back to me in a month. After that I will ask about the M3 delays.


I doubt that the (internal) clock is spot on after a sync.

And for a 'sync' I assume a 1 satellite sync. The usual, fast sync. 
You can not get an accurate time from a single satellite.

I hope Arne uses the word 'sync' the way I do.

A 'display delay' sounds reasonable. There is a delay between moving the minute hand and seconds hand each full minute. Bill noticed it earlier. The hands therefore are not hard-wired to the clock.

That quoted delay of 5-9 ms is not enough to explain Bill's results.

Wriggle a bit with actual measurements, and a 5-9 ms is admitted. Wriggle a bit more ...

I rate factual measurements far higher than rhetoric.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> I doubt that the (internal) clock is spot on after a sync.
> 
> And for a 'sync' I assume a 1 satellite sync. The usual, fast sync.
> You can not get an accurate time from a single satellite.
> 
> I hope Arne uses the word 'sync' the way I do.
> 
> A 'display delay' sounds reasonable. There is a delay between moving the minute hand and seconds hand each full minute. Bill noticed it earlier. The hands therefore are not hard-wired to the clock.
> 
> That quoted delay of 5-9 ms is not enough to explain Bill's results.
> 
> Wriggle a bit with actual measurements, and a 5-9 ms is admitted. Wriggle a bit more ...
> 
> I rate factual measurements far higher than rhetoric.


Please do not shoot the Moderator, as he has more watches to buy. I am relaying information with no editing. If I had quick email turnaround I would learn if his terms are the same as ours. I cannot converse with him in German and get nuisances of meaning.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> Please do not shoot the Moderator


There were enough killings for today.

What if Bill did a full sync and then measure the offset?
See if that makes any difference.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> There were enough killings for today.
> 
> What if Bill did a full sync and then measure the offset?
> See if that makes any difference.


Curious as to what you mean by a "full synch."

My measurements of synching accuracy have been done within a few minutes of synching the watch for time. I am not aware of an option to synch the watch in a way that includes determination of its position. Do not recall any mention of that in the M1 manual or on the MW website, but will check again.

They do refer, as I recall, to obtaining signals from up to 6 satellites, which would be enough for a position fix. But I do not see any indication from the watch as to how many satellite signals it has (something that I think other GPS watches may indicate) or whether it has computed its position. If it did compute its position, it could also determine the correct timezone on its own as certain other GPS watches do.

There is a synch option that downloads leap second data, something I once did by mistake. It takes longer and uses more power. (Will need to do this after the end-of-year leap second this year.) Do not recall any statement on determining position here either.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Please do not shoot the Moderator, as he has more watches to buy. I am relaying information with no editing. If I had quick email turnaround I would learn if his terms are the same as ours. I cannot converse with him in German and get nuisances of meaning.


Glad you are asking questions. Not your fault if Arne's answer seems a bit off this time.

Look forward to hearing how Arne thinks we should test our MW watches, as testing comes naturally to many of this forum's members. An excellent follow-up question.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Curious as to what you mean by a "full synch."
> 
> My measurements of synching accuracy have been done within a few minutes of synching the watch for time. I am not aware of an option to synch the watch in a way that includes determination of its position. Do not recall any mention of that in the M1 manual or on the MW website, but will check again.
> 
> They do refer, as I recall, to obtaining signals from up to 6 satellites, which would be enough for a position fix. But I do not see any indication from the watch as to how many satellite signals it has (something that I think other GPS watches may indicate) or whether it has computed its position. If it did compute its position, it could also determine the correct timezone on its own as certain other GPS watches do.
> 
> There is a synch option that downloads leap second data, something I once did by mistake. It takes longer and uses more power. (Will need to do this after the end-of-year leap second this year.) Do not recall any statement on determining position here either.


I remember the M3 could display its position and thought the M1 could too. That was wrong. Pity.

And I remember reading 'up to 6 satellites, from which the strongest one is picked'.
I've got to do some digging were I have got that from. Must be in this thread though.

Nothing conclusive then.

This may be a long shot:
There is a way where you can see what the Garmin uses. It send that info out of its serial connection.
That cable is a big no-no as far as latency is concerned.

If you could put it in such a position where it only sees one satellite, you could check if the MW is working in that same position. I expect the Garmin to be a lot more sensitive though.



> An excellent follow-up question.


Totally agreed.

Found that post:



> "Receiving a time signal
> 
> Enter reception mode by pressing button 3. The second hand moves to the 12 o�clock position and reception is initiated. The second hand moves counter clockwise for 60 seconds. In that time the timepiece connects to six satellites and then selects the strongest signal for time and date synchronization. A short �beep� confirms successful signal reception. Should no signal be received, the Morgenwerk will return to normal time indication silently.
> 
> Please make sure to stand close to a window when searching for a signal inside a car or building. Also, stand clear of high objects or buildings to asure better reception when outside."


source

Still not very clear.
I read it as "listen to 6, discard 5".


----------



## Bill R W

Interesting idea. Not sure it how it would work though. Are you suggesting trying to get a time output from the Garmin based on one satellite, to see if it matches the MW time after a synch (as the MW will not tell you which satellite it uses)? 

The Garmin will not start outputting a PPS signal until it has a position lock, which requires at least 3 satellites I think (and 4 if you want altitude). And then I expect the PPS signal is based on position and information from the satellites used to determine position. Also, I have set my Garmin to output a PPS signal only if it maintains a position lock. I could change that setting back to allowing a PPS signal even when a position fix is lost. Then I could try to find a place where it can only see one satellite. But in that case, the the PPS signal is still based on the original position fix, maintained by an oscillator (and losing accuracy by up to 10 milliseconds an hour, if I recall what Garmin tech support told me) so would still not reflect time from that one satellite only. So I think the PPS output would not work to give a time output based on only one satellite. 

Or can you get a time output from only one satellite using the Garmin's serial connection? Will have to check the manual on that. 

As you point out, the serial connection gives another source of delay, so I have only used it to change settings on the Garmin. I have not had a serial connection in place while doing time measurements.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Interesting idea. Not sure it how it would work though. Are you suggesting trying to get a time output from the Garmin based on one satellite, to see if it matches the MW time after a synch (as the MW will not tell you which satellite it uses)?
> 
> The Garmin will not start outputting a PPS signal until it has a position lock, which requires at least 3 satellites I think (and 4 if you want altitude). And then I expect the PPS signal is based on position and information from the satellites used to determine position. Also, I have set my Garmin to output a PPS signal only if it maintains a position lock. I could change that setting back to allowing a PPS signal even when a position fix is lost. Then I could try to find a place where it can only see one satellite. But in that case, the the PPS signal is still based on the original position fix, maintained by an oscillator (and losing accuracy by up to 10 milliseconds an hour, if I recall what Garmin tech support told me) so would still not reflect time from that one satellite only. So I think the PPS output would not work to give a time output based on only one satellite.
> 
> Or can you get a time output from only one satellite using the Garmin's serial connection? Will have to check the manual on that.
> 
> As you point out, the serial connection gives another source of delay, so I have only used it to change settings on the Garmin. I have not had a serial connection in place while doing time measurements.


No, forget about PPS for a minute.
Use the Garmin only to see what satellites are available. 
If you reduced that to one, by putting it in an awkward spot, see if the MW can set its time in the same spot.

Look for $GPGGA, number of satellites in use.

I don't remember how long MW takes for a sync. And does that tally up with getting a position?
Getting a position takes a while.

I don't see anything wrong with your setup. The PPS is guaranteed to a microsecond. And these things are stock standard for any time work. 
There are no delays between the PPS and the LED. Could not be simpler.

Could the LED be too slow? And variable at that?


----------



## wbird

I seem to recall that the Astron of Chris, and some of the data on the RC watches were more accurate after they were synched. Not that the MW is bad or anything but they were better.

I have to admit I am a little skeptical when MW tells me they are really good you just can't see it. If you can't display it, frankly you don't have it. Just me, but the explanation is kind of wrong.


----------



## ronalddheld

I will report back on what Arne tells me. The delay on lighting an LEDA is microseconds?


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> I will report back on what Arne tells me. The delay on lighting an LEDA is microseconds?


Tens of microseconds. Well under 1 ms.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> No, forget about PPS for a minute.
> Use the Garmin only to see what satellites are available.
> If you reduced that to one, by putting it in an awkward spot, see if the MW can set its time in the same spot.
> 
> Look for $GPGGA, number of satellites in use.
> 
> I don't remember how long MW takes for a sync. And does that tally up with getting a position?
> Getting a position takes a while.
> 
> I don't see anything wrong with your setup. The PPS is guaranteed to a microsecond. And these things are stock standard for any time work.
> There are no delays between the PPS and the LED. Could not be simpler.
> 
> Could the LED be too slow? And variable at that?


Understand. I could try this with a handheld Garmin Montana unit that shows the number of satellites it has signals from. Would be easier to use for that purpose than the 18x LVC.

Of course, if there is only one satellite visible to the Garmin Montanna, and the MW does not synch, it may prove only that the MW can't see any satellite (it might have a less sensitive antenna than the Garmin units, as you note) rather than that it needs enough satellites to get a position fix. Suppose it is also possible that the MW might see more satellites at a given time, for some reason, since it cannot tell us what it sees.

Not scheduled to synch my MW1-3 until August 15th or so.

I find my MW usually synchs in 15-30 seconds in my backyard. Sometimes 45.

My newest Garmin GPS watch (a Tactix Bravo, variant of the Fenix 3) will connect to GPS satellites that fast as a general matter and includes a position fix. But in the summer I use it often for outdoors activities (so it knows where it is) and download the latest ephemeris data, which speeds up satellite connections. Possible also that Garmin has a faster or more elaborate antenna system than the MW.

I have been synching the MW every 45 days or so recently and have no way to download ephemeris data. So suspect it is not doing a position fix. But do not know for sure.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> No, forget about PPS for a minute.
> Use the Garmin only to see what satellites are available.
> If you reduced that to one, by putting it in an awkward spot, see if the MW can set its time in the same spot.
> 
> Look for $GPGGA, number of satellites in use.
> 
> I don't remember how long MW takes for a sync. And does that tally up with getting a position?
> Getting a position takes a while.
> 
> I don't see anything wrong with your setup. The PPS is guaranteed to a microsecond. And these things are stock standard for any time work.
> There are no delays between the PPS and the LED. Could not be simpler.
> 
> Could the LED be too slow? And variable at that?


I used a standard 5 mm red LED from Adafruit. Don't think it would be particularly slow or variable, at least on the scale of differences we are talking about. However, I am not an electrical engineer. I think we concluded in the Reference Time thread that my Garmin 18x LVC, with its microsecond output accuracy, wiring time (5 meters of wire, plus a short connector and breadboard) and LED lighting was likely accurate to the nearest millisecond (or indeed better, although better than the nearest millisecond would not be noticeable to me with my methods).


----------



## Hans Moleman

I agree. Nothing wrong with the testing regime.

The LED's credibility was more a silly rhetorical question. 

Is the LED always to the left of the watch?
Try moving it to the right, or on top of.
See if the shutter affects timing. If any, no more than 2 ms, I guess.

Wait for the MW response I guess. 

At least they know now that their claims are looked at.


----------



## gcs190

I discovered a thing of the M3: The 3 dots indicating GPS reception are disappearing as the days pass ... I will control how often disappear.


----------



## ronalddheld

gcs190 said:


> I discovered a thing of the M3: The 3 dots indicating GPS reception are disappearing as the days pass ... I will control how often disappear.


Can you explain further as I have synched only initially and keep the digital display off when not taking measurements?


----------



## gcs190

ronalddheld said:


> Can you explain further as I have synched only initially and keep the digital display off when not taking measurements?


Yesterday, I found only 2 of the 3 dots that indicate GPS reception. I have assumed that the indicator has expiration. Now I still check every few days these dots disappear.


----------



## ronalddheld

gcs190 said:


> Yesterday, I found only 2 of the 3 dots that indicate GPS reception. I have assumed that the indicator has expiration. Now I still check every few days these dots disappear.


I will have to look more regularly after my November sync.


----------



## Bill R W

Does the M3 manual mention the dots? I have only the M1 manual (for my M1-3) and do not see the MW manuals on the MW website. Would be a good idea for them to provide access to the manuals through their website.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Does the M3 manual mention the dots? I have only the M1 manual (for my M1-3) and do not see the MW manuals on the MW website. Would be a good idea for them to provide access to the manuals through their website.


Yes it mentioned the dots. I sent out manuals to those who PMed me last year.


----------



## Bill R W

Thanks. Hans offered to e-mail me a copy of the M3 manual.


----------



## gcs190

gcs190 said:


> Yesterday, I found only 2 of the 3 dots that indicate GPS reception. I have assumed that the indicator has expiration. Now I still check every few days these dots disappear.


Just done 10 days since the last synchronization and just disappeared one of the three dots.


----------



## Hans Moleman

gcs190 said:


> Just done 10 days since the last synchronization and just disappeared one of the three dots.


Sorry, but I am not sure what you mean.









The satellite reception details is shown in the bottom left circle.
Six columns for six satellites.
Each column has a height representing the reception strength.

Are you now receiving from two satellites, when before you were receiving from three?


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> Sorry, but I am not sure what you mean.
> 
> View attachment 8971913
> 
> 
> The satellite reception details is shown in the bottom left circle.
> Six columns for six satellites.
> Each column has a height representing the reception strength.
> 
> Are now receiving from two satellites, when before you were receiving from three?


I think he means the three dots on the display after successful reception.


----------



## Hans Moleman

A yes. Missed that.

Three dots for successful synchronization.
Two dots for ... ?


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> A yes. Missed that.
> 
> Three dots for successful synchronization.
> Two dots for ... ?


AFAIR, the dots disappear over time. Since I only initialized once, I did not watch the dots over time.


----------



## beretta

My M3 is the same down to 2 dots but time still spot on


----------



## Bill R W

Does the M3 indicate in digital fashion the date and time when it last synched (similar to digital (or ana-digital) RC G Shocks which will show you the date and time when they last synched)? 

If the 3 dots appear to show a successful synch, do they disappear over time to give a rough indication of the time that has passed since the last synch? If one dot disappeared every 15 days, when the dots are gone you would know it has been at least 45 days since the last synch (a time period that MW uses to state its expected accuracy).


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Does the M3 indicate in digital fashion the date and time when it last synched (similar to digital (or ana-digital) RC G Shocks which will show you the date and time when they last synched)?
> 
> If the 3 dots appear to show a successful synch, do they disappear over time to give a rough indication of the time that has passed since the last synch? If one dot disappeared every 15 days, when the dots are gone you would know it has been at least 45 days since the last synch (a time period that MW uses to state its expected accuracy).


I saw nothing on the time of last sync nor the rate the dots disappear in the manual.


----------



## Bill R W

Re: MorgenwerkI synched my M1-3 today after measuring its drift over the previous 45 days.

Prior to synching, the watch ran 1.25 seconds slow over the prior 45 days on an annualized basis. On a non-annualized basis, the watch ran 154 milliseconds (0.154 seconds) slow over 44.8 days. I have been wearing my watch more in the summer than I did in the fall and winter, maybe 5 or 6 days a week on average. 

Immediately after today's synch, my watch was 35 milliseconds slow. The watch took approximately 27 seconds to synch in my backyard (based on watching the second hand move backwards during the synching process -- pretty similar to time taken to synch in previous synchs).

Both measurements compared the watch to my Garmin 18x LVC PPS output using 400 fps Nikon V1 video. Confirmed I had the right second with Emerald Time for iPad. Given the 400 fps video, my resolution is at best 2.5 milliseconds.

I did the same measurement after the 5 most recent synchs of my M1-3. In 6 total measurements, the M1-3 has averaged 33.5 milliseconds slow immediately after synching. All measurements have been slow and have fallen between 26 and 37.5 milliseconds. These are point in time difference measurements, not a measurement of the watch's rate or drift. Prior data is in post #714 in this thread.

As mentioned before, I am in the process of synching the watch approximately every 45 days or so -- 8 times a year -- as suggested by the MW website for a year to check synching accuracy and drift.

I understand that Arne told Ronald that this is not a good way to measure a MW's synching accuracy. I look forward to hearing what other procedures Arne recommends for doing such a test, particularly ones based on what a user can see as opposed to an internal time that a user has no access to (understanding that internal accuracy is important to what the watch displays to a user).

While I would like as much synching accuracy as possible, 25-40 milliseconds is certainly far better than I could hack a watch by hand.

​


----------



## gcs190

After ten days have gone another point. Only one left. It seems that the reception indication is valid for 30 days


----------



## ronalddheld

gcs190 said:


> After ten days have gone another point. Only one left. It seems that the reception indication is valid for 30 days


I would ask Arne, but he has not answered my last email.


----------



## Bill R W

I have a question about charging my M1-3. I have several lithium batteries that I use to power/recharge my iPhone and iPad when travelling when I do not have access to a power outlet. The batteries have USB ports. Two of them are charged from power outlets and the other one can also be charged with an integrated solar panel (I use this one when hiking). Two of the batteries are rated at 3200 - 5000 mAh and one is rated at 15,000 mAh.

My question is whether I could charge my M1-3 using the MW charging dock, but plugging it into one of these batteries's USB ports rather than into a computer's USB port. The solar battery would give me a version of the "missing" solar charger that was part of the original MW announcement, but not developed. Before trying it, I'd like to make sure that it would not harm the watch or the watch's battery. I suspect the answer is it would be fine, given the batteries work perfectly well with my iPhone and iPad. I have also used them to charge Garmin GPS watches with no issue.

Also interested to know how much capacity would be needed to fully charge the M1-3. I do not see anything in the manual or on the MW website that talks about the capacity of the M1-3 battery. Would there be a problem if the battery did not fully charge the M1-3 before running out of power (other than not having a fully charged watch)?

I have asked Arne and Atakan the same question and will let the group know if I hear back. But thought there are members here with much greater knowledge of electronics than me who might know.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Should work.
The only thing of importance is the voltage, and that's always 5 volts with USB.

I am glad you mentioned there are two people working for Morgenwerk. I thought there was only one; Arne.
Atakan must be the tech guy. Simply because the PR material  is so amazingly wrong. And you simply can't make something without some technical background. Never mind me.


----------



## Bill R W

Bill R W said:


> I have a question about charging my M1-3. I have several lithium batteries that I use to power/recharge my iPhone and iPad when travelling when I do not have access to a power outlet. The batteries have USB ports. Two of them are charged from power outlets and the other one can also be charged with an integrated solar panel (I use this one when hiking). Two of the batteries are rated at 3200 - 5000 mAh and one is rated at 15,000 mAh.
> 
> My question is whether I could charge my M1-3 using the MW charging dock, but plugging it into one of these batteries's USB ports rather than into a computer's USB port. The solar battery would give me a version of the "missing" solar charger that was part of the original MW announcement, but not developed. Before trying it, I'd like to make sure that it would not harm the watch or the watch's battery. I suspect the answer is it would be fine, given the batteries work perfectly well with my iPhone and iPad. I have also used them to charge Garmin GPS watches with no issue.
> 
> Also interested to know how much capacity would be needed to fully charge the M1-3. I do not see anything in the manual or on the MW website that talks about the capacity of the M1-3 battery. Would there be a problem if the battery did not fully charge the M1-3 before running out of power (other than not having a fully charged watch)?
> 
> I have asked Arne and Atakan the same question and will let the group know if I hear back. But thought there are members here with much greater knowledge of electronics than me who might know.


Had the following response from Arne in my e-mail this morning --

"there is no problem in charging your morgenwerk through 3rd party usb devices.
as you have mentioned the usb output is 5V which is everything our charging bracked needs.
you will notice that the only difference will be the charging duration. different devices work with different throughput and therefore charging may take up to three hours on an empty watch.
the capacity of your batteries mentioned seems fine. partial charging is also possible and does not harm the watch at all."


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Should work.
> The only thing of importance is the voltage, and that's always 5 volts with USB.
> 
> I am glad you mentioned there are two people working for Morgenwerk. I thought there was only one; Arne.
> Atakan must be the tech guy. Simply because the PR material  is so amazingly wrong. And you simply can't make something without some technical background. Never mind me.


Thanks Hans. Looks like Arne agrees too.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Should work.
> The only thing of importance is the voltage, and that's always 5 volts with USB.
> 
> I am glad you mentioned there are two people working for Morgenwerk. I thought there was only one; Arne.
> Atakan must be the tech guy. Simply because the PR material  is so amazingly wrong. And you simply can't make something without some technical background. Never mind me.


Atakan's first e-mail to me (sent when I was e-mailing about getting service after knocking my M1-3 to the floor) described him as a "co-founder of Morgenwerk." The e-mail also listed both Arne and Atakan as Managing Directors.


----------



## Bill R W

I noted back in post #696 that the second hand on my M1-3 was misaligned after I knocked the watch against a door frame. 

Since then I have noticed the second hand was misaligned on two other occasions, including this morning. I do not recall any particular knocks near in time to these occasions, so I am assuming any knock was not large enough to cause me to focus on it. Indeed, if I thought about a knock, I would probably check the position of the watch hands right away. 

I don't think I am particularly rough on my watches. Agree that this is a protective feature. 

It is very easy to realign the hands on the M1-3, although I have to look back at the manual (which I keep on my iPad for quick reference) to remember the combination of keys to press. 

Wondering if other MW owners have seen misaligned hands on their watches in daily wear.


----------



## GUTuna

Bill R W said:


> Wondering if other MW owners have seen misaligned hands on their watches in daily wear.


After reading through the background in this thread, I sought out a Morgenwerk and recently acquired a M1-3 in a trade. It actually showed up with misaligned hands. Perhaps from shipping. And, yes, I found it very easy to align them. In fact, all the functions work with such a satisfying click.


----------



## Tom-HK

Saw a Morgenwerk appear on eBay for the first time, today. Will be interested to see what it sells for. Could be worth a punt for those (in CONUS) who are interested in the tech but not the headline price?


----------



## Worksjo

I saw it too. I would take a stab but I'm a little sketchy on the fact that the pics are poor at best and it's from a seller with 0 feedback of any kind.


----------



## GUTuna

Tom-HK said:


> Saw a Morgenwerk appear on eBay for the first time, today. Will be interested to see what it sells for. Could be worth a punt for those (in CONUS) who are interested in the tech but not the headline price?


I ended up winning the auction. I have a 1-3. I'd like to see which design I prefer. So likely one will be back for sale!


----------



## ronalddheld

GUTuna said:


> I ended up winning the auction. I have a 1-3. I'd like to see which design I prefer. So likely one will be back for sale!


Congratulations on winning , perhaps, the first MW.up for auction.


----------



## jisham

GUTuna said:


> I ended up winning the auction. I have a 1-3. I'd like to see which design I prefer. So likely one will be back for sale!


I set your price; I came in second.

Glad to see it ended up with a forum member. I hope you enjoy it!


----------



## ronalddheld

jisham said:


> I set your price; I came in second.
> 
> Glad to see it ended up with a forum member. I hope you enjoy it!


It is better that it ended up in the "family".


----------



## Worksjo

GUTuna said:


> Tom-HK said:
> 
> 
> 
> Saw a Morgenwerk appear on eBay for the first time, today. Will be interested to see what it sells for. Could be worth a punt for those (in CONUS) who are interested in the tech but not the headline price?
> 
> 
> 
> I ended up winning the auction. I have a 1-3. I'd like to see which design I prefer. So likely one will be back for sale!
Click to expand...

Let us know how it comes out I'd be interested in the 1-3 if it came up.


----------



## Bill R W

I synched my M1-3 today after measuring its drift over the previous 47 days. 

Prior to synching, the watch ran 2.8 seconds fast over the prior 47 days on an annualized basis. On a non-annualized basis, the watch ran 365 milliseconds (0.365 seconds) fast over 47 days against the baseline I previously measured (leaving it 0.33 seconds fast against my GPS PPS signal).

Immediately after today's synch, my watch was 37.5 milliseconds slow. Similar to previous synchs.

Both measurements compared the watch to my Garmin 18x LVC PPS output using 400 fps Nikon V1 video. Confirmed I had the right second with Emerald Time for iPad. Given the 400 fps video, my resolution is at best 2.5 milliseconds. 

As mentioned before, I am in the process of synching the watch approximately every 45 days or so -- 8 times a year as suggested by the MW website -- for a year to check synching accuracy. Prior data is in posts #714 and #778 in this thread.


----------



## ronalddheld

My M3 died before the yearly check. It did not go a half year without charging. I will have to reinitialize it on Jan 1st and start over again. Obviously needs more frequent charging when not being used


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> My M3 died before the yearly check. It did not go a half year without charging. I will have to reinitialize it on Jan 1st and start over again. Obviously needs more frequent charging when not being used


Sorry to hear that, given your year-long time test.

What is the normal battery life of the M3? Are the ABC sensors always active, drawing power? Or can you turn them off? I did not see anything on anticipated battery life in the M3 manual, although it looks like there is an energy saving mode.

The M1 manual says the following for M1 battery life (from the page discussing the energy-save mode):

"If the time-signal reception is used moderately (twice per month), the runtime of the internal battery improves from two months without energy-save mode, to up to 14 months with energy-save mode on a single charge."

Energy-save mode on the M1 stops the second hand. I haven't used it and generally charge my M1 every two months. Have not seen the low battery indicator while doing this. I have also only been synching roughly every 45 days or so


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Sorry to hear that, given your year-long time test.
> 
> What is the normal battery life of the M3? Are the ABC sensors always active, drawing power? Or can you turn them off? I did not see anything on anticipated battery life in the M3 manual, although it looks like there is an energy saving mode.
> 
> The M1 manual says the following for M1 battery life (from the page discussing the energy-save mode):
> 
> "If the time-signal reception is used moderately (twice per month), the runtime of the internal battery improves from two months without energy-save mode, to up to 14 months with energy-save mode on a single charge."
> 
> Energy-save mode on the M1 stops the second hand. I haven't used it and generally charge my M1 every two months. Have not seen the low battery indicator while doing this. I have also only been synching roughly every 45 days or so


Thanks. I was in energy saving mode, but did not turn off sensors because I dot know how to. I do not understand how it lasted the first half year on a full charge, but not the second half. Time for another test to start in 2017,


----------



## Bill R W

I have been finding the second hand misaligned on my M1-3 more often than I would expect. You can generally see this misalignment, if it is there, by noting where the second hand is when the minute hand moves. The second hand should hit 12 just as the minute hand moves. 

It is relatively easy to realign the hands. However, I have not noticed any particular blows or bumps to my watch recently, so the misalignment seemed surprising. 

I put my M1-3 on my wrist on Monday, after not wearing it for a week or so. I noticed that the second hand was slow about 2 ticks (2/3 of a second) compared to when the minute hand moved, so I realigned the hands. I was in a car, with my wife driving. 

A couple of minutes after realigning the hands, I noticed that the second hand was a full second slow compared to when the minute hand moved. I did not correct it. Then after a couple of minutes more, the second hand was 5 seconds slow compared to when the minute hand moved. After a couple of minutes more, the second hand was 30 seconds slow compared to when the second hand moved. All the while I was simply in a car driving over normal city streets.

I think what has happened is that somehow the second hand has loosened a bit from the mechanism that turns it, allowing the second hand to slip. This seems to be getting worse, although the second hand still ticks around the dial. 

I will e-mail Arne about it, but suspect the watch will have to go back to Hamburg for service. It would certainly be nice if MW had an authorised dealer in the US who could do the work. The watch is still within the 2-year warranty period.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I have been finding the second hand misaligned on my M1-3 more often than I would expect. You can generally see this misalignment, if it is there, by noting where the second hand is when the minute hand moves. The second hand should hit 12 just as the minute hand moves.
> 
> It is relatively easy to realign the hands. However, I have not noticed any particular blows or bumps to my watch recently, so the misalignment seemed surprising.
> 
> I put my M1-3 on my wrist on Monday, after not wearing it for a week or so. I noticed that the second hand was slow about 2 ticks (2/3 of a second) compared to when the minute hand moved, so I realigned the hands. I was in a car, with my wife driving.
> 
> A couple of minutes after realigning the hands, I noticed that the second hand was a full second slow compared to when the minute hand moved. I did not correct it. Then after a couple of minutes more, the second hand was 5 seconds slow compared to when the minute hand moved. After a couple of minutes more, the second hand was 30 seconds slow compared to when the second hand moved. All the while I was simply in a car driving over normal city streets.
> 
> I think what has happened is that somehow the second hand has loosened a bit from the mechanism that turns it, allowing the second hand to slip. This seems to be getting worse, although the second hand still ticks around the dial.
> 
> I will e-mail Arne about it, but suspect the watch will have to go back to Hamburg for service. It would certainly be nice if MW had an authorised dealer in the US who could do the work. The watch is still within the 2-year warranty period.


Those are silly numbers. Sorry to hear that.
Did you try and charge the battery? Just in case the electronics did not notice the battery being low?

Its wrong either way. Slippy second hand or low voltage notification.


----------



## ronalddheld

Not enough MW watches sold in the US to have a service center? I am less sensitive to hand alignment as I use the digital display for timing.


----------



## Bill R W

Decided to try one more test regarding the second hand on my M1-3. I realigned the second hand and then put the watch in powersave mode. In that mode, the second hand goes to the 12 position and stays there. I wore the watch yesterday around the house after doing this and wondered whether the second hand would slip from the 12 position.

It did not. So this morning I put the watch back into the regular timekeeping more, with the second hand ticking, and again wore it around the house. Within an hour, the second hand had slipped (in several stages) to a bit more than 30 seconds slow compared to when the minute hand moves. I also checked the minute hand against Emerald Time and it was moving at the correct time, based on a quick eyeball method.

So the second hand seems to slip only when the second hand is ticking and not when it is stopped in the power save mode. Not sure what that means about where mechanically the slippage is coming from.

Will e-mail Arne this weekend.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Decided to try one more test regarding the second hand on my M1-3. I realigned the second hand and then put the watch in powersave mode. In that mode, the second hand goes to the 12 position and stays there. I wore the watch yesterday around the house after doing this and wondered whether the second hand would slip from the 12 position.
> 
> It did not. So this morning I put the watch back into the regular timekeeping more, with the second hand ticking, and again wore it around the house. Within an hour, the second hand had slipped (in several stages) to a bit more than 30 seconds slow compared to when the minute hand moves. I also checked the minute hand against Emerald Time and it was moving at the correct time, based on a quick eyeball method.
> 
> So the second hand seems to slip only when the second hand is ticking and not when it is stopped in the power save mode. Not sure what that means about where mechanically the slippage is coming from.
> 
> Will e-mail Arne this weekend.


I came across asservicement.
Obviously, I could not tell you if that applies to the MW.

It is an interesting read though: The motor trying to get away with using as little power as possible.

That is an unworkable situation with the watch as it is.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Decided to try one more test regarding the second hand on my M1-3. I realigned the second hand and then put the watch in powersave mode. In that mode, the second hand goes to the 12 position and stays there. I wore the watch yesterday around the house after doing this and wondered whether the second hand would slip from the 12 position.
> 
> It did not. So this morning I put the watch back into the regular timekeeping more, with the second hand ticking, and again wore it around the house. Within an hour, the second hand had slipped (in several stages) to a bit more than 30 seconds slow compared to when the minute hand moves. I also checked the minute hand against Emerald Time and it was moving at the correct time, based on a quick eyeball method.
> 
> So the second hand seems to slip only when the second hand is ticking and not when it is stopped in the power save mode. Not sure what that means about where mechanically the slippage is coming from.
> 
> Will e-mail Arne this weekend.


I will be curious to hear Arne's response.


----------



## gcs190

Does anyone know the procedure for receiving leap second on the M3? 

Thank you very much


----------



## Bill R W

gcs190 said:


> Does anyone know the procedure for receiving leap second on the M3?
> 
> Thank you very much


I have an M1-3, not an M3, so the procedure may be different.

I do not recall seeing it adressed in the manual. I had triggered this mode accidently and queried Arne as to what the watch was doing, as its behavior was different than a normal synch.

Arne told me by e-mail that you trigger the leap second data acquisition mode (at least on the M1-3) by pressing the synch button (button #3 on an M1-3) and holding it for 8 seconds. Arne noted that the watch draws more current during a leap second synch than during a normal synch. (It also took longer when I triggered it -- maybe a minute or more.) So he suggested charging the watch after picking up leap second data (and it seems to me that you would also want a good charge before starting to make sure the watch has enough power to finish). The second hand runs counterclockwise in a normal synch. When synching to get leap second data, the second hand did not do this. I seem to recall, it went to the 9 pm position, stayed there for a while, then ticked forward some.

I thought Arne said MW was going to communicate with owners before the next leap second (which was not announced when he and I exchanged the e-mails discussed above). I did not get any recent e-mail about it from MW. Maybe they put something on their website. I did not check, as my M1-3 is in Hamburg to have a defective bearing in the second hand mechanism repaired.

Of course, the M3 may be different, if for no other reason than that it does not have a second hand.


----------



## gcs190

Bill R W said:


> I have an M1-3, not an M3, so the procedure may be different.
> 
> I do not recall seeing it adressed in the manual. I had triggered this mode accidently and queried Arne as to what the watch was doing, as its behavior was different than a normal synch.
> 
> Arne told me by e-mail that you trigger the leap second data acquisition mode (at least on the M1-3) by pressing the synch button (button #3 on an M1-3) and holding it for 8 seconds. Arne noted that the watch draws more current during a leap second synch than during a normal synch. (It also took longer when I triggered it -- maybe a minute or more.) So he suggested charging the watch after picking up leap second data (and it seems to me that you would also want a good charge before starting to make sure the watch has enough power to finish). The second hand runs counterclockwise in a normal synch. When synching to get leap second data, the second hand did not do this. I seem to recall, it went to the 9 pm position, stayed there for a while, then ticked forward some.
> 
> I thought Arne said MW was going to communicate with owners before the next leap second (which was not announced when he and I exchanged the e-mails discussed above). I did not get any recent e-mail about it from MW. Maybe they put something on their website. I did not check, as my M1-3 is in Hamburg to have a defective bearing in the second hand mechanism repaired.
> 
> Of course, the M3 may be different, if for no other reason than that it does not have a second hand.


Thanks, I know that method but in M3 it does not work. I have to charge the battery and try ....


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## Bill R W

gcs190 said:


> Thanks, I know that method but in M3 it does not work. I have to charge the battery and try ....


Good luck. Interested to hear if you find out how to do it.

I have found Arne at MW to be fairly responsive to e-mailed questions. Might be worth a try.


----------



## gcs190

Bill R W said:


> Good luck. Interested to hear if you find out how to do it.
> 
> I have found Arne at MW to be fairly responsive to e-mailed questions. Might be worth a try.


I already sent an email to arne. I'll tell you what he says.


----------



## gcs190

Solved!

The procedure is similar to the M1: in this case, two buttons are pressed to make the normal reception, then you leave them pressed and the reception begins at 8 seconds. The needles move away at 2, below shows SAT and up a 15 minute countdown. 

Before I did not get it because the battery is low, I was not on low battery warning but close.


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## Bill R W

gcs190 said:


> Solved!
> 
> The procedure is similar to the M1: in this case, two buttons are pressed to make the normal reception, then you leave them pressed and the reception begins at 8 seconds. The needles move away at 2, below shows SAT and up a 15 minute countdown.
> 
> Before I did not get it because the battery is low, I was not on low battery warning but close.


Excellent. Glad to hear it.


----------



## ronalddheld

Too much rain for a normal sync. I will try the ordinary one tomorrow fully charge it up and try for the 15 minute update, on a non rainy frigidly good day.


----------



## MrGene

Hi; received a M1-3 in October 2016. Very accurate better then my brietling aerospace. But yes there's a but. Tried to sync for leap year and it would not take. Held the #3 button down for 8 sec no go, held it down longer then 8 sec still no go just a normal sync. Now it's 1 sec ahead. Any ideas why it would not sync for leap year


----------



## Bill R W

MrGene said:


> Hi; received a M1-3 in October 2016. Very accurate better then my brietling aerospace. But yes there's a but. Tried to sync for leap year and it would not take. Held the #3 button down for 8 sec no go, held it down longer then 8 sec still no go just a normal sync. Now it's 1 sec ahead. Any ideas why it would not sync for leap year


Did the watch have a good charge? Based on discussion above, the watch might not start a leap second synch unless it has enough battery power to finish?


----------



## gcs190

Bill R W said:


> Did the watch have a good charge? Based on discussion above, the watch might not start a leap second synch unless it has enough battery power to finish?


That is, just before low battery warning, normal reception can be done but not leap second. Arne has answered me with a "small manual" in pdf where I confirm the procedure of 8 seconds.


----------



## Bill R W

gcs190 said:


> That is, just before low battery warning, normal reception can be done but not leap second. Arne has answered me with a "small manual" in pdf where I confirm the procedure of 8 seconds.


I suspect other members with MW watches would love to see the "small manual" pdf. The M1 manual I have does not address leap second procedure, so I have only heard about it in this thread and in e-mails from Arne. The MW website (checked today) mentions leap second adjustments, but does not give procedures (at least that I could find).


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill, if you want, I can be the focal point for thr PDF distribution. If you send it to my email I think that you have, I can distribute it as people PM their email addressesl, starting tomorrow ET.


----------



## MrGene

Hi All figured it out with some persistence. Gave it a good 3hr charge as mentioned by Bill R W then press the #3 button for 8 seconds the M1-3 will not acknowledge this action it will continue counting up the seconds during the button hold down. Now when 8 exact seconds is reached release #3 button the second hand will go to 9 hour mark and start counting toward 12 hour mark by 1 minute. Once the full download is complete it will resume accurate time keeping. Mine took 7 minutes for the download. Hopefully this will help. Whew.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Bill, if you want, I can be the focal point for thr PDF distribution. If you send it to my email I think that you have, I can distribute it as people PM their email addressesl, starting tomorrow ET.


I don't have the small manual pdf. (Would send if I did.). I think gcs190 has it, based on his post above.


----------



## Bill R W

MrGene said:


> Hi All figured it out with some persistence. Gave it a good 3hr charge as mentioned by Bill R W then press the #3 button for 8 seconds the M1-3 will not acknowledge this action it will continue counting up the seconds during the button hold down. Now when 8 exact seconds is reached release #3 button the second hand will go to 9 hour mark and start counting toward 12 hour mark by 1 minute. Once the full download is complete it will resume accurate time keeping. Mine took 7 minutes for the download. Hopefully this will help. Whew.


Glad it worked. Will do the same for my M1-3 when it returns home from Hamburg, unless MW does it for me while doing the warranty repair on my M1-3.


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## ronalddheld

Reduced my M3. It is a second off in digital time but three hours fast via the hands. I have it set to UTC-5. Since my test last year did not work, I may forget the leap seconds update and leave it alone.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Bill, if you want, I can be the focal point for thr PDF distribution. If you send it to my email I think that you have, I can distribute it as people PM their email addressesl, starting tomorrow ET.


I e-mailed Arne to ask for the leap second manuals. He sent one for each model. Will try to forward attached to a pm.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Reduced my M3. It is a second off in digital time but three hours fast via the hands. I have it set to UTC-5. Since my test last year did not work, I may forget the leap seconds update and leave it alone.


Are the hands set to a different time zone than the digital display? Assume you may be able to do that.


----------



## ronalddheld

Bill R W said:


> Are the hands set to a different time zone than the digital display? Assume you may be able to do that.


When I set my correct timezone, the digital time is correct, but the hour hand is 3 hours ahead of what it should be.


----------



## ronalddheld

I have the three leap second manuals. For those who want them, send me a PM with your email address and which manual. I will start to distribute them tomorrow evening ET


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> I have the three leap second manuals. For those who want them, send me a PM with your email address and which manual. I will start to distribute them tomorrow evening ET


The M1 leap second manual does not mention when you should have the watch download the leap second data. I asked Arne by e-mail when to do the download and he said they recommended downloading the leap second information after the leap second occurs. He actually said "we recommend to do leap second adjustments after the change of the year in the furtue (sic)," so I am interpreting a bit.

I guess this means you probably can't download the data before the leap second and watch the second hand pause at 23:59:60 UTC.


----------



## Bill R W

My M1-3 returned last week from a trip to Hamburg for warranty service, as described in other posts in this and the Morgenwerk troubles thread. The service reset the watch's memory, so it no longer remembers prior synchs and any related rate adjustments. So I will start again synching it every 45 days or so, similar to what I was doing before the servicing. 

I synched the watch earlier today. Checked the watch against my GPS PPS signals shortly after the synch using 400 fps video. The watch was 35 milliseconds slow, comparing the initial motion of the second hand to the PPS signal. (Internal time could, of course, be more accurate.) This is consistent with what I had generally seen after a synch in prior tests. Will continue to test synching accuracy and drift between synchs. At some point will turn to a longer term drift test.


----------



## ppaulusz

I've ordered two Morgenwerk M1-1 watches: one for my Brother and one for myself.
His watch was delivered last week and mine will be delivered this week.
We made some preliminary testing with his watch which is far from complete:
- the watch runs at -0.11 second/day (around -40 seconds/year) at room temperature (21.5 degree of Celsius) off-wrist 
- the watch runs at -0.14 second/day (around -51 seconds/year) at room temperature (21.5 degree of Celsius) on-wrist
In both cases we measured the watch for 60 minutes (the watch only had the first two GPS synchronizations 24 hours apart as advised by Arne of Morgenwerk).
The measured rate was consistent in 59 out of the 60 minutes during the testing. 1 minute however indicated some form of "compensation"(???) that was consistent as it was happening exactly 60 minutes apart all the time (exactly at the full hour like 8:00:00 and 9:00:00 and so on). We had to use at this stage a timing gate of 60 seconds (the rate of the minute-hand) as right now our testing equipment can't decode the 3 ticks/second rate of the stepper motor of the second-hand. Soon our technician will modify our testing equipment so it will be able to decode the rate of the stepper motor of the second-hand and we might see finer details of the running of the movement. However this current limitation should not have an effect on the accuracy of the above measurements: the numbers are right!
We will follow the 45 days GPS synchronization/calibration procedure as advised by Arne of Morgenwerk and in the meantime we will conduct more testing when our testing gear will be modified to allow us to measure finer details. To be continued...;-)


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> The measured rate was consistent in 59 out of the 60 minutes during the testing.


Bill mentioned that the hands did not move together. 
So you would pick up two stepper pulses at 09:00:00. One pulse for the minute hand, one for the hour hand.

Close enough together to mess things up.

Good work!


----------



## wappinghigh

ppaulusz said:


> I've ordered two Morgenwerk M1-1 watches: one for my Brother and one for myself.
> His watch was delivered last week and mine will be delivered this week.
> We made some preliminary testing with his watch which is far from complete:
> - the watch runs at -0.11 second/day (around -40 seconds/year) at room temperature (21.5 degree of Celsius) off-wrist
> - the watch runs at -0.14 second/day (around -51 seconds/year) at room temperature (21.5 degree of Celsius) on-wrist
> In both cases we measured the watch for 60 minutes (the watch only had the first two GPS synchronizations 24 hours apart as advised by Arne of Morgenwerk).
> The measured rate was consistent in 59 out of the 60 minutes during the testing. 1 minute however indicated some form of "compensation"(???) that was consistent as it was happening exactly 60 minutes apart all the time (exactly at the full hour like 8:00:00 and 9:00:00 and so on). We had to use at this stage a timing gate of 60 seconds (the rate of the minute-hand) as right now our testing equipment can't decode the 3 ticks/second rate of the stepping motor of the second-hand. Soon our technician will modify our testing equipment so it will be able to decode the rate of the stepping motor of the second-hand and we might see finer details of the running of the movement. However this current limitation should not have an effect on the accuracy of the above measurements: the numbers are right!
> We will follow the 45 days GPS synchronization/calibration procedure as advised by Arne of Morgenwerk and in the meantime we will conduct more testing when our testing gear will be modified to allow us to measure finer details. To be continued...;-)


Iwouldtrustyou100%whateveryousayman...W


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Bill mentioned that the hands did not move together.
> So you would pick up two stepper pulses at 09:00:00. One pulse for the minute hand, one for the hour hand.
> 
> Close enough together to mess things up.
> 
> Good work!


Hans, that was exactly our guess as well but we were not 100% sure but now it looks to be the only logical explanation, so you're right that would perfectly explain the "abnormality".
In other words: right now we could not see any "_ETA-like inhibition_" process.
Theoretically there are unlimited number of methods available to execute thermocompensation (some of them spectacular, some of them hidden to the eye). Morgenwerk might have chosen a "hidden" one... Still more tests are needed to come to the proper conclusion.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Bill mentioned that the hands did not move together.
> So you would pick up two stepper pulses at 09:00:00. One pulse for the minute hand, one for the hour hand.
> 
> Close enough together to mess things up.
> 
> Good work!


The difference I had noticed was a slightly slower response in showing a new second when both the second hand and the minute hand had to move. From XX:XX:59 to XX:XX+1:00. I have not noticed anything regarding the hour hand, but also have not looked. And I think also they (the second hand and minute hand) did not move precisely at the same time.


----------



## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> I've ordered two Morgenwerk M1-1 watches: one for my Brother and one for myself.
> His watch was delivered last week and mine will be delivered this week.
> We made some preliminary testing with his watch which is far from complete:
> - the watch runs at -0.11 second/day (around -40 seconds/year) at room temperature (21.5 degree of Celsius) off-wrist
> - the watch runs at -0.14 second/day (around -51 seconds/year) at room temperature (21.5 degree of Celsius) on-wrist
> In both cases we measured the watch for 60 minutes (the watch only had the first two GPS synchronizations 24 hours apart as advised by Arne of Morgenwerk).
> The measured rate was consistent in 59 out of the 60 minutes during the testing. 1 minute however indicated some form of "compensation"(???) that was consistent as it was happening exactly 60 minutes apart all the time (exactly at the full hour like 8:00:00 and 9:00:00 and so on). We had to use at this stage a timing gate of 60 seconds (the rate of the minute-hand) as right now our testing equipment can't decode the 3 ticks/second rate of the stepping motor of the second-hand. Soon our technician will modify our testing equipment so it will be able to decode the rate of the stepping motor of the second-hand and we might see finer details of the running of the movement. However this current limitation should not have an effect on the accuracy of the above measurements: the numbers are right!
> We will follow the 45 days GPS synchronization/calibration procedure as advised by Arne of Morgenwerk and in the meantime we will conduct more testing when our testing gear will be modified to allow us to measure finer details. To be continued...;-)


Glad to see more testing being done.

Interested to hear more about your methods. I have been comparing my M1-3's displayed time to a GPS PPS signal (that lights an LED) using 400 fps video. So far, the performance I have seen, generally discussed in this thread, has been better than you are seeing, generally annualizing to better than 5 spy. I have generally been measuring over a longer period, usually 45 days or so.

Of course my method sheds no light on the thermocompensation method Morgenwerk is using.

Looking forward to hearing about more testing.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> The difference I had noticed was a slightly slower response in showing a new second when both the second hand and the minute hand had to move. From XX:XX:59 to XX:XX+1:00. I have not noticed anything regarding the hour hand, but also have not looked. And I think also they (the second hand and minute hand) did not move precisely at the same time.


Right now I can measure the rate by monitoring the minute-hand (the second-hand is parked showing the date permanently). As mentioned earlier, the hour-hand might cause the abnormal reading at the full hour.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> Glad to see more testing being done.
> 
> Interested to hear more about your methods...


Bill, my method is the "watchmaker method". I have two equipment and they do the same job by the same method but one is stationary and the other one allows portability. Both can be digitally calibrated automatically to 0,00 second/day via GPS though for the stationary version it is not necessary as it is Rubidium-based (1 second deviation in 833 years! - so it's good enough for a while...;-)). The mobile version is based on a TCXO quartz that is so stable that after 2 years it is still on the GPS calibrated value at room temperature so I'm happy with the timebase of my measuring equipment.
They both can measure the stepper motor of the quartz movement in 0,00 second/day resolution (my earlier Witschi Q-6000 tester could not do any better than this) and I can select 60s - 120s - 240s - 480s - 960s and the multiple of these for timing-gate. That is why I called it the "watchmaker method". For the actual time of day I use an Arbiter Systems 1093C GPS clock with large LED digital display.


----------



## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> Bill, my method is the "watchmaker method". I have two equipment and they do the same job by the same method but one is stationary and the other one allows portability. Both can be digitally calibrated automatically to 0,00 second/day via GPS though for the stationary version it is not necessary as it is Rubidium-based (1 second deviation in 833 years! - so it's good enough for a while...;-)). The mobile version is based on a TCXO quartz that is so stable that after 2 years it is still on the GPS calibrated value at room temperature so I'm happy with the timebase of my measuring equipment.
> They both can measure the stepping motor of the quartz movement in 0,00 second/day resolution (my earlier Witschi Q-6000 tester could not do any better than this) and I can select 60s - 120s - 240s - 480s - 960s and the multiple of these for time-gate. That is why I called it the "watchmaker method". For the actual time of day I use an Arbiter Systems 1093C GPS clock with large LED digital display.


Interesting setup. Does your equipment pick up the stepper motor movements acoustically? Or can you detect an electronic pulse from the stepper motor? Either way, it sounds like you are measuring the number of pulses in a given period to determine rate.

I have been comparing the watch's accuracy at two points in time against a GPS PPS signal, using the difference to compute drift against that reference time.

Glad you are testing and looking forward to hearing more results.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> ... Does your equipment pick up the stepper motor movements acoustically? Or can you detect an electronic pulse from the stepper motor? Either way, it sounds like you are measuring the number of pulses in a given period to determine rate...


It detects the electronic/magnetic pulse from the stepper motor.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...As mentioned earlier, the hour-hand might cause the abnormal reading at the full hour.


Having a second thought I'm not so sure what is the cause of the abnormal reading at the full hour. With my current set up I can establish that the strange reading happens somewhere in the last 60 seconds of the full hour. It would be nice to be certain about the cause of this abnormal reading at the full hour...


----------



## Bill R W

I have started a new time test of my M1-3, as it lost its memory of prior performance and adjustments when it was serviced in December/January. All measurements using 400 fps video and two GPS units, a Garmin 18x LVC with an LED PPS output and a LeoNTP unit. 


I first synched the M1-3 twice, 24 hours apart last month. 


Synching accuracy for the two synchs was similar to what I have seen before. 35 milliseconds and 33 milliseconds slow, immediately after synching. These are point in time measurements, not drift. (I may stop reporting on synching accuracy, unless I see something unusual, because I have seen it pretty consistently fall between 30-37.5 milliseconds slow. May just do these measurements for my baselines.)


I checked the watch's drift over that 24 hours between synchs, something I had not done before. The watch drifted 45 milliseconds slow over the 24 hours, measured against the GPS signals. That annualizes to a little over 16 SPY slow. Not great performance, but the shortest period I have checked, so annualization could magnify differences that might average out over a longer period. 


I then checked the watch last Sunday after a little over 6 days since the second of the two synchs. The watch had drifted an additional 272 milliseconds slow over the 6-day period, which annualizes to a hair under 16 SPY slow. A big enough difference to be visible by eye against Emerald Time. 


I checked the watch again today, after an additional period of a bit less than 7 days. The watch ran around 162 milliseconds fast over this period, which annualizes to around 8.6 SPY fast. 


If I combine the two periods since the last synch into a single 13-day period, the watch ran a cumulative 111 milliseconds slow. The first 6 days were slow and the second 7 days fast, so these results offset in the cumulative 13-day period. Annualized over the 13-day period, the watch ran about 3.1 SPY slow. 


I am annualizing fairly short periods, so it may magnify rate differences and variations (produced by temperature changes and maybe other changes in conditions) that would average out over a longer period. 


I wore the watch relatively little over the 13 days (but some). Plan to synch roughly every 45 days for a while and check accuracy every week or so.


----------



## Bill R W

As noted above, I have started a new time test of my M1-3, as it lost its memory of prior performance and adjustments when it was serviced in December/January. All measurements using 400 fps video and two GPS units, a Garmin 18x LVC with an LED PPS output and a LeoNTP unit. 


I have checked my M1-3 each of the last two Sundays after roughly 7-day periods, with a total cumulative 27 days since my last synch.


Over the 7-day period ended 2/12/17, the watch drifted about 72 milliseconds fast, which annualizes to about 3.7 seconds fast per year. 


Over the 7-day period ended 2/19/17, the watch drifted about 64 milliseconds fast, which annualizes to about 3.3 seconds a year fast. 


Over the cumulative 27-day period, the watch has drifted a net 25 milliseconds fast (with an initial slow period offset by later fast periods). Thus annualizes to about 0.34 seconds a year fast.


I wore the watch a day or two a week. Plan to synch at the end of the month, so that future 45-day periods fall at the beginning of a month or mid-month.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Having a second thought I'm not so sure what is the cause of the abnormal reading at the full hour. With my current set up I can establish that the strange reading happens somewhere in the last 60 seconds of the full hour. It would be nice to be certain about the cause of this abnormal reading at the full hour...


Just a quick update: My measuring equipment got updated and now it can monitor the second-hand with that strange 3 beats per second motion!
Thanks to this modification I can conclude that nothing strange is happening at sharp on the full hour. It's business as usual so it seems obvious that earlier when I was forced to monitor the minute-hand some "noise" leaked in every time at the full hour and that caused a misreading on the last minute of the hour though it was completely ignored in the next minute (in other words: my measuring equipment "knew" that it was just a "noise" on the full hour).
I'm lucky that I can check 2 Morgenwerk watches (my Brother's watch and my own watch). Luckily, out of the box both watches perform similarly (the on-wrist performances show -0,02 second/day compared to the off-wrist measurements) but with a fairly large difference: the out of the box calibration of my Brother's watch is -0,12 second/day off-wrist (-0,14 on-wrist) while my watch has +0,14 second/day off-wrist (+0,12 second/day on-wrist) before the first serious auto-calibration (about 6 weeks after the purchase of the watches as suggested by the manufacturer) that is due on the second weekend of March. In theory, after that auto-calibration we should see that both watches move towards the optimum calibration value from the opposite ends of the spectrum (one should speed up, the other one should slow down by roughly the same margin). So, we shall see! 
To be continued...;-)


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...In theory, after that auto-calibration we should see that both watches move towards the optimum calibration value from the opposite ends of the spectrum (one should speed up, the other one should slow down by roughly the same margin). So, we shall see!...


Earlier we (my Brother and I) planned to synchronize our watches to the GPS signal in the middle of March but changed our mind and synchronized them at midnight on the 1st of March (in case of my Brother's watch it was 6 weeks after the purchase and 5 weeks in case of my watch). After the successful synchronizations we were wondering if self-calibration did take place as well as we expected.

Before I go any further I must mention that our measuring equipment so far has been given very precise and accurate results when we used it with various analog quartz timepieces (eg: ETA Thermolines, 4MHz Citizen & Junghans watches, thermocompensated Citizen & Seiko watches, Seiko Marine Chronometer) measuring the impulses from the stepping motors of the timepieces. The results of the testings were hand in hand with the running of the timepieces.

When we initially measured our Morgenwerk watches we experienced the same: my Morgenwerk were running at +0.14 second/day at room temperature and the watch was about 5 seconds fast after 5 weeks - just as expected.

So on the 1st of March after the successful synchronization I went on to measure the "new" running of the watch with my equipment and to my disappointment I saw no change to the earlier result so seemingly the self-calibration never took place. My Brother had exactly the same experience. It was very unlikely that both our watches were faulty and also human error could be excluded as the self-calibration itself is fully automatic (it should happen after every successful synchronization regardless whether we want it or not). So I repeated the measurement in the following day with my measuring equipment, then the day after, once every day in the past 7 days. The results were unchanged: +0.14 seconds/day. Of course according to this result by now (7 days after the synchronization) my watch should be a whole second ahead of GPS time and here comes another surprise (this time a pleasant one): my Morgenwerk shows exactly the same time as my Arbiter GPS digital clock with LED display (only eye observation but more than adequate in this case)! We experienced exactly the same with my Brother's watch as well!

Conclusion: our Morgenwerk watches work as promised by the manufacturer! The self-calibration have indeed taken place and improved hugely the running of the watches (and that was only the first self-calibration and the result is already very spectacular - I wonder whether it is necessary to carry out 8 self-calibration/year at all... probably 2 or 3 will suffice to achieve less than 1 second deviation/year. We will see as next time we will synchronize our watches to the GPS in the middle of April.

However there is a mystery: why on Earth our testing equipment can't detect the improved running of the Morgenwerk?!?!?!
I simply can't detect any "inhibition" action with the Morgenwerk when I test it on my equipment. I'm measuring the stepping motor so that should show any "compensation" action (eg: "inhibition"-like action) but nothing... apart from the occasional bizarre readings at the full hours. So this is my only watch that I can't measure with my high-tech quartz tester. Why?! I don't have a clue... 
If you, Gents, have any suggestion/explanation to the above, please, share it with us for the benefit of the forum!


----------



## ronalddheld

ppaulusz said:


> Earlier we (my Brother and I) planned to synchronize our watches to the GPS signal in the middle of March but changed our mind and synchronized them at midnight on the 1st of March (in case of my Brother's watch it was 6 weeks after the purchase and 5 weeks in case of my watch). After the successful synchronizations we were wondering if self-calibration did take place as well as we expected.
> 
> Before I go any further I must mention that our measuring equipment so far has been given very precise and accurate results when we used it with various analog quartz timepieces (eg: ETA Thermolines, 4MHz Citizen & Junghans watches, thermocompensated Citizen & Seiko watches, Seiko Marine Chronometer) measuring the impulses from the stepping motors of the timepieces. The results of the testings were hand in hand with the running of the timepieces.
> 
> When we initially measured our Morgenwerk watches we experienced the same: my Morgenwerk were running at +0.14 second/day at room temperature and the watch was about 5 seconds fast after 5 weeks - just as expected.
> 
> So on the 1st of March after the successful synchronization I went on to measure the "new" running of the watch with my equipment and to my disappointment I saw no change to the earlier result so seemingly the self-calibration never took place. My Brother had exactly the same experience. It was very unlikely that both our watches were faulty and also human error could be excluded as the self-calibration itself is fully automatic (it should happen after every successful synchronization regardless whether we want it or not). So I repeated the measurement in the following day with my measuring equipment, then the day after, once every day in the past 7 days. The results were unchanged: +0.14 seconds/day. Of course according to this result by now (7 days after the synchronization) my watch should be a whole second ahead of GPS time and here comes another surprise (this time a pleasant one): my Morgenwerk shows exactly the same time as my Arbiter GPS digital clock with LED display (only eye observation but more than adequate in this case)! We experienced exactly the same with my Brother's watch as well!
> 
> Conclusion: our Morgenwerk watches work as promised by the manufacturer! The self-calibration have indeed taken place and improved hugely the running of the watches (and that was only the first self-calibration and the result is already very spectacular - I wonder whether it is necessary to carry out 8 self-calibration/year at all... probably 2 or 3 will suffice to achieve less than 1 second deviation/year. We will see as next time we will synchronize our watches to the GPS in the middle of April.
> 
> However there is a mystery: why on Earth our testing equipment can't detect the improved running of the Morgenwerk?!?!?!
> I simply can't detect any "inhibition" action with the Morgenwerk when I test it on my equipment. I'm measuring the stepping motor so that should show any "compensation" action (eg: "inhibition"-like action) but nothing... apart from the occasional bizarre readings at the full hours. So this is my only watch that I can't measure with my high-tech quartz tester. Why?! I don't have a clue...
> If you, Gents, have any suggestion/explanation to the above, please, share it with us for the benefit of the forum!


Could it take some time to process the update and correct the table?


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> Could it take some time to process the update and correct the table?


Ron, it's a paradox: the watches are running much better since the self-calibration has taken place 7 days ago still my high-tech quartz tester does not indicate the more precise running of the watches (but my naked eyes can clearly see the improvement).


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Ron, it's a paradox: the watches are running much better since the self-calibration has taken place 7 days ago still my high-tech quartz tester does not indicate the more precise running of the watches (but my naked eyes can clearly see the improvement).


My guess is that you're missing the periodic correction:

A periodic calibration correction of, for example, every hour is more than enough.

You should see the offset increase during that hour though.

The timer probably only measures rate. The rate stays constant during the hour and on the full hour there is a spike when the correction is made.

Connect a LED to the Arbiter to get the actual time and make a movie around the full hour.

I am very happy to hear that the auto calibration is working!


----------



## Tom-HK

My measurement equipment also saw no change except for strange happenings once per hour. Running over several hours, however, didn't show any shift in the average so whatever was happening at the top of the hour it wasn't obvious that it was any form of TC correction. I flipped my M1-X before I could get around around to doing temperature tests.


----------



## ppaulusz

Tom-HK said:


> My measurement equipment also saw no change except for strange happenings once per hour. Running over several hours, however, didn't show any shift in the average so whatever was happening at the top of the hour it wasn't obvious that it was any form of TC correction...


Exactly that is happening in my case as well. Since the self-calibration the running of the watch and the result on the measurement equipment disagree. That indicates a TC correction that is ignored in the average indicator of the measurement equipment. Why?! I don't know. At the full hour there is an abnormal reading that is ignored at the average counter. It looks like TC is happening at the full hour but not included for the average. Why?! Again, I don't know.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> My guess is that you're missing the periodic correction:
> 
> A periodic calibration correction of, for example, every hour is more than enough.
> 
> You should see the offset increase during that hour though.
> 
> The timer probably only measures rate. The rate stays constant during the hour and on the full hour there is a spike when the correction is made...


I agree but _similar_ spikes are easily detected and included in the average counter of my measurement equipment when I measure for example an ETA Thermoline.
We know that TC is indeed happening and most probably at the full hour (24 times/day)... I just wish that my measurement equipment would be aware of that too and would decode that full hour spike properly.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...Connect a LED to the Arbiter to get the actual time and make a movie around the full hour...


My Arbiter has a LED display so I don't have to connect a LED to it. All I have to do is get my HD videocamera and make a 10 minutes long recording from 5 minutes before the full hour till 5 minutes after the full hour with 50 frames/second resolution (in steps of 1 frame/0,02 second) featuring the Morgenwerk and the Arbiter.


----------



## ronalddheld

Whatever is going on, we need to track it down. Last resort is to see if Arne or his staff will disgorge these details.


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> Whatever is going on, we need to track it down. Last resort is to see if Arne or his staff will disgorge these details.


I doubt that Arne or his staff would share these technical details with us.
The Morgenwerk watches do seem to work as per specifications and that is what we paid for.
I'm afraid, sharing technological know how (trade/technological secrets) is not included in the price we paid for the watches.
Either we figure it out ourselves or we will never know it. Our track record is not that bad in this subject of digging out info and work on the puzzle...;-)


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> My Arbiter has a LED display so I don't have to connect a LED to it. All I have to do is get my HD videocamera and make a 10 minutes long recording from 5 minutes before the full hour till 5 minutes after the full hour with 50 frames/second resolution (in steps of 1 frame/0,02 second) featuring the Morgenwerk and the Arbiter.


Just a quick update: Yesterday afternoon I completed the above mentioned video. I found no strange activities at the full hour: the Morgenwerk is 0,03 second behind the Arbiter. The second-hand and the minute-hand of the Morgenwerk both arrive to the markers at the same time (so there is no delay between them).
I will repeat this exercise in a week or two to see if there is any change and will figure out the current precision of the Morgenwerk by comparing the two data. 
To be continued...;-)


----------



## Bill R W

I finished the first roughly 45-day measurement period with my M1-3 last weekend. As it lost its performance memory being serviced in December/January, I was starting from scratch after synching the watch twice, 24 hours apart. I have been trying to check performance once a week or so against my Garmin and LeoNTP GPS units with 400 fps video. Plan to do a new synch roughly every 45 days or so.


DateDaysDrift MillisecondsSPY Annualized1/296.24272 slow15.9 slow2/56.82161 fast8.6 fast2/126.9972 fast3.7 fast2/197.0764 fast3.3 fast2/266.98117 fast6.1 fast3/67.9550 fast2.3 fast3/125.99166 fast10 fastCumulative48.03358 fast2.7 fast

I did not synch the watch during the 48-day period. Interestingly, it went from quite slow in the first week to fast thereafter. I wore the watch intermittently, maybe on average 2 days a week. Weather ranged widely from cold to unseasonably warm.

Over the course of the 48-day period, as an absolute matter, the most I saw the watch off (as a point in time measurement) was 305 milliseconds slow after the first week to 325 milliseconds fast at the end of the 48 days. So with only 2 synchs 24 hours apart, the watch was within the specs on the MW website (within +\- 0.75 seconds over 45 days).

I synched the M1-3 last Sunday (3/12) to start a new 45-day or so period and it was 35 milliseconds slow versus GPS time immediately after the synch for my new baseline.


----------



## ronalddheld

I wish that I was close enough to those with high speed cameras and GPSDOs to do such measurements on some of my watches.


----------



## DaveM

Bill R W said:


> I finished the first roughly 45-day measurement period with my M1-3 last weekend. As it lost its performance memory being serviced in December/January, I was starting from scratch after synching the watch twice, 24 hours apart. I have been trying to check performance once a week or so against my Garmin and LeoNTP GPS units with 400 fps video. Plan to do a new synch roughly every 45 days or so.
> 
> 
> DateDaysDrift MillisecondsSPY Annualized1/296.24272 slow15.9 slow2/56.82161 fast8.6 fast2/126.9972 fast3.7 fast2/197.0764 fast3.3 fast2/266.98117 fast6.1 fast3/67.9550 fast2.3 fast3/125.99166 fast10 fastCumulative48.03358 fast2.7 fast
> end of QUOTE]
> 
> I am sceptical about measurements made over a period of only a few days.
> Small measurement-errors or adjustments by the watch-software can result in big variations of calculated spy
> My interpretation :-
> 
> First measurement is totally out-of-character. Perhaps there is some one-off event soon after re-synch.
> I would ignore this reading in later calculations
> 
> I would then work out accuracy between 2nd and latest results.
> This gives me spy of :-
> +8.6
> +6.2
> +5.2
> +5.4
> +4.7
> +5.5
> 
> I would expect the 'noise' to die away as the test proceeds.
> But I do not think that there is enough data to draw any firm conclusions
> *
> Patience !*
> To be confident about what is going on I think that you need to continue the test for at least 6 months (42 days is not enough).
> ? any more out-of-character events
> ? Reduction in noise as test proceeds
> ? Average rate over test
> 
> Then re-synch and repeat


----------



## wbird

Ok Bill I'm a little confused with your data. Is each drift reading the actual drift from reference for that date? What was the difference from reference immediately after the syncs? I mean the cumulative and the SPY make no sense to me. 

For example if the initial reading after synching it was dead on, after 6 days it was 272ms slow and you calculate 15.9 s/yr slow that makes sense, but the next reading at 13 days did it gain 433ms to project out to 8.6 s/yr? Or did it drift 161 ms and than it would project to still slow. 

The watch is performing well just want to understand the data.


----------



## Bill R W

wbird said:


> Ok Bill I'm a little confused with your data. Is each drift reading the actual drift from reference for that date? What was the difference from reference immediately after the syncs? I mean the cumulative and the SPY make no sense to me.
> 
> For example if the initial reading after synching it was dead on, after 6 days it was 272ms slow and you calculate 15.9 s/yr slow that makes sense, but the next reading at 13 days did it gain 433ms to project out to 8.6 s/yr? Or did it drift 161 ms and than it would project to still slow.
> 
> The watch is performing well just want to understand the data.


I set a baseline on 1/23 (33 milliseconds slow versus GPS reference). Over the next 6.24 days, the watch drifted 272 milliseconds slow versus the baseline (total 305 milliseconds slow at the end of the period versus GPS reference). That's the first 6.24 day period.

I then used the end of that first period (305 milliseconds slow versus GPS reference) as the baseline for the second period of 6.82 days. Over this period, the watch drifted 161 milliseconds fast (leaving it 144 milliseconds slow versus GPS reference).

Similarly, going forward, I used the point in time measurement at end of each period (used to measure drift in that period) as the baseline for measuring drift in the next period.

I synched the watch on 1/23 to start the test. The watch was not synched after the interim periods. I did not synch the watch again until 3/12 after the 48 days. I was interested to see how the watch did on a roughly weekly basis and cumulatively over a roughly 45-day period. Given travel and other commitments, I did not check the watch on an exact week-by-week schedule or hit exactly 45 days. (The 45 days comes from Morgenwerk's drift specs based on 8 synchs year.)

Hopefully this clarifies what I did.


----------



## Bill R W

DaveM said:


> Bill R W said:
> 
> 
> 
> I finished the first roughly 45-day measurement period with my M1-3 last weekend. As it lost its performance memory being serviced in December/January, I was starting from scratch after synching the watch twice, 24 hours apart. I have been trying to check performance once a week or so against my Garmin and LeoNTP GPS units with 400 fps video. Plan to do a new synch roughly every 45 days or so.
> 
> 
> DateDaysDrift MillisecondsSPY Annualized1/296.24272 slow15.9 slow2/56.82161 fast8.6 fast2/126.9972 fast3.7 fast2/197.0764 fast3.3 fast2/266.98117 fast6.1 fast3/67.9550 fast2.3 fast3/125.99166 fast10 fastCumulative48.03358 fast2.7 fast
> end of QUOTE]
> 
> I am sceptical about measurements made over a period of only a few days.
> Small measurement-errors or adjustments by the watch-software can result in big variations of calculated spy
> My interpretation :-
> 
> First measurement is totally out-of-character. Perhaps there is some one-off event soon after re-synch.
> I would ignore this reading in later calculations
> 
> I would then work out accuracy between 2nd and latest results.
> This gives me spy of :-
> +8.6
> +6.2
> +5.2
> +5.4
> +4.7
> +5.5
> 
> I would expect the 'noise' to die away as the test proceeds.
> But I do not think that there is enough data to draw any firm conclusions
> *
> Patience !*
> To be confident about what is going on I think that you need to continue the test for at least 6 months (42 days is not enough).
> ? any more out-of-character events
> ? Reduction in noise as test proceeds
> ? Average rate over test
> 
> Then re-synch and repeat
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Dave.
> 
> I understand that variations and measurement errors over short periods of time are magnified when you annualize the short period results. I also know that what you see in a short period may not continue at the same rate over a full year.
> 
> My plan is to synch my M1-3 roughly every 45 days for a year. I decided to do this based on Morgenwerk's statement that their watches should not be more than 0.75 seconds off if synched 8 times a year. I am also hoping that the the synchs will help the watch's accuracy through the self-adjustment mechanism.
> 
> As to the measurements, my reference time should be pretty good. I am using a Garmin 18x LVC that outputs a PPS signal to an LED and a LeoNTP GPS unit. We talked about this in the reference time thread and I feel pretty good that the reference time should be good to roughly a millisecond or better with no drift.
> 
> I compare this to the M1-3 by shooting 5 second clips of 400 fps video, noting the number of video frames between a new second in the GPS reference time and the new second on the M1-3 watch. I have tested the video frame rate against the GPS PPS and find that it is actually 397 fps. So a frame is 2.52 milliseconds long, which I round to 2.5 milliseconds.
> 
> I do not know what caused the odd results in the first period. But I think it was pretty clearly observed and seems well above the measurement errors I would expect.
> 
> I am always interested in comments and suggestions on how to test and measure an accurate watch like the M1-3.
Click to expand...


----------



## wbird

Thanks Bill, I understand what you're doing makes sense to me. I also agree with you, you don't throw out readings or data without an assignable cause. That's bad statistics and even worse science or testing. Just me, but I don't think you need a s/yr column considering the sync plan you are employing kind of makes that calculation irrelevant, cumulative and actual diff. is more meaningful.

Clearly this watch is performing exceptionally well, worse case looks like the watch will be off by less than 600 ms between syncs with the opportunity to improve if the correcting technology works. Good luck in the coming months.


----------



## DaveM

Bill R W said:


> DaveM said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Dave.
> 
> I understand that variations and measurement errors over short periods of time are magnified when you annualize the short period results. I also know that what you see in a short period may not continue at the same rate over a full year.
> 
> My plan is to synch my M1-3 roughly every 45 days for a year. I decided to do this based on Morgenwerk's statement that their watches should not be more than 0.75 seconds off if synched 8 times a year. I am also hoping that the the synchs will help the watch's accuracy through the self-adjustment mechanism.
> 
> As to the measurements, my reference time should be pretty good. I am using a Garmin 18x LVC that outputs a PPS signal to an LED and a LeoNTP GPS unit. We talked about this in the reference time thread and I feel pretty good that the reference time should be good to roughly a millisecond or better with no drift.
> 
> I compare this to the M1-3 by shooting 5 second clips of 400 fps video, noting the number of video frames between a new second in the GPS reference time and the new second on the M1-3 watch. I have tested the video frame rate against the GPS PPS and find that it is actually 397 fps. So a frame is 2.52 milliseconds long, which I round to 2.5 milliseconds.
> 
> I do not know what caused the odd results in the first period. But I think it was pretty clearly observed and seems well above the measurement errors I would expect.
> 
> I am always interested in comments and suggestions on how to test and measure an accurate watch like the M1-3.
> 
> 
> 
> Makes sense Bill.
> My 'noise' concern was more about how they do the software-tweaks than your measurement process, I like your frame-count techique.
> I also see the point of the re-synch to get a feel for the process. For me (& I suspect you) it is interesting to understand how it works & your method gives several instances of noisy data. So we should see if the first noisy data-point was just a one-off.
> 
> I still think that it would be good to include 1 longer (say 90 day) run as part of your plan.
> 
> I have not followed the whole thread, but my understanding is
> .. They include thermocompensation
> .. The GPS re-synch not only re-sets the time but re-calibrates the XTAL.
> So if all of this is done well after initial set-up you would have thought that 1 re-synch per year would get within about 10s per year
> Your test-method should reveal this process. If you were really evil you could put it in a hot-place for 1 45-day period.
> 
> Look forward to future results
> Dave
Click to expand...


----------



## Hans Moleman

DaveM said:


> Bill R W said:
> 
> 
> 
> Makes sense Bill.
> My 'noise' concern was more about how they do the software-tweaks than your measurement process, I like your frame-count techique.
> I also see the point of the re-synch to get a feel for the process. For me (& I suspect you) it is interesting to understand how it works & your method gives several instances of noisy data. So we should see if the first noisy data-point was just a one-off.
> 
> I still think that it would be good to include 1 longer (say 90 day) run as part of your plan.
> 
> I have not followed the whole thread, but my understanding is
> .. They include thermocompensation
> .. The GPS re-synch not only re-sets the time but re-calibrates the XTAL.
> So if all of this is done well after initial set-up you would have thought that 1 re-synch per year would get within about 10s per year
> Your test-method should reveal this process. If you were really evil you could put it in a hot-place for 1 45-day period.
> 
> Look forward to future results
> Dave
> 
> 
> 
> It all boils down to expectations:
> "I expect this measurement to be in a certain range, and if not, it must be wrong and I disregard it".
> Be very careful what you expect.
> 
> Do not expect the rate to be constant.
> Rates vary considerably even in termocompensated watches. Every change in temperature, puts the watch off.
> 
> Measuring the rate only gives you a snapshot.
Click to expand...


----------



## DaveM

Hans Moleman said:


> It all boils down to expectations:
> "I expect this measurement to be in a certain range, and if not, it must be wrong and I disregard it".
> Be very careful what you expect."


I am not disregarding the first measurement, I am trying to understand a set of data in an intelligent way.
The first reading is very different from the others, and as such is the most interesting one

My working model is that the first reading is special, so I isolate it as 'start-up measurement' and use the other readings to analyze normal operation.
But this is only my first attempt, the test-procedure that Bill is carrying out will show whether the first measurement has a different distribution to the others, or whether the unit 'does something wild' every so often. Either way it is not good statistics to just add 'the wild' measurement in to the average, its biggest effect is not on the average error but on the process capability (ie out-of character measurements greatly reduce confidence in the data-set as a whole.)



Hans Moleman said:


> Do not expect the rate to be constant.
> Rates vary considerably even in thermocompensated watches. Every change in temperature, puts the watch off.
> 
> Measuring the rate only gives you a snapshot.


I agree with a lot of what you say Hans, that is why I do not trust rates based on very short tests (less than a few days) which are indeed like snapshots. But 45 days is hardly a snapshot !
Bill is working out his rate-error (I think) as ((seconds-error at day 45) - (seconds-error at day 0))*365/45
I am still a bit uneasy that even 45 days is a bit short. I mainly worry about 'maths tweaks' which give the correct long-term answer but produce 'correction jumps' every few days. There will also be lag-delays in thermo-compensation if there are sudden temperature changes.

Is Hans saying that that thermocompensation is a waste of time ? If so this whole forum is a bit of a waste of time !
I believe that I could do this :-
.Buy a good XTAL and age it for 6 months
.Put a temperature-sensor on it
.Measure the rate at 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50C
.Make a clock using the XTAL which applied a rate-compensation based on the measured temperature
.Test the clock for 45 days at 5C, 45 days at 15C, 45 days at 25C and 45 days at 35C
.Achieve better than 10s/year deviation in each test (each deviation measured as day-45-error minus day-0-error).
I am just an amateur who know a bit about control-systems. I am sure that ETA and Morganwerk are a lot cleverer (and have cost, power-consumption and size restictions which I do not !).


----------



## ronalddheld

Do not be discouraged and keep at it.


----------



## wbird

Just a couple of things, Bill keep testing and reporting the data exactly the same way. since we now understand how you report your data everyone will be able to formulate some theory for how Morgenwerk works. Dave and Hans at the end of this 45 day period you will have your 90 day cumulative number and each subsequent block we will be able to calculate how the watch would have performed if it was not synched. No different than if I hacked my Bulova every 45 days and recorded the variation from target.

Now Hans I'm with Dave and I'm wondering what you mean by significant variation with small temperature changes. A high precision machine will show small system variation and a TC movement is designed minimize any variation due to the temp error component of the system. Like Dave said if TC can't handle +/- 5 degrees than it is sort of pointless. Care to elaborate?

Bill you out there? Don't leave me hanging, did it give a weird negative number again after you synched it 6 days ago?


----------



## Bill R W

Busy day and also had to watch the NCAA tournament game between Kansas and Oregon.


I went back earlier this week to check my baseline at the beginning of the 48-day period and then the next two measurements, the first one in which the watch ran slow over 6.25 days and the second one in which the watch ran fast over the next 6.82 days. I looked at the video clips again and still believe the calculations are correct. 


One concern I have had is whether I might not be identifying the start of a new second on the watch correctly, given the second hand ticks three times a second. With possible parallax errors or the second hand not precisely lining up with the second marks, you could perhaps have an error of a third of a second. I try to avoid this kind of error by starting my 5-second video clips so that they include the transition to a new minute (seconds going from 59 to 60), because for that new second, the minute hand also moves, which should eliminate this possible ambiguity. Interestingly, it appears that those new second transitions (where both the second hand and minute hand move) are pretty consistently about 7.5 milliseconds slower (measured against the GPS PPS reference) than the new second transitions where only the second hand moves. I assume that this is related to having the watch do two things at once rather than only one thing. 


When I was only using a Garmin PPS signal lighting an LED, I also worried about whether I had the correct second. In the past, I included Emerald Time in the video to confirm the correct second. I now use a LeoNTP GPS unit for this purpose, which displays the time in seconds and has a visual PPS signal (although this PPS signal is affected by a screen refresh rate, so I think the Garmin PPS signal is more accurate, as it goes directly to light an external LED). 


I did synch the watch at the end of the 48-day period, so when I complete the current 45-day or so period, I will not have an uninterrupted 90-day period. The synch will have reset the watch's time (the watch was 35 milliseconds slow against the reference GPS time immediately after synching -- pretty typical in my experience). In addition, the watch's self correction feature may come into play. 


I had thought that I might wait until the end of the new 45-day or so period to present new data, as that might be more useful to the group to see it all at once and more efficient. But happy also to share the first week's results. 


Interestingly, the watch again ran slow in the first period in which I measured drift. Indeed, much slower than in the first period of the 48-day set. Over 7.02 days ending last Sunday (and following a synch on the previous Sunday), the watch ran 483 milliseconds slow (which would annualize to 25 SPY -- I annualize it as a way to compare periods that are not equal, rather than to suggest what it would do if left to run for a whole year -- maybe I should use SPD or SPM for this purpose).


I plan to measure the watch again tomorrow for another 6-7 day period. Will report on that tomorrow. 


Not sure why it would be slower this time in the first week after a synch? Is this a pattern?


Did the watch self-adjust to slow its rate, as it ran fast for most of the prior 48-day period (and fast cumulatively)? 


Were temperature/ weather conditions different enough to affect it? I have not tracked this, although the watch has been inside, where changes in temperature are more muted. 


Finally, I have been wearing the watch on and off. There may be differences here in wearing patterns over short periods that could matter more than weather. I have not tracked this either, thinking initially that it made sense to me to test the watch in conditions/patterns similar to how I would actually use the watch in real life. The watch is thick enough that I don't wear it when I go into the office. I may have been wearing it a bit less recently too, as I have been wearing a new Apple Watch 2 a fair amount.


May need to do some testing with a more uniform wearing pattern for several periods. And at some point may need to test for a longer period without a synch.


As always, interested in others' thoughts and suggestions.


----------



## Hans Moleman

wbird said:


> Just a couple of things, Bill keep testing and reporting the data exactly the same way. since we now understand how you report your data everyone will be able to formulate some theory for how Morgenwerk works. Dave and Hans at the end of this 45 day period you will have your 90 day cumulative number and each subsequent block we will be able to calculate how the watch would have performed if it was not synched. No different than if I hacked my Bulova every 45 days and recorded the variation from target.
> 
> Now Hans I'm with Dave and I'm wondering what you mean by significant variation with small temperature changes. A high precision machine will show small system variation and a TC movement is designed minimize any variation due to the temp error component of the system. Like Dave said if TC can't handle +/- 5 degrees than it is sort of pointless. Care to elaborate?
> 
> Bill you out there? Don't leave me hanging, did it give a weird negative number again after you synched it 6 days ago?


I have been measuring my VHP. And I could measure its offset, how much it differs from GPS time, to well under 1 millisecond.

It could easily lose 20 milliseconds over one cold night, off wrist. If it were to run at that speed over one whole year, it would lose 8 seconds.

I had it running at 0 seconds, as measured over one whole year. Clearly a substantial difference.

If Bill notices rate differences of 10 s/yr over two different periods: I am not surprised. 
I put that down to TC doing its best, but not managing entirely. Don't jump the gun. Please let Bill continue.

Note that that me losing 20 milliseconds over a cold night, would probably be substantially more for a non TC watch.

So a rate will vary over the year, day or even hour dictated by the temperature it is in.
I remember doing a test where the rate drop was visible minutes after the watch was taken off.
And yes, we're still talking TC here.

I think the rate as measured over a year is taken a bit too literally.

You can measure a rate over a year, a month, a week and all of them will be different.
And none of them was wrong!

Please(!) read more old posts.


----------



## ronalddheld

Have we ever determined how much of the offsets come from a small inhibition period, coarse tables, and external T variations?


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> I have been measuring my VHP. And I could measure its offset, how much it differs from GPS time, to well under 1 millisecond.
> 
> It could easily lose 20 milliseconds over one cold night, off wrist. If it were to run at that speed over one whole year, it would lose 8 seconds.
> 
> I had it running at 0 seconds, as measured over one whole year. Clearly a substantial difference.
> 
> If Bill notices rate differences of 10 s/yr over two different periods: I am not surprised.
> I put that down to TC doing its best, but not managing entirely. Don't jump the gun. Please let Bill continue.
> 
> Note that that me losing 20 milliseconds over a cold night, would probably be substantially more for a non TC watch.
> 
> So a rate will vary over the year, day or even hour dictated by the temperature it is in.
> I remember doing a test where the rate drop was visible minutes after the watch was taken off.
> And yes, we're still talking TC here.
> 
> I think the rate as measured over a year is taken a bit too literally.
> 
> You can measure a rate over a year, a month, a week and all of them will be different.
> And none of them was wrong!
> 
> Please(!) read more old posts.


An excellent post by Hans! Compulsory reading!|>


----------



## wbird

Hans, to be clear "I'm not jumping the gun," Bill's analysis of the Morgenwerk watch can be viewed or treated as a classic example of Statistical Process Control applied to a process or machine capability analysis. Your post just doesn't answer the question I asked, in fact your last post creates more questions. 

First since you brought it up, you can measure to better than 1 ms, what is the error associated with that measurement? I mean we are talking better than 1000 fps video or an electronic tripping setup, to get that kind of resolution, and the error would have to be less than 0.0005s at the 95% confidence level to provide meaningful numbers. Having a good reference is one thing, being able to measure it is another. More importantly as every scientist and engineer knows if you don't have the statistics to back up your measurements, well they can't be used or published. 

Tell you what Hans I'll assume you can do it, because the second point is more important. 

Second, you don't seem to incorporate or address random error versus assigned error. In other words how did you assign the error to temperature? All machines have variability or error, there is no perfect machine, system or anything even an atomic clock has a reported error. That 20 ms error you attributed to temperature, could just as easily be assigned to a gear, oil, a bump, a measurement error, all of those things, or none of those things. You don't know, unless you have data of the normal variation of your watch at a fixed temperature versus the variable temperature response of your watch you are just making an assumption. You might as well as said on that cold night there was a full moon that night, and that caused the error. 

Now back to your results Bill. gotta assume you can measure it or we are kind of wasting our time, but based on your posts and approach I'm pretty confident you can measure it. As you're aware most machines behave with a a predictable and random or "normal" variation like Hans VHP. Your watch is showing both a random and non-random variability. This is probably because there is obviously an algorithm involved with the self correcting associated with it. But if you continue to measure it the same way we can formulate a hypothesis and make some predictions. I'll throw out a hypothesis based on your initial data and your future data can either confirm or refute it. So:

It seems that the watch is designed to run slightly fast, and this speed is the random component, how fast varies with a normal distribution in your watch. The non-random component is the reading 6 days after your initial sync which is slow. If the self correcting works, the initial negative reading at week 1 must decrease and the average and standard deviations for readings from day 7 to 45 will have to go down with each successive sync. If this doesn't happen than the other option would be that the initial negative reading at week 1 will just account for the normal variation of the subsequent weeks. Still a form of self correcting just not as elegant. 

What do you think?


----------



## Bill R W

I checked my M1-3 again today, as an interim measurement in a new roughly 45-day period. 


I synched the watch on 3/12/17 to start the period. The watch was 35 milliseconds slow versus my GPS reference immediately after synching. 


In the first 7.02 days after this synch (ending 3/19/17), the watch drifted 483 milliseconds slow (which would annualize to 25 SPY slow -- I annualize it as a way to compare periods that are not exactly equal, rather than to suggest what it would do if left to run for a whole year).


In the next 6.82 days (ending today, 3/26/17), the watch drifted 118 milliseconds fast (which would annualize to 6.3 SPY fast). 


For the cumulative 13.84 days (= 7.02 + 6.82), the watch drifted a net 365 milliseconds slow (= 483 - 118), which would annualize to 9.6 SPY slow. That left the watch 400 milliseconds slow against my GPS reference as a point in time measure (= 35 + 483 - 118). 


Note I synched the watch on 3/12, but not since then. See posts ##853 and 857 in this thread for more on methodology. Hopefully I am measuring something useful. As I said before, my GPS reference should be pretty good. The 400 fps video should give a resolution of 2.5 milliseconds. Maybe you would say an error range on a given point in time measurement of 2 frames or perhaps 5 milliseconds? Would not change the overall character of my results. 


My methodology could be criticized for not being consistent on wearing the watch or tracking how much I have worn the watch over a given period. It mirrors how I will use the watch in real life, as I do like to wear it, but it is a bit too sporty and thick to wear when I go into the office (doesn't fit under the cuffs of the shirts I wear for work) and I also have other watches I like to wear. 


Interesting that the watch again started slow in the first week after a synch and then ran fast in the second week. But not enough experience to conclude there is a pattern of this. 


In both periods, the watch ran a bit slower than in the roughly corresponding periods from the prior 48 days. It could be that the watch adjusted itself to run a bit slower in the current period than in the prior 48-day period, given the watch ran fast on a net basis over the 48 days. Presumably in determining an adjustment, the watch would know the net drift and probably some measure of the temperature changes over the 48-day period. The watch would not know how it compared to GPS time on the interim dates, as it was not synched on those dates, so it would have only its own internal time for those dates. 


When I first got the watch in December of 2015, I synched the watch every 30-45 days or so and measured drift only over the whole period between synchs. At one point last year, I did do some interim measurements between synchs that showed some greater variations that offset, at least in part, over the longer period between synchs. As a former math major with no experience in engineering or electronics who has only been following the forum for a bit over a year, I have no explanations. But interested and will keep testing.


----------



## Bill R W

wbird;40113786 .....
I'll throw out a hypothesis based on your initial data and your future data can either confirm or refute it. So:
It seems that the watch is designed to run slightly fast said:


> Wbird, I need to think more about your suggestion.


----------



## DaveM

Hans Moleman said:


> I have been measuring my VHP. And I could measure its offset, how much it differs from GPS time, to well under 1 millisecond.
> 
> It could easily lose 20 milliseconds over one cold night, off wrist. If it were to run at that speed over one whole year, it would lose 8 seconds.
> 
> I had it running at 0 seconds, as measured over one whole year. Clearly a substantial difference.
> 
> If Bill notices rate differences of 10 s/yr over two different periods: I am not surprised.
> I put that down to TC doing its best, but not managing entirely. Don't jump the gun. Please let Bill continue.
> 
> Note that that me losing 20 milliseconds over a cold night, would probably be substantially more for a non TC watch.
> 
> So a rate will vary over the year, day or even hour dictated by the temperature it is in.
> I remember doing a test where the rate drop was visible minutes after the watch was taken off.
> And yes, we're still talking TC here.
> 
> I think the rate as measured over a year is taken a bit too literally.
> 
> You can measure a rate over a year, a month, a week and all of them will be different.
> And none of them was wrong!
> 
> Please(!) read more old posts.


Sorry Hans, but I disagree with the emotion of your post
Rate-variations of the size we are discussing are not some property of the quantum uncertainty principle, they can probably be easily explained if you know how the XTAL oscillations are converted into second-hand jumps.

I am sceptical about any rate over a week, even more so over a night.

Firstly the watch has a very small power budget and has to track things to a very high LONG TERM accuracy.
You could use an embedded controller running Windows 10 and using 64-bit floating-point maths. You could 'tick' every 32768 XTAL oscillations, scale the 'about 1 second' between ticks by a factor based on watch calibration and temperature and add it into the time-store. To make sure the 'tick' is exactly at the second you need to interpolate the time-store between the ticks to catch when the tick-store counts up by 1. To get this point accurate enough to be able to measure to within 1second-per-year based on second-hand-jumps one week apart you would have to interpolate every 10 milli-seconds. All possible, but processing hungry and a bit boring. So using sneaky techniques (like inhibition) you can do it all in a 1second (XTAL interrupt) task using 16-bit integer maths. The down-side is that it might run slow for a week until it is 1-second slow and then run fast for an hour or so to catch up. So although all is working perfectly well you could measure :-
50 second per year slow (Checked over a week)
12 seconds per year slow (Checked over a month)
1 second per year slow (Checked over a year)

I am sure I can remember old posts saying similar things, I apologise for if I am repeating the obvious.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> ... Hopefully I am measuring something useful. ...
> 
> ... But interested and will keep testing....


Anything that gives you more insight is useful.
This test may not give you the ultimate final answer, but it sure is a step in that direction.

Stick to your plan. You've found an oddity that somehow rate don't seem to be consistent over time.
It has been duly noted. It is for later investigation. For now it needs to be ignored.

Don't forget: You're the one doing it. Everyone else are spectators.

Edit:
No, wrong:
Not ignored. Since you don't know where that oddity is coming from, try to average it out with multiple measurements. As you do now. All top notch.


----------



## Bill R W

Thanks to Hans, wbird and DaveM (and others) for your thoughts and comments. Very interesting and helpful even if we do not always fully agree. 


It seems to me that all of these explanations could be true to some extent.


For example, it seems in practice that TC is not perfect. If it were, why would Citizen qualify its +\- 5 SPY figure for The Citizen models by saying it applies only if the watch is worn 12 hours a day? Of course, different manufacturers may use different TC methodologies and we don't (yet) know what the MW watches do for TC. So some variation based on temperature and perhaps other conditions (and wearing or not, which presumably is mostly about temperature) seems likely. Not sure of magnitude. 


It also seems to me that random or perhaps non-random variation around an intended rate seems likely. Not sure of the magnitude. Also not sure if it would make sense to design a watch intended to be as accurate as the MWs to intentionally run fast. Would it make sense to design it to run a bit slow after synching and then run faster? Would that be more likely to keep it in the +\- 0.75 second band over 45-day periods? 


It also seems like TC corrections that are periodic could certainly influence results, depending on how and when done. Assuming not continuously (for power or other reasons), wonder what the period and magnitude of these changes would be? Suspect not too long term if MW's goal is to keep the watch in a +\- 0.75 second band around accurate time (GPS time here, I think).

Of course there is measurement (and measurer) error.


And then there is the effect of the watch's self adjustment mechanism, scrambled in after any synch. 


Not sure if my methodology will uncover all this stuff. Suspect ppaulusz's rate measurements could help too, particularly if over a long enough period to see TC adjustments. 


Looking forward to continued tests and discussion. Would be great if others were able to do some testing too.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> ...Suspect ppaulusz's rate measurements could help too, particularly if over a long enough period to see TC adjustments...


I'm afraid my "watchmaker" measurements won't reveal the TC adjustment... This is the only TC watch that I can't measure properly... 
Still, I can testify that the watch itself performs very well! 
The only measurement I can clearly detect is the "base-rate" of my watch at room temperature on and off-wrist. The difference is 0.02 second per day (without any visible TC adjustment). My brother's watch has different "base-rate" still it shows also 0.02 second per day difference between on and off-wrist performance (again without any visible TC adjustment).
Finally, let's not forget about the weird behavior at the full hour... Most probably that is when TC adjustment takes place but I can't prove it... It goes against logic and common sense still I can't properly detect TC with this watch by measuring the stepping motor.:-s


----------



## Hans Moleman

> I'm afraid my "watchmaker" measurements won't reveal the TC adjustment... This is the only TC watch that I can't measure properly... Still, I can testify that the watch itself performs very well!
> The only measurement I can clearly detect is the "base-rate" of my watch at room temperature on and off-wrist. The difference is 0.02 second per day (without any visible TC adjustment). My brother's watch has different "base-rate" still it shows also 0.02 second per day difference between on and off-wrist performance (again without any visible TC adjustment).
> Finally, let's not forget about the weird behavior at the full hour... Most probably that is when TC adjustment takes place but I can't prove it... It goes against logic and common sense still I can't properly detect TC with this watch by measuring the stepping motor.


Thanks for trying!

The trick of making periodic corrections is an ETA trick. Isn't it?
Can MW do the same without legal hassles?

There may well be no periodic adjustments.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...The trick of making periodic corrections is an ETA trick. Isn't it?
> Can MW do the same without legal hassles?
> 
> There may well be no periodic adjustments.


- With ETA it's a spectacular periodic correction. As a result my measurements over the "inhibition period" show the proper running of the watches.
- With Citizen and Seiko the correction is much more discrete like a continuous correction. As a result my measurements show the proper running of the watches.
- With the Morgenwerk apart from the strange behavior at the full hours I can't detect any sign of compensation. According to my measurements (based on the running of the stepping motor) the watch should run fast (+0.12 second/day) and in the case of my brother's watch it should run slow (-0.12 second/day) still both watches are very accurate contrary of the results of my quartz analyzer equipment.
Now, Morgenwerk might apply some trick to avoid "legal hassles" as something certainly does happen at the full hours but that "thing" is not registered in my quartz analyzer but somehow it is handled as an "error" and not included in the "average count" and that is beyond my control so I can't do anything to change that. I've tried measuring the stepping motor by measuring the moves of second-hand and also by measuring the moves of the minute-hand. Both results were identical and not in line with the actual very good performance of the watch. I must admit that I can't figure out how the Morgenwerk can fool my otherwise top quality quartz tester equipment. It's like the Morgenwerk somehow beats the law of physics... The funny thing is that I should be happy about the performance of the Morgenwerk still I feel a kind of frustration about failing to prove the trick it employs for TC... I'd say that I'm 99.99% certain that it does the "inhibition-like" correction at the full hours but I can't prove it! It can't hide that it does "something" at the full hours but it can miraculously prevent proper(!) detection of that "something"...


----------



## wbird

First Bill nice work. Your experimental design and the number of readings weather intentional or by sheer luck are ideal for determining if there is a learning or self correction going to occur and towards providing a little insight into the algorithm being employed.

At the end of the year you will have 8 discreet sets of data, with enough measurements in each set to calculate a mean and standard deviation. You will also be able to determine if that initial week slow reading keeps occurring and you could treat those readings and the subsequent readings as separate populations. Among the many things you can calculate is If you take each group and perform either a t-test or f-test and there is no significant difference between the populations that there is no self correction occurring.

Your table is fine, and If you have this in Excel the typical way to graphically display your data would be the ms change on the y axix versus time in days on the x axis. 

Bear in mind my Certina and Bulova do not behave a great deal different weather I wear them or if they sit on the windowsill or watch box. Also if you're reading the same way each time those are fixed or constant errors and will not affect your ability to see the changes it only reduces the confidence level of your conclusions.

Sorry to get all mathy for those folks without the background but since you've got that math background figured it was okay.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> - With ETA it's a spectacular periodic correction. As a result my measurements over the "inhibition period" show the proper running of the watches.
> - With Citizen and Seiko the correction is much more discrete like a continuous correction. As a result my measurements show the proper running of the watches.
> - With the Morgenwerk apart from the strange behavior at the full hours I can't detect any sign of compensation. According to my measurements (based on the running of the stepping motor) the watch should run fast (+0.12 second/day) and in the case of my brother's watch it should run slow (-0.12 second/day) still both watches are very accurate contrary of the results of my quartz analyzer equipment.
> Now, Morgenwerk might apply some trick to avoid "legal hassles" as something certainly does happen at the full hours but that "thing" is not registered in my quartz analyzer but somehow it is handled as an "error" and not included in the "average count" and that is beyond my control so I can't do anything to change that. I've tried measuring the stepping motor by measuring the moves of second-hand and also by measuring the moves of the minute-hand. Both results were identical and not in line with the actual very good performance of the watch. I must admit that I can't figure out how the Morgenwerk can fool my otherwise top quality quartz tester equipment. It's like the Morgenwerk somehow beats the law of physics... The funny thing is that I should be happy about the performance of the Morgenwerk still I feel a kind of frustration about failing to prove the trick it employs for TC... I'd say that I'm 99.99% certain that it does the "inhibition-like" correction at the full hours but I can't prove it! It can't hide that it does "something" at the full hours but it can miraculously prevent proper(!) detection of that "something"...


You're right.
A fast second needs to be corrected. Eventually.

Bill should always test at the same time then. 11:20, 12:20 etc.

I wonder. What makes your timer think that second was an 'error'? 
Too far out from the previous second?
Too far out in general?

If you can make it run really fast, could the correction then be acceptable? Not be classified as 'error'?

A good puzzle indeed.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...it can miraculously prevent proper(!) detection of that "something"...


Well, I might have an answer for what is actually happening at the full hours. It's a theory but it might just be the right one!

Before I go into that I must mention that my other hobby (short-wave radio listening also known as world-band radio) helped me with the answer (well, let's just call it a theory).
During the cold war western radio broadcast were jammed (by interfering with the radio signal making it unfit for listening purpose) in the so called Soviet-block. For example similar jamming of foreign radio broadcast is happening these days in North Korea and other "strange" parts of the world.

Now back to the Morgenwerk! If I was about to design a watch that employs ETA-like inhibition for TC but for legal reason I was about to prevent easy detection of the applied technology, I would add a jamming device to the electronics that won't interfere with the proper running of the watch but would certainly prevent proper(!) detection of the stepping motor's electromagnetic pulses. This "jamming" does not have to be "on" all the time but just when the "inhibition" takes place. Let's say the jamming is switches "on" parallel with the inhibition (exactly the same time at the full hour). I as an end-user would observe exactly what I've been observing with the Morgenwerk: something is happening at the full hours but my quartz analyzer can't detect it properly(!). Bingo!;-)


----------



## ronalddheld

ppaulusz said:


> Well, I might have an answer for what is actually happening at the full hours. It's a theory but it might just be the right one!
> 
> Before I go into that I must mention that my other hobby (short-wave radio listening also known as world-band radio) helped me with the answer (well, let's just call it a theory).
> During the cold war western radio broadcast were jammed (by interfering with the radio signal making it unfit for listening purpose) in the so called Soviet-block. For example similar jamming of foreign radio broadcast is happening these days in North Korea and other "strange" parts of the world.
> 
> Now back to the Morgenwerk! If I was about to design a watch that employs ETA-like inhibition for TC but for legal reason I was about to prevent easy detection of the applied technology, I would add a jamming device to the electronics that won't interfere with the proper running of the watch but would certainly prevent proper(!) detection of the stepping motor's electromagnetic pulses. This "jamming" does not have to be "on" all the time but just when the "inhibition" takes place. Let's say the jamming is switches "on" parallel with the inhibition (exactly the same time at the full hour). I as an end-user would observe exactly what I've been observing with the Morgenwerk: something is happening at the full hours but my quartz analyzer can't detect it properly(!). Bingo!;-)


Is this reasonable economically much less technically?


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Well, I might have an answer for what is actually happening at the full hours. It's a theory but it might just be the right one!
> 
> Before I go into that I must mention that my other hobby (short-wave radio listening also known as world-band radio) helped me with the answer (well, let's just call it a theory).
> During the cold war western radio broadcast were jammed (by interfering with the radio signal making it unfit for listening purpose) in the so called Soviet-block. For example similar jamming of foreign radio broadcast is happening these days in North Korea and other "strange" parts of the world.
> 
> Now back to the Morgenwerk! If I was about to design a watch that employs ETA-like inhibition for TC but for legal reason I was about to prevent easy detection of the applied technology, I would add a jamming device to the electronics that won't interfere with the proper running of the watch but would certainly prevent proper(!) detection of the stepping motor's electromagnetic pulses. This "jamming" does not have to be "on" all the time but just when the "inhibition" takes place. Let's say the jamming is switches "on" parallel with the inhibition (exactly the same time at the full hour). I as an end-user would observe exactly what I've been observing with the Morgenwerk: something is happening at the full hours but my quartz analyzer can't detect it properly(!). Bingo!;-)


Let's hope not! That would be terrible. But yes, it is possible.

Terrible because that way you show that you know you are wrong. Just evading detection. VW like.

It would be easy to unmask one of those. With offset measurements.
Before the full hour the offset was -0.03 and after +0.03. Whatever happened in between? Prey tell.

See if it makes noises on the radio on the full hour ...


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> Is this reasonable economically much less technically?


Sure it is! Especially if you consider the costs of developing a new TC procedure from the root or paying royalties for using existing technology.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Let's hope not! That would be terrible. But yes, it is possible.
> 
> Terrible because you're that way you show that you know you are wrong. Just evading detection. VW like.
> 
> It would be easy to unmask one of those. With offset measurements.
> Before the full hour the offset was -0.03 and after +0.03. Whatever happened in between? Prey tell.
> 
> See if it makes noises on the radio on the full hour ...


I may have to try some offset measurements shortly before and shortly after the hour. Out of town for a few days. Maybe this weekend.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...It would be easy to unmask one of those. With offset measurements.
> Before the full hour the offset was -0.03 and after +0.03. Whatever happened in between? Prey tell...


It might not be_ that easy_ to unmask it with offset measurements. 
Let's take my watch: it runs +0.12 second/day according to the quartz analyzer so the TC should compensate that by using 24 opportunities/day (as there are 24 hours in a day and as far as I know it compensates on the full hours). On average it takes 0.005 second/compensation and that is so small that I can't detect it by the video method as I can only shot 50 frames/second (a resolution of 0.02 second/frame). I hope that I did not mess up my maths as it is half past 3 in the morning here and I feel a bit sleepy...


----------



## Hans Moleman

The ETA periodic correction is a marvel.
It makes life so much easier for a movement designer.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Off to bed boy!

Have a wonderful dream of inhibition periods.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> The ETA periodic correction is a marvel.
> It makes life so much easier for a movement designer.


Yep, the ETA's "inhibition" is a beauty! Even the layman can digest thermocompensation by the ETA-method.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Off to bed boy!
> 
> Have a wonderful dream of inhibition periods.


You meant nightmare, didn't you?;-)
Anyhow, I'm off to bed. Today was fun and great discussion and to be continued...


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## ronalddheld

Good recent set of posts. Perhaps this can be solved shortly?


----------



## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> It might not be_ that easy_ to unmask it with offset measurements.
> Let's take my watch: it runs +0.12 second/day according to the quartz analyzer so the TC should compensate that by using 24 opportunities/day (as there are 24 hours in a day and as far as I know it compensates on the full hours). On average it takes 0.005 second/compensation and that is so small that I can't detect it by the video method as I can only shot 50 frames/second (a resolution of 0.02 second/frame). I hope that I did not mess up my maths as it is half past 3 in the morning here and I feel a bit sleepy...


I think the math is right in the sense that a total correction of 0.12 seconds spread evenly over 24 individual corrections would be 0.005 seconds or 5 milliseconds per correction.

I can shoot 400 fps video on a Nikon V1. When I test the frame rate against a GPS PPS signal, I find it is actually 397 fps. That gives me a potential resolution of 2.52 milliseconds, which I round to 2.5 milliseconds.

So it is possible that I might see this effect if it is there, but it is also possible that I will not see it or that results will be ambiguous. I have generally thought my methodology might have a +\- 5 milliseconds error on actual individual measurements.

Hans, you mentioned you could measure your VHP to one millisecond. What method would you use to do that? That could be interesting in trying to identify small corrections.

Uniform hourly corrections on the order of 5 milliseconds would not be a problem, I think, for drift measurements over a week or 45 days. It could, of course, be possible that corrections occur on the hour in general, but are not necessarily uniform. They could (indeed, presumably do, given TC) vary based on temperature history for example. There might also be longer term periods than an hour in the correction algorithm.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I think the math is right in the sense that a total correction of 0.12 seconds spread evenly over 24 individual corrections would be 0.005 seconds or 5 milliseconds per correction.
> 
> I can shoot 400 fps video on a Nikon V1. When I test the frame rate against a GPS PPS signal, I find it is actually 397 fps. That gives me a potential resolution of 2.52 milliseconds, which I round to 2.5 milliseconds.
> 
> So it is possible that I might see this effect if it is there, but it is also possible that I will not see it or that results will be ambiguous. I have generally thought my methodology might have a +\- 5 milliseconds error on actual individual measurements.
> 
> Hans, you mentioned you could measure your VHP to one millisecond. What method would you use to do that? That could be interesting in trying to identify small corrections.
> 
> Uniform hourly corrections on the order of 5 milliseconds would not be a problem, I think, for drift measurements over a week or 45 days. It could, of course, be possible that corrections occur on the hour in general, but are not necessarily uniform. They could (indeed, presumably do, given TC) vary based on temperature history for example. There might also be longer term periods than an hour in the correction algorithm.


My method has been discussed in this old thread.

As far as I know, timing machines measure the time between stepper motor pulses: They measure rate. How fast is it?
I measure between PPS and stepper. I measure offset. How much off is it?

With the changes in offset, I can calculate rate. But I really want a watch that has the correct time. Not just one that has the correct speed. Very subtle all that.

Igna and Jisham have been doing something similar.

To accurately measure one's watch has become a challenge. Some solutions extremely inventive and clever.

A correction on the full hour seems to me the only logical explanation here.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> I think the math is right in the sense that a total correction of 0.12 seconds spread evenly over 24 individual corrections would be 0.005 seconds or 5 milliseconds per correction.
> 
> I can shoot 400 fps video on a Nikon V1. When I test the frame rate against a GPS PPS signal, I find it is actually 397 fps. That gives me a potential resolution of 2.52 milliseconds, which I round to 2.5 milliseconds...


Bill, your 400 fps camera is the ideal tool for that exercise!|>


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## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...A correction on the full hour seems to me the only logical explanation here.


Yes, Hans, that is what I thought also up till now but a long discussion with my brother forced me to re-consider the "TC correction on the full hour" theory...

Before I go into the details I have to describe the logic of my quartz tester when it identifies the 3 ticks/second move of the second-hand. My quartz tester could not interpret the unusual 3 ticks/second move out of the box (though it could interpret the 2 ticks/second move of my Seiko Marine Chronometer clock out of the box) so it was modified to accept the 3 ticks/second move. The way it does it is simple: registers the first tick and ignores the next two and so on (registering every third ticks only). The important point is that it can start the measurement from any position of the second-hand (even when it is "off-the-full-second position" which happens 2 out of 3 times). 
Why is that so important? Because my brother made a very interesting observation: The strange behavior at the full hour is observed by the quartz tester only when the quartz tester starts to detect the move of the second-hand from the "full-second-position"! When the quartz tester starts to detect the second-hand from any of the other two possible positions (not from the "full second" but 1 or 2 ticks after that - "off second" positions) the quartz tester observes normal behavior even at the full hour!
We observed earlier that when we set the second-hand to show the date permanently (in other words stopped the movement of the second hand) and therefore relied on the moves of the minute-hand (based on the minute-hand not on the second-hand) to measure the watch with the quartz tester we always experienced the strange behavior at the full hour.

From the above here is my brother's conclusion that I tend to agree with: The strange behavior at the full hour is not necessarily an indication of TC adjustment but rather a kind of self-synchronization of the 3 hands of the watch! When the minute-hand and the hour-hand is not involved during the measurement (when the measurement is based on the second hand *and* started from any of the "off-full-second position") no strange behavior is observed at the full hour.

My brother and I agreed that the TC adjustments of the Morgenwerk might have longer intervals than we first thought: could be hours or even days!

So I started a new test: I will subject the Morgenwerk to a long test by the quartz tester - I'm willing to run the test for days if needed. Hopefully, sooner or later the quartz tester will detect the TC adjustment! I made sure that the detection started when the second-hand was "off-full-second position" to avoid the strange behavior at the full hours.

Now, Bill is doing his 400 fps camera/video test of the Morgenwerk and I'm doing this long test of measuring the stepper motor pulse of the Morgenwerk searching for a sign of TC adjustment. Let's hope that sooner or later we can reveal the TC adjustment method of the Morgenwerk!;-)


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Yes, Hans, that is what I thought also up till now but a long discussion with my brother forced me to re-consider the "TC correction on the full hour" theory...
> 
> Before I go into the details I have to describe the logic of my quartz tester when it identifies the 3 ticks/second move of the second-hand. My quartz tester could not interpret the unusual 3 ticks/second move out of the box (though it could interpret the 2 ticks/second move of my Seiko Marine Chronometer clock out of the box) so it was modified to accept the 3 ticks/second move. The way it does it is simple: registers the first tick and ignores the next two and so on (registering every third ticks only). The important point is that it can start the measurement from any position of the second-hand (even when it is "off-the-full-second position" which happens 2 out of 3 times).
> Why is that so important? Because my brother made a very interesting observation: The strange behavior at the full hour is observed by the quartz tester only when the quartz tester starts to detect the move of the second-hand from the "full-second-position"! When the quartz tester starts to detect the second-hand from any of the other two possible positions (not from the "full second" but 1 or 2 ticks after that - "off second" positions) the quartz tester observes normal behavior even at the full hour!
> We observed earlier that when we set the second-hand to show the date permanently (in other words stopped the movement of the second hand) and therefore relied on the moves of the minute-hand (based on the minute-hand not on the second-hand) to measure the watch with the quartz tester we always experienced the strange behavior at the full hour.
> 
> From the above here is my brother's conclusion that I tend to agree with: The strange behavior at the full hour is not necessarily an indication of TC adjustment but rather a kind of self-synchronization of the 3 hands of the watch! When the minute-hand and the hour-hand is not involved during the measurement (when the measurement is based on the second hand *and* started from any of the "off-full-second position") no strange behavior is observed at the full hour.
> 
> My brother and I agreed that the TC adjustments of the Morgenwerk might have longer intervals than we first thought: could be hours or even days!
> 
> So I started a new test: I will subject the Morgenwerk to a long test by the quartz tester - I'm willing to run the test for days if needed. Hopefully, sooner or later the quartz tester will detect the TC adjustment! I made sure that the detection started when the second-hand was "off-full-second position" to avoid the strange behavior at the full hours.
> 
> Now, Bill is doing his 400 fps camera/video test of the Morgenwerk and I'm doing this long test of measuring the stepper motor pulse of the Morgenwerk searching for a sign of TC adjustment. Let's hope that sooner or later we can reveal the TC adjustment method of the Morgenwerk!;-)


Well, that is well spotted from your brother.
And I agree, if you can ignore full hour activity, and you can, by starting off second, then all behaves normally.

The every-hour-on-the-hour theory falls flat.

But, but, but the fast seconds need to be corrected eventually!

Testing, starting off second, should spot a jump. The real one. I agree. 
Can you do that without having to sit there all day?

Edit:
Not necessary a jump:

Well MW might have a recipe like:
"Too fast! I need to run the last 10 minutes before midnight at reduced speed every week to keep up."
or
"Darn still to fast! Increase the dosage to twice a week"

But it will show, sooner or later.

Getting closer. One theory crossed off.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Well, that is well spotted from your brother.
> And I agree, if you can ignore full hour activity, and you can, by starting off second, then all behaves normally.
> 
> The every-hour-on-the-hour theory falls flat.
> 
> But, but, but the fast seconds need to be corrected eventually!
> 
> Testing, starting off second, should spot a jump. The real one. I agree.
> Can you do that without having to sit there all day?...


I can do the test without having to sit there all day as after every passing minutes the quartz tester updates the *average* running of the watch (in the form of X.XX second/day) and also updates the passing minute counter.
An example: After 125 minutes it would show 125 in the minute counter and let's say +0.10 second/day in the "average running indicator"...
In the case of my watch, normally it shows +0.12 second/day in the "average running indicator" (as this is the base-rate of my watch at room temperature) and I would expect a correction or multiple of corrections to make this number very close to my observed current running of the watch (based on the past 30 days by naked eye comparison to my Arbiter GPS clock) of around -0.02 second/day (as my watch is about 2 ticks of the second-hand or 0.66 second late after 30 days).

Now that is the theory... but I do face a problem that might have an effect on long-duration (hours or even days long) measurements... I live in a high-rise apartment (reinforced concrete building) so there are plenty electrically generated noise "in the air" that do interfere occasionally with my quartz tester resulting in invalid/erroneous measurements. Following my brother's advice I put the watch and the quartz tester into the microwave oven (yes, the microwave oven is disconnected from the wall power socket...;-)) and closed the door of the microwave oven (now the quartz tester is isolated from electrical interference... well almost... as I still need to power it via a 5V DC adapter - as its internal lithium battery would not last for days - and that adapter can pick up noise/interference via the wall power socket - I really should acquire a heavy duty/long lasting external 5V battery to power the quartz tester for long-duration measurements).

I started the measurements at around 4:00 in the morning and 6 hours later the quartz tester indicated +1.42 second/day in the average running indicator and 425 minutes in the minute counter - clearly both numbers are erroneous due to electrical interference from the wall power socket!o| Very frustrating but until I acquire a long-lasting external 5V battery there is no point to experiment with long-duration measurements as a random little "spark" from the wall power socket can make the result useless and that "spark" can happen anytime (it might not happen for hours then suddenly it happens and ruins everything).

Anyhow in the meantime I restarted the measurements (I've got nothing to lose) but obviously I can't expect long time stability without a proper external battery. Next task is locate _that_ battery! Well, due to this Morgenwerk anomaly, I'm almost forced to build a NASA-type mini-lab here in my home... Something is seriously wrong with our hobby... or with me?!:roll:


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...obviously I can't expect long time stability without a proper external battery. Next task is locate _that_ battery!...


Well, looks like I'll have a solution for the powering problem: I do have a spare linear (lab-type) variable voltage DC power supply unit that can output pure noise-free 5V DC and sometime next week my technician will design and make a custom cable for it (micro-USB on one end of the cable and 2 banana plugs on the other end of the cable to connect the quartz tester to the lab-type 5V DC power supply)! Add to this my custom Faraday-cage (my microwave oven) and I'll be ready and set to measure the running of the Morgenwerk!


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## jisham

ppaulusz said:


> Well, looks like I'll have a solution for the powering problem: I do have a spare linear (lab-type) variable voltage DC power supply unit that can output pure noise-free 5V DC and sometime next week my technician will design and make a custom cable for it (micro-USB on one end of the cable and 2 banana plugs on the other end of the cable to connect the quartz tester to the lab-type 5V DC power supply)! Add to this my custom Faraday-cage (my microwave oven) and I'll be ready and set to measure the running of the Morgenwerk!


I think you mentioned you were a shortwave listener... any chance you have some clamp on ferrites you could clip on the power line, or a toroid you could wind it around? Ferrites are a bit of a black art matching the impedance to the interference, but can be effective for a little effort.


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## jisham

Hans Moleman said:


> Igna and Jisham have been doing something similar.


short version: PPS and inductive pickup sensor into a computer soundcard. 192KHz sample rate means 5.2 micro-second resolution. A more common 48KHz sample rate would yield 20.8 micro-second resolution. Computer collection means it can run for days, recording the PPS referenced time of every tick, as well as computed inhibition averages (if applicable). Noise occasionally corrupts data points, but so much data is collected I just average the noise out, and linear regression fit the rate to all the inhibition averages. Currently only supports 1 beat per second, but with some "gating" that might track 3 beats per second with similar issues noted by ppaulusz, but this is un-tested. I've been meaning to add support for my 16 beat per second Bulova Precisionist, but never seem to get around to it.

Alas, I don't have to access to a Morgenwerk yet.... but if anyone is interested PM me and I can send/link to my Python scripts that run it all. They're tested on Linux, but *should* work on Windows as well.


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## Bill R W

ppaulusz, if your watch is running fast at 0.12 per day (before any adjustments), why don't you measure the offset of the watch against reference time 24 hours apart. If there is no adjustment by the watch, you would expect to see the offset to reference time grow by 0.12 seconds. If it does not, that may be evidence of an adjustment by the watch over the 24 hours. (Or perhaps just normal or other variation.) If I recall, you have a GPS for good reference time and your 50 fps video would have enough resolution to see the effect. 

Might be interesting to try. 

I do not have rate measuring equipment. I can measure offset and use that to indirectly measure rate, but don't think that would be useful for this test.


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## Bill R W

I have noticed that when I shoot 5 second 400 fps video clips of my M1-3 centered on a minute change (i.e., going from 59 seconds to 60), I see a difference in offset for the new second that is the change from 59 to 60. It is useually slower by about 7.5 milliseconds (or 3 frames) measured against my GPS reference. Note, my Nikon V1 can only shoot roughly 5 seconds of video when set for 400 fps. 

I have generally chosen to center the video on the minute transition, because it helps me make sure that I am getting the correct tics for the new second transitions. (Hopefully, this has not been introducing any systematic error or bias.)

For example, when I measured my M1-3 against my GPS reference time this past Sunday I saw the following.

57 seconds to 58 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS

58 seconds to 59 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS

59 seconds to 60 -- 163 frames offset slow v. GPS

60 seconds to 01 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS

01 seconds to 02 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS

I shot 3 clips, all with the same result. There might have been a new second or two that was 161 frames slow in the other clips. Attribute this to the 2.5 millisecond resolution. 

I have repeatedly seen this in other tests and I think I mentioned it in this thread (with less detail). I do not see this effect if I do a clip that does not include the minute transition. 

Interestingly, this effect does not appear to be a rate adjustment, as I see it only on the transition from 59 to 60 seconds, not before or after. 

I have assumed that the watch is slower when it has to move two hands, not just one. This might also be true at the hour mark. The minute hand also takes a couple of frames to settle on the new mark. 

Wonder if any of this is related to what you see on the hour?


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## ppaulusz

jisham said:


> I think you mentioned you were a shortwave listener... any chance you have some clamp on ferrites you could clip on the power line, or a toroid you could wind it around?...


No, I don't have those but in the meantime I've just ordered a _*Platinet Power Bank 20000mAh 2xUSB 5.0V *_and that should be able to power my quartz analyzer for a good couple of days:


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> ppaulusz, if your watch is running fast at 0.12 per day (before any adjustments), why don't you measure the offset of the watch against reference time 24 hours apart. If there is no adjustment by the watch, you would expect to see the offset to reference time grow by 0.12 seconds. If it does not, that may be evidence of an adjustment by the watch over the 24 hours. (Or perhaps just normal or other variation.) If I recall, you have a GPS for good reference time and your 50 fps video would have enough resolution to see the effect...


I would really like to see the TC adjustment on my quartz analyzer so I keep trying with that method and improve the chances for getting the needed results by providing better environment regarding to electrical and magnetic shielding.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> ...Interestingly, this effect does not appear to be a rate adjustment, as I see it only on the transition from 59 to 60 seconds, not before or after.
> 
> I have assumed that the watch is slower when it has to move two hands, not just one. This might also be true at the hour mark. The minute hand also takes a couple of frames to settle on the new mark.
> 
> Wonder if any of this is related to what you see on the hour?


Yes, that is what we see on the hour and most probably it has nothing to do with TC adjustment according to our latest view of the matter.


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## Hans Moleman

And I thought you had a Witschi timer? One of those that fill the whole table.
You must have a large microwave.


Guess you keep buying new stuff.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Too late now, but your computer delivers 5V. It needs it for the USB sockets.
And I would have thought that would be clean enough.

The coil in the sensor picks up noise. Faulty car ignition, fridge switching off. Those things.
Things that create a spark.

And you only need one of those to upset the average, as you mentioned.

Nothing from the power supply I would have thought. But I am no expert. A bit of experimentation will tell.

And try as I may, but I can't find any fault in your reasoning.
If off-second measuring works fine, then whatever happens on the full hour is irrelevant.


----------



## Hans Moleman

jisham said:


> short version: PPS and inductive pickup sensor into a computer soundcard. 192KHz sample rate means 5.2 micro-second resolution. A more common 48KHz sample rate would yield 20.8 micro-second resolution. Computer collection means it can run for days, recording the PPS referenced time of every tick, as well as computed inhibition averages (if applicable). Noise occasionally corrupts data points, but so much data is collected I just average the noise out, and linear regression fit the rate to all the inhibition averages. Currently only supports 1 beat per second, but with some "gating" that might track 3 beats per second with similar issues noted by ppaulusz, but this is un-tested. I've been meaning to add support for my 16 beat per second Bulova Precisionist, but never seem to get around to it.
> 
> Alas, I don't have to access to a Morgenwerk yet.... but if anyone is interested PM me and I can send/link to my Python scripts that run it all. They're tested on Linux, but *should* work on Windows as well.


This is the sort of thing computer were made for.
Measure something till your eyes fall out and record everything neatly. Neatly for later processing. The more the better, the more detail the better. Hopefully not needed, but you don't know yet, might as well get as much as you can.

Then with that ridiculous amount of data try and see a pattern in it all.


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## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> 57 seconds to 58 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS
> 
> 58 seconds to 59 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS
> 
> 59 seconds to 60 -- 163 frames offset slow v. GPS
> 
> 60 seconds to 01 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS
> 
> 01 seconds to 02 -- 160 frames offset slow v. GPS


It would be good if you could do that test on the full hour as well.
To confirm nothing happens on a full hour.

Well nothing that has a bearing on what happens after.

And I sure hope there are always three steps to every second.


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## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> And I thought you had a Witschi timer? One of those that fill the whole table.
> You must have a large microwave.
> 
> 
> Guess you keep buying new stuff.
> 
> Curiosity killed the cat.
> 
> Too late now, but your computer delivers 5V. It needs it for the USB sockets.
> And I would have thought that would be clean enough.
> 
> The coil in the sensor picks up noise. Faulty car ignition, fridge switching off. Those things.
> Things that create a spark.
> 
> And you only need one of those to upset the average, as you mentioned.
> 
> Nothing from the power supply I would have thought. But I am no expert. A bit of experimentation will tell.
> 
> And try as I may, but I can't find any fault in your reasoning.
> If off-second measuring works fine, then whatever happens on the full hour is irrelevant.


No, the Witschi QT-6000 has gone a long time ago but the replacement works by the same principles.

The computer power supply is noisy by default as it is a switching-type power supply.
The linear-type power supplies (especially the lab-type ones) are the preferred ones when low noise level is paramount.
Having said that I must add that nothing beats the power banks (portable battery packs) concerning noiseless operation.

Yes, my brother even went one step further: He believes that there is a reason Morgenwerk opted for 3 beats/second as motion of the second-hand (even though that it uses considerably more power than the usual 1 tick/second approach).
They might use that 0.33 second tick as the steps of the TC adjustment. If that is the case then my Morgenwerk makes a TC adjustment around every 66 hours (my Morgenwerk has a base rate of +0.12 second/day). 
Now here comes the beauty part: If the above is true then we think that our quartz tester would dismiss the TC adjustment and would not include its value in the average counter. Luckily we would still be able to prove by the quartz tester that TC indeed has taken place as the small graphic display of the quartz tester shows a little dot on the screen in every full minutes whenever the measurement starts with the first beat of the second-hand on the full second (it's a noise indication due to the almost but not quite synchronized motion by the second-hand and the minute hand on the full minute). Now let's say that the Morgenwerk skips one beat of the second-hand as a TC adjustment. The average counter of the quartz tester would not show any change as the tool would dismiss the whole action as "noise" but from that point onward the little dot on the screen at the full minutes would no longer be appearing on the screen as the second-hand would have been shifted from the original on the full second position due to the TC adjustment action and therefore it would not be almost synchronized to the minute-hand on the full minute (so there would be no noise dot on the screen). The above is a description what would we experience if TC adjustment would take place in step of 0.33 second and we would monitor the action based on the motion of the second-hand.
If we would monitor the TC adjustment based on the motion of the minute-hand (park the second-hand permanently on the date mark) then we should have the correct TC adjusted running of the watch shown by the average counter.
Again, the above is based on the assumption that TC adjustment takes place in step of 0.33 second! Hopefully, soon we will be able to confirm or dismiss the above assumption.


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## Hans Moleman

That reasoning is sound too.

If you start measuring off-second and suddenly it turned into on-second, a step has disappeared.

I don't like the complexity. But who knows?

What is needed now is a even smarter smart-ass who sees what should have been obvious.

But there need to be many more measurements to make something really stand out.
Unfortunately.


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## ronalddheld

Why wait to make such a large correction?


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> Why wait to make such a large correction?


Yes, a third of a second off, is too much.


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> Why wait to make such a large correction?


Why did they design the seemingly unnecessary 3 ticks/second second-hand motion?
The 0.33 second correction if done properly would still be inline with the claimed accuracy specification of ±0.75 second/year.
Anyhow, it was just an assumption from my brother's part... but... that adjustment step would explain why my quartz tester can't show the effect of TC adjustment when displaying the average running of the watch. It would explain it from both aspects: 
- The skipping of the beat of the second-hand would be ignored by the tester (would not be included in the average running data).
- The rarity (about 66 hours between TC adjustments) of the event would require long-duration monitoring and that too would explain why we have missed so far the TC adjustment when monitored the watch with the tester for long hours but certainly not for days.
Considering the above, we cannot exclude the possibility of a TC adjustment in step of 0.33 second.
Sure, there could be other explanation for the unusual behavior of the watch but so far we (my brother and I) found the above as the most probable.

The courier has just delivered the "power bank" that will allow me to carry out the long-duration testing of the watch without subjecting the tester to my noisy wall power socket. I will start the test in a few hours time as the "power bank" needs to be fully charged for the long-duration of the test.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Why did they design the seemingly unnecessary 3 ticks/second second-hand motion?
> The 0.33 second correction if done properly would still be inline with the claimed accuracy specification of ±0.75 second/year.
> Anyhow, it was just an assumption from my brother's part... but... that adjustment step would explain why my quartz tester can't show the effect of TC adjustment when displaying the average running of the watch. It would explain it from both aspects:
> - The skipping of the beat of the second-hand would be ignored by the tester (would not be included in the average running data).
> - The rarity (about 66 hours between TC adjustments) of the event would require long-duration monitoring and that too would explain why we have missed so far the TC adjustment when monitored the watch with the tester for long hours but certainly not for days.
> Considering the above, we cannot exclude the possibility of a TC adjustment in step of 0.33 second.
> Sure, there could be other explanation for the unusual behavior of the watch but so far we (my brother and I) found the above as the most probable.
> 
> The courier has just delivered the "power bank" that will allow me to carry out the long-duration testing of the watch without subjecting the tester to my noisy wall power socket. I will start the test in a few hours time as the "power bank" needs to be fully charged for the long-duration of the test.


Whichever way you turn it: You need to get data. 
The more you measure, the more likely you'll find what is going on.

As you say: Nothing to lose. 
No doubt you'll run into more oddities that give you more insight.

It may even be as simple as 'one correction every midnight'. But you'll never find out without data.

Have fun.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Whichever way you turn it: You need to get data...


And... WE'VE GOT IT!!!:-!

It's ridiculous: I'm charging the "power bank" in preparation for the quartz test of my life then the phone rings and my brother is telling me that he thinks that he was at the right place, at the right time because his quartz tester indicates something that looks very much like a TC adjustment on his Morgenwerk! He was testing the watch in the past 40 minutes when he had a look at the "average counter" and saw X.XX. First he thought that there must have been some electrical/magnetic interference (he lives in a house so his environment is not as "noisy" as mine) that confused the equipment but just in case he checked his watch against his computer's gps clock and to his surprise he saw that his watch was perfectly synchronized to the gps clock unlike 40 minutes earlier when his watch was about 0.30 seconds behind the gps clock! 
So it was very promising but we needed a confirmation from the quartz tester: in the next couple of minutes the average counter should show some proper number instead of X.XX. By the way X.XX means that the calculated number is larger than 9.99 the highest number the display is capable to handle. Though this TC adjustment was too large for immediate display presentation, the tester interpreted the number and added to the average count but needed some minutes passing till the updated number become fit for the display (any number between -9.99 and +9.99 indicating seconds/day). Soon the display started to present proper numbers and we knew that we had a winner here!

Here are some key numbers that show that we really got it this time (*= approximate correction due to the -0.14 second/day base rate of the watch):
*
Elapsed time counter in minutes --- Average counter in second/day --- Approximate TC adjustment in second*
..................*100*.................................. * +4.40 + 0.01* = 4.41 *............................... *+0.30 *.............................. 
..................*120*..................................* +3.64 + 0.01* = 3.65 *............................... *+0.30 *..............................
..................*180*.................................. *+2.39 + 0.02* = 2.41 *............................... *+0.30 *.............................. 
..................*240*...................................*+1.77 + 0.03* = 1.80 *............................... *+0.30 *..............................

We expect the next TC adjustment in around 51.5 hours time (0.30 / 0.14 x 24 = 51.42) if the TC adjustment is connected to a certain threshold value (in our case the off-set of 0.30 second).

So as they say: the numbers don't lie...;-)

We expected a TC adjustment of 0.33 second and eventually it turned out to be around 0.30 second... pretty close!b-)

Now, so far so good but it is only one Morgenwerk watch and only one successful testing of it backed by the numbers and checking by naked eye.
Certainly this result should help future tests as from now on we know what to expect and what not to expect during the tests.
Also, please note that the test was conducted with the second-hand running (though I would expect similar results with stopped second-hand, based on the motion of the minute-hand). It helps if we have a gps time-reference near by so we can check the off-set to the gps clock before, during and after the test. Certainly a Witschi-type quartz tester that "reads" the pulse of the stepper motor of the watch is a must! Also we do not know at what exact second the TC adjustment had taken place but we do know that it did not happen at the full hour!

Next step: Soon I will conduct a test on my Morgenwerk with stopped second-hand (based on the motion of the minute-hand).


----------



## Bill R W

Fascinating (well at least to this crowd). Interested to hear more, particularly on when you see these adjustments happening and if there is a pattern in timing. If they are this big, I might be able to find additional evidence of them using my video method to measure offsets over shorter periods of time than I have been measuring. 

Adjustments that are this big could also have a big impact on the average rate determination over the interim periods I have been measuring and explain, at least in part, some of the variation I have seen.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> And... WE'VE GOT IT!!!:-!
> 
> It's ridiculous: I'm charging the "power bank" in preparation for the quartz test of my life then the phone rings and my brother is telling me that he thinks that he was at the right place, at the right time because his quartz tester indicates something that looks very much like a TC adjustment on his Morgenwerk! He was testing the watch in the past 40 minutes when he had a look at the "average counter" and saw X.XX. First he thought that there must have been some electrical/magnetic interference (he lives in a house so his environment is not as "noisy" as mine) that confused the equipment but just in case he checked his watch against his computer's gps clock and to his surprise he saw that his watch was perfectly synchronized to the gps clock unlike 40 minutes earlier when his watch was about 0.30 seconds behind the gps clock!
> So it was very promising but we needed a confirmation from the quartz tester: in the next couple of minutes the average counter should show some proper number instead of X.XX. By the way X.XX means that the calculated number is larger than 9.99 the highest number the display is capable to handle. Though this TC adjustment was too large for immediate display presentation, the tester interpreted the number and added to the average count but needed some minutes passing till the updated number become fit for the display (any number between -9.99 and +9.99 indicating seconds/day). Soon the display started to present proper numbers and we knew that we had a winner here!
> 
> Here are some key numbers that show that we really got it this time (*= approximate correction due to the -0.14 second/day base rate of the watch):
> *
> Elapsed time counter in minutes --- Average counter in second/day --- Approximate TC adjustment in second*
> ..................*100*.................................. * +4.40 + 0.01* = 4.41 *............................... *+0.30 *..............................
> ..................*120*..................................* +3.64 + 0.01* = 3.65 *............................... *+0.30 *..............................
> ..................*180*.................................. *+2.39 + 0.02* = 2.41 *............................... *+0.30 *..............................
> ..................*240*...................................*+1.77 + 0.03* = 1.80 *............................... *+0.30 *..............................
> 
> We expect the next TC adjustment in around 51.5 hours time (0.30 / 0.14 x 24 = 51.42) if the TC adjustment is connected to a certain threshold value (in our case the off-set of 0.30 second).
> 
> So as they say: the numbers don't lie...;-)
> 
> We expected a TC adjustment of 0.33 second and eventually it turned out to be around 0.30 second... pretty close!b-)
> 
> Now, so far so good but it is only one Morgenwerk watch and only one successful testing of it backed by the numbers and checking by naked eye.
> Certainly this result should help future tests as from now on we know what to expect and what not to expect during the tests.
> Also, please note that the test was conducted with the second-hand running (though I would expect similar results with stopped second-hand, based on the motion of the minute-hand). It helps if we have a gps time-reference near by so we can check the off-set to the gps clock before, during and after the test. Certainly a Witschi-type quartz tester that "reads" the pulse of the stepper motor of the watch is a must! Also we do not know at what exact second the TC adjustment had taken place but we do know that it did not happen at the full hour!
> 
> Next step: Soon I will conduct a test on my Morgenwerk with stopped second-hand (based on the motion of the minute-hand).


That was lucky! 40 minutes in from potentially 52 hours.

And that was a strange set of coincidences that gave your brother that hypothesis. The three step started off as mild annoyance. Then off-second measuring was identified which put more interest on it.
Then he thought, one could hide the correction inside a 0.33 twitch.

All very, very observant!

I am disappointed that a MW can be as much as 0.3 second off.

And now I want to know how a too-fast-watch is handled. Forget about one seconds hand twitch? 
But that leaves a 0.03. Is that for the next correction cycle?

Good stuff man.
The Gods were smiling at you guys. But well deserved because of all the sheer determination.

At least you can sit there at a pre-determined time.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> Fascinating (well at least to this crowd). Interested to hear more, particularly on when you see these adjustments happening and if there is a pattern in timing. If they are this big, I might be able to find additional evidence of them using my video method to measure offsets over shorter periods of time than I have been measuring...


This time we were lucky:
- Yesterday my brother measured the watch for 6 hours without any sign of TC adjustment.
- Today he got lucky as about 30-40 minutes into the testing he experienced TC adjustment (imagine if he was 50 minutes late with the start of the test...).
- I wanted to get from him the readings at the 360 minutes mark as well but he had experienced electrical/magnetic interference around the 340 minutes mark and the test abruptly ended...

My own test is underway... so far nothing to report... I'm prepared to run the test for days if needed (only an electrical/magnetic interference can abruptly end it).


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> That was lucky! 40 minutes in from potentially 52 hours.
> 
> And that was a strange set of coincidences that gave your brother that hypothesis. The three step started off as mild annoyance. Then off-second measuring was identified which put more interest on it.
> Then he thought, one could hide the correction inside a 0.33 twitch.
> 
> All very, very observant!
> 
> I am disappointed that a MW can be as much as 0.3 second off.
> 
> And now I want to know how a too-fast-watch is handled. Forget about one seconds hand twitch?
> But that leaves a 0.03. Is that for the next correction cycle?
> 
> Good stuff man.
> The Gods were smiling at you guys. But well deserved because of all the sheer determination.
> 
> At least you can sit there at a pre-determined time.


- Morgenwerk specifies accuracy at ±0.75 second/year - the step of 0.33 (or 0.30) second fits the bill so I can't see a problem there.
- Let's not forget that Morgenwerk suggest 8 self-calibration (getting the GPS signal) procedures in the first year (once in every 6 weeks) and we have only done the first one (apart from the initial GPS synchronizations of the first 24 hours). The next one is due in the middle of April. The accuracy of the watch is already pretty good and it should be even better after the second self-calibration. 
- About a too fast watch - well, take mine: A couple of hours ago I started the test and as I wrote earlier I'm happy to run the test for days if needed (I've done all the necessary prevention one can expect to avoid any electrical/magnetic interference... still that is the weak link in my test, so let's hope the best). Obviously I can't sit there and monitor the test but occasionally I'll have a look to see if there is any sign of TC adjustment. I run the test with stopped second-hand so the result will be based on the motion of the minute-hand. Just as I'm writing this posting the test needs to be restarted as contrary to my preventative actions the quartz tester just got "frozen down"... Imagine this: my microwave oven is packed with a Morgenwerk watch + the quartz tester + the power band battery backup and I'm still experiencing electrical/magnetic interference!!!o| Crazy! Anyhow, worst case scenario: during my summer holiday I'll be out of town in a lake-side timber cottage, now that should be pretty free of electrical/magnetic noise as far as I know. In the meantime, I keep trying...


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> - Morgenwerk specifies accuracy at ±0.75 second/year - the step of 0.33 (or 0.30) second fits the bill so I can't see a problem there.
> - Let's not forget that Morgenwerk suggest 8 self-calibration (getting the GPS signal) procedures in the first year (once in every 6 weeks) and we have only done the first one (apart from the initial GPS synchronizations of the first 24 hours). The next one is due in the middle of April. The accuracy of the watch is already pretty good and it should be even better after the second self-calibration.
> - About a too fast watch - well, take mine: A couple of hours ago I started the test and as I wrote earlier I'm happy to run the test for days if needed (I've done all the necessary prevention one can expect to avoid any electrical/magnetic interference... still that is the weak link in my test, so let's hope the best). Obviously I can't sit there and monitor the test but occasionally I'll have a look to see if there is any sign of TC adjustment. I run the test with stopped second-hand so the result will be based on the motion of the minute-hand. Just as I'm writing this posting the test needs to be restarted as contrary to my preventative actions the quartz tester just got "frozen down"... Imagine this: my microwave oven is packed with a Morgenwerk watch + the quartz tester + the power band battery backup and I'm still experiencing electrical/magnetic interference!!!o| Crazy! Anyhow, worst case scenario: during my summer holiday I'll be out of town in a lake-side timber cottage, now that should be pretty free of electrical/magnetic noise as far as I know. In the meantime, I keep trying...


The direction you put your sensor in is important.
Just like with an AM radio, some directions pick up a lot of static and hum. Turn it a bit and the reception is perfect.

So try to rotate the sensor a bit; E-W that stuff.

Are you next to a fat power cable?

In that sense, the Gods are frowning on you guys.


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## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> The direction you put your sensor in is important.
> Just like with an AM radio, some directions pick up a lot of static and hum. Turn it a bit and the reception is perfect.
> 
> So try to rotate the sensor a bit; E-W that stuff.
> 
> Are you next to a fat power cable?
> 
> In that sense, the Gods are frowning on you guys.


Obviously, my apartment is a noise magnet. God knows what sort of cables are running behind the walls or what sort of electrical equipment are used in the neighborhood...
I'm sure, I would have wrapped up this whole Morgenwerk TC adjustment saga a long time ago if not for this damn noise problem.
Lucky that my other watches are not effected by this as only the Morgenwerk needs long-duration (hours or even days) testing...


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Obviously, my apartment is a noise magnet. God knows what sort of cables are running behind the walls or what sort of electrical equipment are used in the neighborhood...
> I'm sure, I would have wrapped up this whole Morgenwerk TC adjustment saga a long time ago if not for this damn noise problem.
> Lucky that my other watches are not effected by this as only the Morgenwerk needs long-duration (hours or even days) testing...


I've got scones in the microwave now. But when you're done, I'll put a radio in there. 
See what the reception is.

I expect a reception actually. Since the microwave operates on such a high frequency. It might block WIFI though.

We'll see.

Edit:
Well, your brother knows great tricks.
Reception is greatly reduced in a microwave. It did not entirely block everything.
Well worth the trouble.

Edit again:
On the other hand:

The noise a stepper makes comes from within the watch. A watch is all metal and as such a Faraday cage.

So those waves don't seem to be bothered by a Faraday cage, since we can pick them up our sensors, and therefore noises from the outside world on the same frequency would not be bothered either.


----------



## ronalddheld

I am disturbed by the large value of the correction. Not so by the recent efforts to uncover what is going on. Any reason to ask Arne and his staff how correct this is?


----------



## Hans Moleman

ronalddheld said:


> I am disturbed by the large value of the correction. Not so by the recent efforts to uncover what is going on. Any reason to ask Arne and his staff how correct this is?


I don't like it either.
Even if your watch is calibrated to the N-th degree, it can be off by .30 sec.

That is very noticeably against a GPS clock.

Let ppaulusz and Bill confirm it all first.


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> I am disturbed by the large value of the correction. Not so by the recent efforts to uncover what is going on. Any reason to ask Arne and his staff how correct this is?


- The Morgenwerk is a different concept than the other well known HEQ concepts. In the case of the Morgenwerk the value of the correction is acceptable, in my opinion.
- Asking Arne or his staff about how correct is this... Well, I'd bet that he would ignore this question. But I can answer it: the numbers don't lie and the numbers indicate a correction value of 0.30 second in case of my brother's watch. Is it an individual thing or every Morgenwerk watch uses this value? I don't know. I'd be wiser if I could successfully test my Morgenwerk watch...
- One other thing: before the successful testing of my brother's watch, he suggested a value of 0.33 second for the correction (and was afraid that that value would fool the quartz tester as it would be done as a skip of a beat). After the successful test he told me he wished he guessed the number right but he missed it... not by much but still. What it means is that he certainly saw a logic in that "large" value before it was confirmed by his successful test.
- Another fact is that his Morgenwerk has a base running rate of -0.14 second/day and the 0.33 second for correction value is well suited to this.
- And last but not least: my brother's watch right now is in total harmony (by the observation of the naked eye) with the gps reference time (exactly 1 month after the last self-calibration/gps synchronization). So in his case the 0.30 second TC adjustment delivers perfect result, his watch right now is within factory specification!
- I would welcome the sharing of the base running rate of the Morgenwerk watches in the forum (sure one would need tools to obtain that data).


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## ronalddheld

If I were fairly close to those with the correct equipment, I would want my M3 to be tested.


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## Bill R W

I tested my M1-3 against my GPS references this last Sunday (4/3/17).


Sunday was 21 days into my current 45-day period between synchs. For the 6.99 day period ended Sunday, my watch ran 74 milliseconds fast compared to GPS reference time (which would annualize to 3.9 SPY fast). For the cumulative 20.84 day period since my last synch, the watch ran 291 milliseconds slow (which annualizes to 5.1 SPY slow). See post #870 above in this thread for the prior two weeks in this set. I will put all of this in a table at the end of the 45-day period. 


I also checked my watch against my GPS references at noon, 1 pm, 2 pm, 4 pm, 5 pm, 10 pm, 11 pm, and midnight on Sunday. In each case, I did a 5-second 400 fps video clip that included the new hour transition -- going from XX:59:59 to XX+1:00:00. I also shot one or two clips just before the hour (1 or 2 minutes before the hour) and one or two clips just after the hour (1 or 2 minutes after the hour). 


Over this period, my watch seemed to run approximately one frame or 2.5 milliseconds slow per hour. 


Offset in frames at the new hour. Each frame is 2.5 milliseconds. Each measurement was slow versus my GPS references.


Noon......134


1 pm.......135


2 pm.......136


4 pm.......138


5 pm....... Measured but forgot to write down. On a plane as I write this. I recall it was consistent. 


10 pm......143/144


11 pm......144


Midnight...145


Over 12 hours, the offset versus GPS increased by 11 frames, so over the 12-hour period the watch ran 27.5 milliseconds slow. While I was unable to measure the watch at each hour over the period, the rate seems pretty constant. I do not have equipment to measure the watch's instantaneous rate. 


I see no evidence here of any large discontinuous adjustment. Of course, this does not mean they do not occur. If they are large, you would expect to see them only infrequently and I was only able to check 8 hours in a single day. Would have been lucky to pick up such an adjustment in the first test. 


The watch ran slow over the 12 hours. But over the prior 6.99 day period, the watch ran fast 74 milliseconds. Does this mean my watch is running 55 milliseconds slow per day (2.5 x 11/12 x 24), with a periodic adjustment that I have not yet seen to bring the net rate to fast? If the watch has a current base rate that is 55 milliseconds slow per day, and if adjustments are made when error accumulates to 0.3 seconds (the ppaulusz hypothesis), perhaps I would see a significant adjustment every 5.5 days or so. (Note, I have not worn the watch in the last week or so.). I am out of town now for three days but will do some more testing when I get home. 


Nothing particularly odd at the hours. The behaviour here was similar to what I see at the new minute transitions. The offset versus my GPS references was 3 frames slower (7.5 milliseconds) on most of the new hour transitions compared to the portions of the clip before and after the hour. One was 4 frames slower (10 milliseconds). I attribute the fact that I see an occasional 4 frame difference mostly to small variation and/or resolution. See post #901 above in this thread for discussion of what I have seen at minute transitions. 


Looking forward to doing more tests.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> ...Looking forward to doing more tests.


Same here, Bill. I too plan to do more tests but first I have to make sure that my quartz tester is modified for properly tracking the running of the Morgenwerk. 
I already had a chat with the technician who reckons that we should forget detecting the motion of the second-hand of the Morgenwerk but rather we should focus on the motion of the minute-hand. I can see his point but even for the proper detection of the minute-hand the tester needs to be modified. Hopefully the technician will be able to come up with the proper solution. We'll see...


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Same here, Bill. I too plan to do more tests but first I have to make sure that my quartz tester is modified for properly tracking the running of the Morgenwerk.
> I already had a chat with the technician who reckons that we should forget detecting the motion of the second-hand of the Morgenwerk but rather we should focus on the motion of the minute-hand. I can see his point but even for the proper detection of the minute-hand the tester needs to be modified. Hopefully the technician will be able to come up with the proper solution. We'll see...


I've just had another chat with the technician and I can conclude that he is not very keen about re-designing the quartz tester that way that it would be able to properly detect the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk...:-(

I'm very disappointed but I have to admit that he is right from his point of view:
- The quartz tester can properly detect the base-running of the Morgenwerk (but can't properly detect the TC adjustment).
- The Morgenwerk is "doomed" to be very accurate by default so there will be no service/adjustment needed on that watch from an accuracy/precision point of view.
- Apart from satisfying our interest in this group there is simply no practical reason to know the _*exact*_ figures/circumstances of the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk.
- Considering the above points he's right: he can't spend his valuable time on a project that only serves our hobby but nothing else (no one else would appreciate that the quartz tester can properly detect the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk but us...).

So unless he changes his mind it's a dead-end for me, I can't progress from here.

P.S.: _I do believe that my brother proved with his tests that the Morgenwerk *partly* uses around 0.30 second steps for TC adjustment (it might use other values as well) when the base-rate of the watch is -0.12 second/day but even he admits that his tests are inconclusive and he also noted some strange behaviors during testing that indicate that our quartz tester is not optimally tuned for the proper detection of the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk_.


----------



## ronalddheld

ppaulusz said:


> I've just had another chat with the technician and I can conclude that he is not very keen about re-designing the quartz tester that way that it would be able to properly detect the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk...:-(
> 
> I'm very disappointed but I have to admit that he is right from his point of view:
> - The quartz tester can properly detect the base-running of the Morgenwerk (but can't properly detect the TC adjustment).
> - The Morgenwerk is "doomed" to be very accurate by default so there will be no service/adjustment needed on that watch from an accuracy/precision point of view.
> - Apart from satisfying our interest in this group there is simply no practical reason to know the _*exact*_ figures/circumstances of the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk.
> - Considering the above points he's right: he can't spend his valuable time on a project that only serves our hobby but nothing else (no one else would appreciate that the quartz tester can properly detect the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk but us...).
> 
> So unless he changes his mind it's a dead-end for me, I can't progress from here.
> 
> P.S.: _I do believe that my brother proved with his tests that the Morgenwerk *partly* uses around 0.30 second steps for TC adjustment (it might use other values as well) when the base-rate of the watch is -0.12 second/day but even he admits that his tests are inconclusive and he also noted some strange behaviors during testing that indicate that our quartz tester is not optimally tuned for the proper detection of the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk_.


Start a Kickstarter or indigogo for a custom morgenwerk tester?


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## Bill R W

Sorry to hear that, ppaulusz. Your rate testing added a new dimension. 

I will keep measuring offsets over shorter time periods to see if something pops up. Will have to be large enough to see. Don't have anyway to automate that when I am not present with the watch and testing equipment (overnight or when travelling).

I suppose you could try some offset measurements, as you have a GPS clock. A Nikon V1, which might be pretty cheap on the used market these days, would give you 400 fps video (although you need good light for it to be usable).


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> I've just had another chat with the technician and I can conclude that he is not very keen about re-designing the quartz tester that way that it would be able to properly detect the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk...:-(
> 
> I'm very disappointed but I have to admit that he is right from his point of view:
> - The quartz tester can properly detect the base-running of the Morgenwerk (but can't properly detect the TC adjustment).
> - The Morgenwerk is "doomed" to be very accurate by default so there will be no service/adjustment needed on that watch from an accuracy/precision point of view.
> - Apart from satisfying our interest in this group there is simply no practical reason to know the _*exact*_ figures/circumstances of the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk.
> - Considering the above points he's right: he can't spend his valuable time on a project that only serves our hobby but nothing else (no one else would appreciate that the quartz tester can properly detect the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk but us...).
> 
> So unless he changes his mind it's a dead-end for me, I can't progress from here.
> 
> P.S.: _I do believe that my brother proved with his tests that the Morgenwerk *partly* uses around 0.30 second steps for TC adjustment (it might use other values as well) when the base-rate of the watch is -0.12 second/day but even he admits that his tests are inconclusive and he also noted some strange behaviors during testing that indicate that our quartz tester is not optimally tuned for the proper detection of the TC adjustment of the Morgenwerk_.


Hypotheses are unfriendly beasts.

I think you're right to move on. You could be 'barking up the wrong tree' for a while yet.

Let a hypothesis come out of the data.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...So unless he changes his mind it's a dead-end for me, I can't progress from here...


Well, Gents, guess what?! The technician did change his mind!:-!
Last week he called me over the phone and ask for some pictures of the graphical display of the quartz tester when it's detecting the 3 impulses/second motion of the second-hand of the Morgenwerk. Now, I've just called him to find out whether the pictures were any help? He confirmed that the pictures should help him to re-configure the quartz tester so hopefully it will be able to properly detect the running of the Morgenwerk. He just needs some spare time to implement the re-configuration so it might take a few days or a couple of weeks at most. Listening to him I'm cautiously optimistic about the outcome...;-)

Another news: I've just purchased (in the name of science ) a nice used Morgenwerk M3-1 that should arrive by Thursday (with luck) or next Tuesday (the latest). This is the ana-digi model of the Morgenwerk Family and it has no second-hand but it's minute-hand has a 3 impulses/minute motion so it moves in every 20 seconds. Who knows, it might be easier to measure this watch - than the two M1-1 models we (my brother and I) already have - with the present configuration of our quartz tester. I'll keep you posted...


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Well, Gents, guess what?! The technician did change his mind!:-!
> Last week he called me over the phone and ask for some pictures of the graphical display of the quartz tester when it's detecting the 3 impulses/second motion of the second-hand of the Morgenwerk. Now, I've just called him to find out whether the pictures were any help? He confirmed that the pictures should help him to re-configure the quartz tester so hopefully it will be able to properly detect the running of the Morgenwerk. He just needs some spare time to implement the re-configuration so it might take a few days or a couple of weeks at most. Listening to him I'm cautiously optimistic about the outcome...;-)
> 
> Another news: I've just purchased (in the name of science ) a nice used Morgenwerk M3-1 that should arrive by Thursday (with luck) or next Tuesday (the latest). This is the ana-digi model of the Morgenwerk Family and it has no second-hand but it's minute-hand has a 3 impulses/minute motion so it moves in every 20 seconds. Who knows, it might be easier to measure this watch - than the two M1-1 models we (my brother and I) already have - with the present configuration of our quartz tester. I'll keep you posted...


Funny. The technician wants to know what's going on too.

As if you needed any excuses to buy another MW! All for a good cause.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> Funny. The technician wants to know what's going on too.
> 
> As if you needed any excuses to buy another MW! All for a good cause.


All for the good of this forum.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Funny. The technician wants to know what's going on too...


That technician designed my quartz tester. Well, he designed a quartz tester ("_*Horometer*_")... but it was not suitable for high-accuracy quartz so I contacted him over the phone and asked him if he was interested to go "_all the way_" including high-accuracy quartz territory and GPS calibration as well? He liked my ideas and invited me to his office/workshop to have a chat about developing his quartz tester to be a real pro tool. He accepted all my suggestions and let me beta-test the new hardware/software and soon we got the final version that was so good that suddenly my _Witschi QT-6000_ quartz tester became obsolete so I sold it and kept this new quartz tester ("_*Horometer II.*_") with GPS digital calibration(!!!) option. So far so good but then enter the _Morgenwerk_ and "_Huston, we have a problem_"... 
So that is the reason why the technician is interested: the quartz tester is his product and he wants it to be perfect!
On the other hand the technician is very busy running his business and the quartz tester is not his main profile so to speak...


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...I've just purchased (in the name of science ) a nice used Morgenwerk M3-1 that should arrive by Thursday (with luck) or next Tuesday (the latest). This is the ana-digi model of the Morgenwerk Family and it has no second-hand but it's minute-hand has a 3 impulses/minute motion so it moves in every 20 seconds...


I was lucky as the M3-1 had arrived yesterday. It's base-rate at room temperature (off-wrist) is -0.03 second/day. According to the previous owner the watch is 50 weeks old and he followed the manufacturer's recommendation and carried out the satellite synchronization in every 6 weeks but he did not carry out the leap second adjustment. Last night I went to visit my brother and after the leap second adjustment of the M3-1 we synchronized our watches (2x M1-1 and 1x M3-1) to the GPS. The base-rate of the watches are not affected by the synchronization to the GPS (my M1-1:+0.12 second/day, my brother's M1-1: -0.12 second/day and my M3-1:-0.03 second/day). The next synchronization to the GPS is due at the end of May. 
Here are the pictures showing my Morgenwerk watches:


----------



## ronalddheld

Still have to do the leap second adjustment, after the next test period is over.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> The base-rate of the watches are not affected by the synchronization to the GPS


That points further in the direction of periodic corrections. 
A GPS synchronization only changes the frequency of the corrections. One correction every 7 days as opposed to once every 6 days for example.


----------



## Bill R W

The last couple of weeks have been busy with work, work travel and family events, so my testing has been sporadic.

I have copied entries from a iOS Numbers spreadsheet below. Not sure how it will format when I post this, but did not want to retype in a new table. Is there a better way to post entries from a spreadsheet?

Anyway, these are measurements of the offset of my M1-3 against my GPS references using my usual 400 fps video (shown in both frames and milliseconds). All entries are slow versus the GPS references as a point in time measurement. The times are approximate; I generally rounded anything within less than 5 minutes of the hour to the hour. Most were within a minute or two of the hour. Entries shown with half a frame were slightly unclear as to which frame I should count. I used the frame where both the minute hand and second hand moved (XX:XX:59 to XX:XX+1:00) because it is the easiest to track.

No synchs during this period and the watch was not worn at all.

Very roughly speaking, the watch seems to run about 1 frame or 2.5 milliseconds per hour slow when I measure it on an hourly basis. That is 60 milliseconds or so slow per day. Not a firm or precise conclusion, given the limited data. Also I do not have rate testing equipment like ppaulusz has.

Looking at the data, it looks like there may have been a significant adjustment between 4/7/17 at 1:07 pm and 4/9/19 at 3:48 pm. Over that period (which was between 50 and 51 hours), the watch was 366.25 milliseconds fast, when based on the general rate (if it is the general rate), you might have expected another 125 milliseconds slow. 366.25 milliseconds fast over that time frame is equivalent to about 5 seconds a month. Those days were warmer (about 10 degrees warmer than the days before and after), so that is another potential explanation, depending on how good (or ineffective) TC is. The watch was in the house, so I would not have expected the temperature inside to vary that much.

It looks like there might possibly have been smaller adjustments between 4/3/17 noon and 4/7/17 10:05 am and between 4/10/17 5 pm and 4/14/17 11 am. But less clear given the smaller magnitude.

Nothing definitive, but I think this is at least consistent with the hypothesis that there are significant discrete adjustments from time to time.

Would like to find a possible adjustment narrowed down over a smaller time window.

Table shows point in time offset between my M1-3 and my GPS references, in each case slow versus the references.








Frames​Milliseconds​4/2/17​Noon​134​335​

1 PM​135​337.5​

2 PM​136​340​

4 PM​138​345​

5 PM​138.5​346.25​

10 PM​143.5​358.75​

11 PM​144​360​

Midnight​145​362.5​







4/3/17​10 AM​153​382.5​

11 AM​154​385​

Noon​156​390​







4/7/17​10:05 AM​228​570​

11:00 AM​228.5​571.25​

Noon​229.5​573.75​

1:07 PM​230.5​576.25​







4/9/17​3:48 PM​84​210​















4/10/17​3 PM​109​272.5​

4 PM​110​275​

5 PM​112​280​















4/14/17​11:00 AM​176​440​

Noon​177​442.5​

1:00 PM​178.5​446.25​

2:00 PM​179​447.5​

3:00 PM​180.5​451.25​

4:00 PM​181.5​453.75​

5:00 PM​183​457.5​

6:00 PM​184​460​


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Is there a better way to post entries from a spreadsheet?


Good work Bill!

I personally prefer a graph.

That indeed agrees with ppaulusz theory.
And yes, there seem to be 3 corrections in there.

Not much to go on by though.

Up to .3 of a second off. That still surprises me.

The same in a graph:
The black line is the base rate.


----------



## ronalddheld

For those with the correct equipment and ambition (masochism), they could plot tue TC offsets versus temperature.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Good work Bill!...
> ...That indeed agrees with ppaulusz theory.
> And yes, there seem to be 3 corrections in there...


Yes, indeed, good data from Bill and that agrees with our theory.
Now, I have access to 3 Morgenwerk watches with known base-rates.
The watches were synchronized to the GPS signal 2 days ago.
If our theory is correct then we should see a fairly large (around 0.3 second) adjustment/correction _in the next couple of hours_ in the case of the watches that have a base-rate of -0.12 second/day and +0.12 second/day, and a similar adjustment in the case of the watch that has a base-rate of -0.03 second/day _in a few days time_. We shall see...


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Yes, indeed, good data from Bill and that agrees with our theory.
> Now, I have access to 3 Morgenwerk watches with known base-rates.
> The watches were synchronized to the GPS signal 2 days ago.
> If our theory is correct then we should see a fairly large (around 0.3 second) adjustment/correction _in the next couple of hours_ in the case of the watches that have a base-rate of -0.12 second/day and +0.12 second/day, and a similar adjustment in the case of the watch that has a base-rate of -0.03 second/day _in a few days time_. We shall see...


I can confidently confirm that in the case of our Morgenwerk M1-1 watches our theory (namely that the Morgenwerk do use fairly large - around 0.33 second or 1 beat of the second-hand - step of TC adjustment as _part_ of its thermocompensation scheme) has been proven correct indeed! Here are the details:

- My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 - 0.33 second after around 82 - 90 hours since synchronization to the GPS! He has been wearing his watch during that period which means that the base-rate of his watch has been around -0.14 second/day (on-wrist). This also means that his watch was TC adjusted in smaller (more discrete) step(s) before the large 0.3 second TC adjustment as he's experienced no more than 1 beat (0.33 second) difference (off-set) to the GPS reference time during the above period.

- My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 - 0.33 second after around 96 - 98 hours since synchronization to the GPS! My watch has been kept at room temperature during this period which means that the base-rate of my watch has been exactly +0.14 second/day (off-wrist). This also means that my watch was TC adjusted in smaller (more discrete) step(s) before the large TC adjustment as I've experienced no more than 1 beat (0.33 second) difference (off-set) to the GPS reference time during the above period.

- My Morgenwerk M3-1 (ana-digi) watch has been on my wrist since synchronization to the GPS. It has an on-wrist base-rate of -0.06 second/day. The watch so far is about 0.25 second late to the GPS reference time. I could not detect any TC adjustment in the past 100 hours.

All the above observations were made by naked eye comparison to the GPS reference time.


----------



## wbird

Just curious how are you distinguishing between inhibition and TC? Seems like the terms are being used interchangeably. As far as I can see from the data all I see is inhibition, unless I missed the part where someone incorporated temperature. What am I missing?


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> I can confidently confirm that in the case of our Morgenwerk M1-1 watches our theory (namely that the Morgenwerk do use fairly large - around 0.33 second or 1 beat of the second-hand - step of TC adjustment as _part_ of its thermocompensation scheme) has been proven correct indeed! Here are the details:
> 
> - My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 - 0.33 second after around 82 - 90 hours since synchronization to the GPS! He has been wearing his watch during that period which means that the base-rate of his watch has been around -0.14 second/day (on-wrist). This also means that his watch was TC adjusted in smaller (more discrete) step(s) before the large 0.3 second TC adjustment as he's experienced no more than 1 beat (0.33 second) difference (off-set) to the GPS reference time during the above period.
> 
> - My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 - 0.33 second after around 96 - 98 hours since synchronization to the GPS! My watch has been kept at room temperature during this period which means that the base-rate of my watch has been exactly +0.14 second/day (off-wrist). This also means that my watch was TC adjusted in smaller (more discrete) step(s) before the large TC adjustment as I've experienced no more than 1 beat (0.33 second) difference (off-set) to the GPS reference time during the above period.
> 
> - My Morgenwerk M3-1 (ana-digi) watch has been on my wrist since synchronization to the GPS. It has an on-wrist base-rate of -0.06 second/day. The watch so far is about 0.25 second late to the GPS reference time. I could not detect any TC adjustment in the past 100 hours.
> 
> All the above observations were made by naked eye comparison to the GPS reference time.


Gee, that's almost a carbon copy of ETA.
I have some questions still. But I need to re-read a bit too.


Bill's main jump was almost 600 ms. Did we miss one? Or is the jump 300 or 600 ms?
The correction period is determined by the main rate. Does it never change? If the temperature corrections are separate, it could stay the same for life.
How is that going to help Bill? If the correction period is constant, he can factor that into his testing. Anyone new needs to work out their correction period.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Gee, that's almost a carbon copy of ETA.
> I have some questions still. But I need to re-read a bit too.
> 
> 
> Bill's main jump was almost 600 ms. Did we miss one? Or is the jump 300 or 600 ms?
> The correction period is determined by the main rate. Does it never change? If the temperature corrections are separate, it could stay the same for life.
> How is that going to help Bill? If the correction period is constant, he can factor that into his testing. Anyone new needs to work out their correction period.


The difference between my 2 measurements was 366.25 milliseconds fast. They were taken 50 to 51 hours apart. So if my M1-3 has a base rate of approximately 2.5 milliseconds slow per hour, the net correction should be about 125 milliseconds more, for a total net correction of 491 milliseconds (366.25 + 125). Perhaps one correction of 333 milliseconds (0.333 seconds) or so plus one or more smaller corrections?

I took some more measurements on Saturday and Sunday, hoping to catch a correction in a smaller window. Unfortunately, given family events, I haven't had time to go through the video clips yet to analyze the data. Out of town for a few days, so will have to review when I get home.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> The difference between my 2 measurements was 366.25 milliseconds fast. They were taken 50 to 51 hours apart. So if my M1-3 has a base rate of approximately 2.5 milliseconds slow per hour, the net correction should be about 125 milliseconds more, for a total net correction of 491 milliseconds (366.25 + 125). Perhaps one correction of 333 milliseconds (0.333 seconds) or so plus one or more smaller corrections?
> 
> I took some more measurements on Saturday and Sunday, hoping to catch a correction in a smaller window. Unfortunately, given family events, I haven't had time to go through the video clips yet to analyze the data. Out of town for a few days, so will have to review when I get home.


First things first.
Agreed, too early for all that.

So far, we've not been too far off!


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Gee, that's almost a carbon copy of ETA...


In a sense that it is not a continuous TC correction in very discrete steps ("_Japanese style_") yes, it is ETA-like but the ETA Thermolines use strict inhibition periods (either 4 or 8 or 16 minutes) while the Morgenwerk M1 (and perhaps the M3 as well but yet to see it) waits for the critical threshold of around 0.33 second to make a fairly large step of TC adjustment (around 0.33 second)... and of course what about the discrete TC adjustment(s) that _help(s)_ to reach that critical threshold?
_
If/when_ the technician fixes (makes it fully Morgenwerk-compatible) our quartz tester then the TC concept of the Morgenwerk will be fully revealed.
Let's not forget that our quartz tester is already _partly_ Morgenwerk-compatible as it can detect the base-rate of the Morgenwerk. Thanks to that I can report that _so far_ it looks like that the base-rate of the Morgenwerk never changes (it's not affected by the _self-learning_ of the watch) but of course the base-rate itself can vary from sample to sample (from watch to watch).


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> In a sense that it is not a continuous TC correction in very discrete steps ("_Japanese style_") yes, it is ETA-like but the ETA Thermolines use strict inhibition periods (either 4 or 8 or 16 minutes) while the Morgenwerk M1 (and perhaps the M3 as well but yet to see it) waits for the critical threshold of around 0.33 second to make a fairly large step of TC adjustment (around 0.33 second)... and of course what about the discrete TC adjustment(s) that _help(s)_ to reach that critical threshold?
> _
> If/when_ the technician fixes (makes it fully Morgenwerk-compatible) our quartz tester then the TC concept of the Morgenwerk will be fully revealed.
> Let's not forget that our quartz tester is already _partly_ Morgenwerk-compatible as it can detect the base-rate of the Morgenwerk. Thanks to that I can report that _so far_ it looks like that the base-rate of the Morgenwerk never changes (it's not affected by the _self-learning_ of the watch) but of course the base-rate itself can vary from sample to sample (from watch to watch).


It has been very interesting so far. 
Look forward to the rest.

One of those stories no one really knows the ending of. Well there are a few who won't tell...


----------



## ronalddheld

Anyone object to my asking Arne some TC questions, even if he does not answer?


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> Anyone object to my asking Arne some TC questions, even if he does not answer?


No objection by me, Ron. Feel free to share our findings with him as it only can help, in my opinion. Good luck!;-)


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> Anyone object to my asking Arne some TC questions, even if he does not answer?


Sounds like a good idea. Arne has generally answered the questions I have asked in the past, but they were probably on less sensitive topics.


----------



## ronalddheld

Besides verifying the .33s correction, any other questions (inhibition period?)?


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> Besides verifying the .33s correction, any other questions (inhibition period?)?


I'd say that if you let him know about our findings regarding to the TZ adjustment/correction of the Morgenwerk his reaction could be:
- ignoring/not answering your question (most probable outcome, in my opinion)
- declaring the topic off limits 
- confirming your info and adding further details to it (least probable outcome, in my opinion)


----------



## ronalddheld

What is the best email, since I assume the hello.. one is out of date?


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> What is the best email, since I assume the hello.. one is out of date?


If the "_hello..._" one is out of date then I don't know any other...:-s


----------



## ronalddheld

On the current Morgenwerk site I did not notice any contact information.


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> What is the best email, since I assume the hello.. one is out of date?


I used the hello... address a couple of weeks ago to ask about getting a new keeper for my rubber strap after my keeper broke. Arne replied to the email I sent to that address (and said he would send me a new one with no charge).


----------



## wbird

So whatcha you gonna ask? Maybe....

- The inhibition amount and period?

- Did you see, or does the MW use asservissement?

- Maybe if there is GPS initial correction built in? 

- As far as a TC and self correction, I could be wrong but does anyone have any data showing rate vs, temp, or evidence of self correction with time or successive syncs to formulate a question?

Looking forward to the answers you get.


----------



## ronalddheld

I sent out an email early this morning ET. No reply yet, but I can always send another one in a few days.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 - 0.33 second after around 82 - 90 hours since synchronization to the GPS! He has been wearing his watch during that period which means that the base-rate of his watch has been around -0.14 second/day (on-wrist). This also means that his watch was TC adjusted in smaller (more discrete) step(s) before the large 0.3 second TC adjustment as he's experienced no more than 1 beat (0.33 second) difference (off-set) to the GPS reference time during the above period...


Just a quick update: My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.33 second the 2nd time since synchronization to the GPS (165 hours after the GPS synchronization)! Now, the watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.33 second the 2nd time since synchronization to the GPS (165 hours after the GPS synchronization)! Now, the watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


Meaning that the periodic nature of these 0.33 corrections is now proven.
First correction : 82 - 90 hrs.
Second correction : 165 hrs.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Meaning that the periodic nature of these 0.33 corrections is now proven.
> First correction : 82 - 90 hrs.
> Second correction : 165 hrs.


Exactly!:-! By the way, if it's done correctly then the 0.33 second correction is perfectly suitable to achieve the factory specification (±0.75 seconds per year).

My M1-1 should make its 2nd correction within hours (the watch right now is 1 beat of the second-hand ahead = +0.33 second) and my 3-1 should make its 1st correction soon (probably within hours) as it is right now around 0.33 second behind (-0.33 second).

My brother and I plan to skip the next scheduled synchronization to the GPS (it's due at the end of May) if our watch(es) keep(s) perfect time (slowly drifting away by 0.33 second and then getting TC adjusted by 0.33 second) in the mean time. In that case we would wait with the synchronization to the GPS till the watch(es) would show bigger than 0.75 second off-set to the GPS reference time.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Exactly!:-! By the way, if it's done correctly then the 0.33 second correction is perfectly suitable to achieve the factory specification (±0.75 seconds per year).
> 
> My M1-1 should make its 2nd correction within hours (the watch right now is 1 beat of the second-hand ahead = +0.33 second) and my 3-1 should make its 1st correction soon (probably within hours) as it is right now around 0.33 second behind (-0.33 second).
> 
> My brother and I plan to skip the next scheduled synchronization to the GPS (it's due at the end of May) if our watch(es) keep(s) perfect time (slowly drifting away by 0.33 second and then getting TC adjusted by 0.33 second) in the mean time. In that case we would wait with the synchronization to the GPS till the watch(es) would show bigger than 0.75 second off-set to the GPS reference time.


The 'self calibration' functionality has not been tested as far as I remember.
The 0.33 corrections were confusing things.

That's the crux of the argument:
The watch knows the time very well internally. It just does not bother to show that time to the user.

The watch may or may not be up to date with its corrections. And it may or may not be 0.33 seconds out.

Strange.


----------



## ronalddheld

Hans Moleman said:


> The 'self calibration' functionality has not been tested as far as I remember.
> The 0.33 corrections were confusing things.
> 
> That's the crux of the argument:
> The watch knows the time very well internally. It just does not bother to show that time to the user.
> 
> The watch may or may not be up to date with its corrections. And it may or may not be 0.33 seconds out.
> 
> Strange.


I am clueless why the watch does not tell me the time it knows about.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> The 'self calibration' functionality has not been tested as far as I remember...


Before the first proper self-calibration (6 weeks after receiving the watches) both watches run by their base-rate seemingly without any TC adjustment so my brother's watch was running about -1 second/week and mine was running around +1 second/week. At the 6 weeks synchronization to the GPS both watches were more than 5 seconds off-set to the GPS reference time. That was back then and now my brother's watch is never off by more than 0.33 second so self-calibration seems to work very well.


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> I am clueless why the watch does not tell me the time it knows about.


Could be a "patent" issue... I'm just speculating here. 
However, the watch can be well within specifications even with this 0.33 second step of TC adjustment.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 - 0.33 second after around 96 - 98 hours since synchronization to the GPS! My watch has been kept at room temperature during this period which means that the base-rate of my watch has been exactly +0.14 second/day (off-wrist). This also means that my watch was TC adjusted in smaller (more discrete) step(s) before the large TC adjustment as I've experienced no more than 1 beat (0.33 second) difference (off-set) to the GPS reference time during the above period...


Just a quick update: My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.33 second the 2nd time since synchronization to the GPS (195 hours after the GPS synchronization)! Now, the watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


----------



## Bill R W

I have been hoping to "see" an adjustment occurring on my M1-3 over a short interval. I took a number of measurements (the usual 400 GPS video clips of the watch and my two GPS references) last weekend (4/15 and 4/16), but did not have time to review them until this morning. 


Most of the clips seem to show the watch running about 1 frame (2.5 milliseconds) slow per hour, similar to what I saw in earlier measurements referenced above in this thead.


However, I believe one set shows an adjustment. I shot one clip at 1:01 pm on 4/16 where the watch was 227 frames or 567.5 milliseconds slow against my GPS references. The next clip was taken at 1:59 pm (also on 4/16) and showed the watch only 31 frames or 75 milliseconds slow against my GPS references. 


So the watch gained 196 frames or 490 milliseconds in that 58 minutes against the GPS references. Interesting that the adjustment did not occur on the hour and was more than 333 milliseconds. So perhaps there was one big adjustment and one or more smaller ones. 490 (or maybe 490 + 2.5) is not quite 1.5 times 333, but close. 


Will look more at the rest of the data to see if I see any other evidence of adjustments.


As of 4/16, the watch had run 35 days since it's last synch. Will synch sometimes over the next week or so. Sunday will be 42 days since the last synch.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I have been hoping to "see" an adjustment occurring on my M1-3 over a short interval. I took a number of measurements (the usual 400 GPS video clips of the watch and my two GPS references) last weekend (4/15 and 4/16), but did not have time to review them until this morning.
> 
> 
> Most of the clips seem to show the watch running about 1 frame (2.5 milliseconds) slow per hour, similar to what I saw in earlier measurements referenced above in this thead.
> 
> 
> However, I believe one set shows an adjustment. I shot one clip at 1:01 pm on 4/16 where the watch was 227 frames or 567.5 milliseconds slow against my GPS references. The next clip was taken at 1:59 pm (also on 4/16) and showed the watch only 31 frames or 75 milliseconds slow against my GPS references.
> 
> 
> So the watch gained 196 frames or 490 milliseconds in that 58 minutes against the GPS references. Interesting that the adjustment did not occur on the hour and was more than 333 milliseconds. So perhaps there was one big adjustment and one or more smaller ones. 490 (or maybe 490 + 2.5) is not quite 1.5 times 333, but close.
> 
> 
> Will look more at the rest of the data to see if I see any other evidence of adjustments.
> 
> 
> As of 4/16, the watch had run 35 days since it's last synch. Will synch sometimes over the next week or so. Sunday will be 42 days since the last synch.


What if the watch determines that a correction is 'inconvenient' and will need to be postponed?
And it then continues till the next scheduled correction with double the usual quota?

All very speculative. And in that theory, your watch seems to postpone them a lot.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> What if the watch determines that a correction is 'inconvenient' and will need to be postponed?
> And it then continues till the next scheduled correction with double the usual quota?
> 
> All very speculative. And in that theory, your watch seems to postpone them a lot.


After the initial self-learning periods (no more than a year) the watch should be within factory specifications (±0.75 second from the GPS reference time) if used in similar manner and in similar environment as in the past months or so - at least that is _my strict interpretation of the factory specifications_...;-) _Based on that interpretation_ there is not much room for postponed correction (there is a little but not much).

By the way, my M3-1 (the ana-digi Morgenwerk) has not made any large step TC adjustment (it might not made any discrete one either) in the past 9.5 days since synchronization to the GPS. Right now it is at least 0.5 second behind of the GPS reference time (but still within the 0.75 second factory specification). This watch is exactly 1 year old but I only received it 10 days ago (as a used watch) so I still try to figure out its method of TC. If it works similarly to the M1-1 then a major TC adjustment is overdue. The watch has been on-wrist since I got it and its base-rate (on-wrist) is -0.06 second/day...


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> After the initial self-learning periods (no more than a year) the watch should be within factory specifications (±0.75 second from the GPS reference time) if used in similar manner and in similar environment as in the past months or so - at least that is _my strict interpretation of the factory specifications_...;-) _Based on that interpretation_ there is not much room for postponed correction (there is a little but not much).
> 
> By the way, my M3-1 (the ana-digi Morgenwerk) has not made any large step TC adjustment (it might not made any discrete one either) in the past 9.5 days since synchronization to the GPS. Right now it is at least 0.5 second behind of the GPS reference time (but still within the 0.75 second factory specification). This watch is exactly 1 year old but I only received it 10 days ago (as a used watch) so I still try to figure out its method of TC. If it works similarly to the M1-1 then a major TC adjustment is overdue. The watch has been on-wrist since I got it and its base-rate (on-wrist) is -0.06 second/day...


And I thought 0.3 second out was bad. Half a second is quite normal too.
That leave 0.25 for your 'factory specifications'.

I can't see what's going on. I'd love to see that machine of yours rattle out a few weeks of measurements.

Is the correction always the same. Is the period between corrections always the same.

Another theory:
MW reasoning could be something like:
- I'll do corrections every 90 hours
- If my correction is under 0.33, I won't do any. It will accumulate.

Your brother's watch and your's have a high standard rate. The offset can't accumulate like Bill's or your M3-1.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...I can't see what's going on. I'd love to see that machine of yours rattle out a few weeks of measurements.
> 
> Is the correction always the same. Is the period between corrections always the same.
> 
> Another theory:
> MW reasoning could be something like:
> - I'll do corrections every 90 hours
> - If my correction is under 0.33, I won't do any. It will accumulate.
> 
> Your brother's watch and your's have a high standard rate. The offset can't accumulate like Bill's or your M3-1.


Based on the observation of the past 10 days (since the synchronization to the GPS):
- my brother's M1-1 does a large (about 0.33 second) TC adjustment once in every 82.5 hours (there seems to be discrete adjustment(s) before that main one).
- my M1-1 does a large (about 0.33 second) TC adjustment once in every 97.5 hours (there seems to be discrete adjustment(s) before that main one).
- my M3-1 has not done any major TC adjustment yet and most probably has not done any discrete one either.

The execution of the TC adjustment _might be_ influenced by these characteristics:
- both M1-1 watches have a pretty high base-rate: around 0.14 second/day (in this case the direction might has not much significance as most probably the size matters mainly).
- my M3-1 watch has a much smaller base-rate: around 0.06 second/day.
- the finest resolution of the M1-1 is 0.33 second (1 tick of the second-hand).
- the finest resolution of the M3-1 is 1 second (digital display of the second).

Morgenwerk gives similar accuracy specifications across the M1-M2-M3 range (that however does not necessary mean that the methods are exactly the same - like ETA gave similar accuracy specifications across the Thermoline range still the inhibition periods varied depending of the design of the movements).
Certainly we need more data. I wish we could collect base-rate info of the Morgenwerk watches from the members of this forum to start with.


----------



## Bill R W

Looking back over the measurements I have done since I received my M1-3 in November, 2015, I have never seen it outside the stated specs in a 45-day period after a synch. That is, the watch has been within +/- 0.75 seconds of my GPS reference. Of course, I have not checked it every day, so perhaps it has been outside this band at a point when I was not measuring. 


I did one measurement (February, 2016) where the watch was 1.05 seconds off my reference time. But this was using Emerald Time as a reference, a less accurate reference than GPS, and was also 62 days after the most recent synch. From a rate perspective, 0.75 seconds in 45 days is equivalent to 1 second in 60 days. 


I am not sure how the watches are working. At this point, it seems clear that the watches make fairly large adjustments from time to time and likely smaller ones too. It's not clear that the large adjustments are always the same amount. It seems that they can be in the 300 to 500 millisecond range. 


I think the large periodic adjustments likely explain most of the "rate" variation I have seen in weekly measurements versus the rate in cumulative measurements over a 45-day or so period. 


My watch seems to have a base rate around 0.06 (or perhaps a bit less) seconds slow per day. If there was a compensating adjustment whenever the base rate led the watch watch to be 333 milliseconds off, I would expect to see an adjustment every 5.5 days or so. If the adjustment is 490 milliseconds, I might expect one every 8 days or so (and perhaps a bit longer if my base rate is a little better than 0.06 seconds per day). 


Looking back at the two large adjustments I have seen evidence of, in both cases the watch got to be off around 570 milliseconds or so (slow) versus GPS just before the adjustment. I am guessing that the first one occurred on 4/7 or 4/8. The second one was on 4/16. So they were, for this single pair, 8 or 9 days apart. 


I am not sure why you would design an accurate watch this way. I would prefer more frequent smaller adjustments to stay closer to GPS time. Of course, I am neither an engineer nor a designer, so there may be reasons. (Don't get me wrong here. I still like the watch and would buy it again.)


I will probably synch the watch today (a 42-day period since the last synch), as I will be travelling out of town later this week on the 45th day after the last synch. I am interested to see if there is any change to the base rate (I know ppaulusz has not seen a change to base rate after synching) or the size of the adjustments.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> And I thought 0.3 second out was bad. Half a second is quite normal too.
> That leave 0.25 for your 'factory specifications'.
> 
> I can't see what's going on. I'd love to see that machine of yours rattle out a few weeks of measurements.
> 
> Is the correction always the same. Is the period between corrections always the same.
> 
> Another theory:
> MW reasoning could be something like:
> - I'll do corrections every 90 hours
> - If my correction is under 0.33, I won't do any. It will accumulate.
> 
> Your brother's watch and your's have a high standard rate. The offset can't accumulate like Bill's or your M3-1.


I don't have a theory yet. But it would not surprise me if the watch is able to make adjustments of different sizes, including for larger adjustments.

I would like to be able to do more continuous testing over a few weeks. But for the next month and a half, I will be out of town 3-4 days per week. Also, with my 400 fps video method, I think I have to be physically present to start the camera recording for each clip. I believe the camera will do time lapse stills; I should see if it can do time lapse videos (even then, not sure the timing of clips would be accurate enough, given the camera's internal clock is not that good over longer periods).

I may not synch my watch today, as looking back at the data, it may be that I would see another adjustment tomorrow. Not heading out of town until Tuesday morning.


----------



## ronalddheld

If you can make small adjustments, why do you need to build in the capability for a much larger one?


----------



## Bill R W

ronalddheld said:


> If you can make small adjustments, why do you need to build in the capability for a much larger one?


Good question and one I have no answer for.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.33 second the 2nd time since synchronization to the GPS (165 hours after the GPS synchronization)! Now, the watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


Just a quick update: My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.33 second the 3rd time since synchronization to the GPS (247 hours after the GPS synchronization - the average TC adjustment period is 82.33 hours)! Now, his watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


----------



## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: My brother's Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.33 second the 3rd time since synchronization to the GPS (247 hours after the GPS synchronization - the average TC adjustment period is 82.33 hours)! Now, his watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


Good to see the M1-1 keeping pace with GPS disciplined time.

How are you measuring the amount of the watch's adjustment?

0.14 seconds per day base rate * 82.33 hours / 24 hours = 0.480 seconds, or 480 milliseconds. That is close to the size of the adjustment I recently saw with my video methods. Interesting.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> Good to see the M1-1 keeping pace with GPS disciplined time.
> 
> How are you measuring the amount of the watch's adjustment?
> 
> 0.14 seconds per day base rate * 82.33 hours / 24 hours = 0.480 seconds, or 480 milliseconds. That is close to the size of the adjustment I recently saw with my video methods. Interesting.


It's purely a naked eye test. Its goal is to detect the large TC adjustments (not necessarily the exact size of the adjustment). The more I learn about the Morgenwerk watches the less I feel the need for a pro-level tool to measure them. The only exception is the base-rate. One needs a proper tool to measure the base-rate. The good news is that my current quartz tester is good enough to measure the base-rate of the Morgenwerk watches.


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> It's purely a naked eye test. Its goal is to detect the large TC adjustments (not necessarily the exact size of the adjustment). The more I learn about the Morgenwerk watches the less I feel the need for a pro-level tool to measure them. The only exception is the base-rate. One needs a proper tool to measure the base-rate. The good news is that my current quartz tester is good enough to measure the base-rate of the Morgenwerk watches.


A large base rate could mean more frequent corrections. Shorter correction periods.

What is the relationship between the two?
I tried to multiply them:


A: Base rateB: correction period (hrs)A * BBill0.0619311.6ppaulusz0.1482.511.6

The product is the same for both watches. Rate goes up, period goes down. 
And that would suggest the same correction amounts.


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## ronalddheld

I got a response from Arne. He needed more detailed questions which I provided. I will let you know when I get back answer(s)


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> A large base rate could mean more frequent corrections. Shorter correction periods.
> 
> What is the relationship between the two?
> I tried to multiply them:
> 
> 
> A: Base rateB: correction period (hrs)A * BBill0.0619311.6ppaulusz0.1482.511.6
> 
> The product is the same for both watches. Rate goes up, period goes down.
> And that would suggest the same correction amounts.


Yes, it should work like that but it doesn't: 
- my M3-1's base-rate (on-wrist) is -0.06 second/day and after 268 hours it still has not done any correction!
- my M1-1's base-rate (off-wrist) is +0.14 and so far has an average correction period of 97.5 hours...


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> I got a response from Arne. He needed more detailed questions which I provided. I will let you know when I get back answer(s)


It's certainly promising that he asked for more details. Good luck!


----------



## ronalddheld

ppaulusz said:


> It's certainly promising that he asked for more details. Good luck!


If things work out, I may get some technical explanations I am allowed to post.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.33 second the 2nd time since synchronization to the GPS (195 hours after the GPS synchronization)! Now, the watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


Just a quick update: My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.60(!!!) second about half an hour ago. This is the 3rd TC adjustment since synchronization to the GPS (about 291 hours after the GPS synchronization - the average TC adjustment period is 97 hours)! Now the watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.60(!!!) second about half an hour ago. This is the 3rd TC adjustment since synchronization to the GPS (about 291 hours after the GPS synchronization - the average TC adjustment period is 97 hours)! Now the watch is in synch with the GPS reference clock!


Just a quick update: My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 second about half an hour ago. This is the 4th TC adjustment since synchronization to the GPS (about 388 hours after the GPS synchronization - the average TC adjustment period is 97 hours)! Now the watch is approximately 0,33 second (1 beat of the second-hand) ahead of the GPS reference clock!

My Morgenwerk M3-1 has not done any TC adjustment in the past 16 days (since the synchronization to the GPS) so it is approximately 1 second behind of the GPS reference clock!


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## Hans Moleman

My head is spinning.
Try to make sense of that.

But you're doing well! Clocking up measurements.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> My head is spinning.
> Try to make sense of that.
> 
> But you're doing well! Clocking up measurements.


Mine spinning as well so I don't comment my results just share them.
By the way, either Arne takes his time to answer Ron's questions or he won't answer them (my pick is the latter one but I'd be happy to be wrong this time).


----------



## ronalddheld

Arne still has not gotten back to me after number 2 email.


----------



## Bill R W

I found another large correction on my M1-3. This makes three large corrections I have seen evidence of (say in the 490 millisecond range). I have also seen evidence of smaller corrections (say in the 50 millisecond range). Assume there may also be adjustments too small to see with my methods.

On Monday night, 4/24/17 at 8:47 pm, my watch was 487 milliseconds slow versus my GPS references. I was then out of town for 3 days. When I got back, I took a measurement on 4/27/17 at 10:33 pm. At that point, the watch was 125 milliseconds slow versus my GPS references. The measurements were approximately 74 hours apart. If you adjust for the base rate of my watch (approximately 60 milliseconds slow per day), the net adjustment was 546 milliseconds (546 = 362 milliseconds observed difference between two measurements + 184 milliseconds at the base rate for 73.8 hours). It is possible that this is composed of one large adjustment in the 490 millisecond range, similar to what I have seen before plus a second, smaller adjustment on the order of 50 milliseconds, which I have seen some evidence of before too.

Given the large adjustments that happen, the weekly rate variation I have been seeing over week-long periods making up the 45-day or so periods between my planned synchs seem to be largely based on how close my point-in-time measurement falls to a large correction. Given that, I am not sure how useful the weekly measurements are. You need shorter ones to start to see the adjustments.

I synched my watch on 4/28/17 and will do new measurements going forward in a new 45-day or so period. I will be particularly interested to see if there is any indication the base rate or size of adjustments have changed. I know that ppaulusz has not seen a base rate change after a synch.

Given my travel schedule, I have not been able to measure the watch every day, so there are many gaps in my data. Still interesting.

Will try to add a chart from Excel. The numbers on the X axis are the sum of the Excel date numbers (integers) and time numbers (fractions) for the day and time of each measurement. The Y axis is difference between the watch and my GPS references. The watch was slow versus GPS in all measurements as a point in time. No rates shown, except indirectly in slopes on graph. Not sure how the chart will show up. Can also put a table in if anyone would like to see the underlying data.


----------



## Bill R W

Note the first measurements in this chart were taken on 4/2/17. The last measurements were on 4/28/17. In each case, I used the point-in-time measurement where both the second hand and minute hand move (from XX:XX:59 to XX:XX+1:00). For the reasons discussed in post #901, these likely overstate the actual difference between the watch's time and the GPS references by around 7.5 milliseconds. However, since all are done the same way, the differences between any measurements should be accurate.


----------



## Bill R W

Here is a table with the data comparing my M1-3 against my GPS references over the first two periods between synchs. The first period was about 48 days, the second was about 47 days. I tried to do an interim measurement roughly once a week. I started this after my M1-3 came back from a servicing in which it's performance memory was reset, so it was a fresh start. As noted above, I think the weekly rate variation shown here is likely mostly attributable to the relatively large corrections we have been seeing and how close a particular measurement was to such a change.

The first half of this data was previously shared in post #853. The methodology was explained a bit more in post #857.




Morgenwerk M1-3


Difference between M1-3 and GPS References














Positive is slow re GPS PPS, Negative is Fast. 400 fps Video re Frames










Date​Time​Frames​Milliseconds​Drift over Period​Days in Period​SPD Equiv​SPY Equiv​1/22/17​12:30 pm​14.00​35.00​Synch'd ​





1/23/17​12:32 pm​32.00​80.00​45.00​1.00​0.0450​16.4250​1/23/17​12:38 pm​13.13​32.81​Synch'd ​





1/29/17​6:21 pm​122.00​305.00​272.19​6.24​0.0436​15.9223​2/5/17​2:00 pm​57.50​143.75​-161.25​6.82​-0.0236​-8.6289​2/12/17​1:38 pm​28.69​71.72​-72.03​6.99​-0.0103​-3.7634​2/19/17​3:20 pm​3.00​7.50​-64.22​7.07​-0.0091​-3.3150​2/26/17​2:44 pm​-41.00​-110.00​-117.50​6.98​-0.0168​-6.1487​3/6/17​4:02 pm​-64.00​-160.00​-50.00​7.95​-0.0063​-2.2968​3/12/17​3:43 pm​-130.25​-325.63​-165.63​5.99​-0.0277​-10.0977​





Cumulative​-358.44​48.03​-0.0075​-2.7242​3/12/17​3:45 pm​14.00​35.00​Synch'd​





3/19/17​4:30 pm​207.00​517.50​482.50​7.03​0.0686​25.0471​3/26/17​12:13 pm​160.00​400.00​-117.50​6.82​-0.0172​-6.2871​4/2/17​12:01 PM​130.50​326.25​-73.75​6.99​-0.0105​-3.8501​4/9/17​3:48 PM​81.00​202.50​-123.75​7.16​-0.0173​-6.3106​4/16/17​4:07 PM​30.00​75.00​-127.50​7.01​-0.0182​-6.6357​4/23/17​1:01 PM​158.50​396.25​321.25​6.87​0.0468​17.0658​4/28/17​4:17 PM​60.50​151.25​-245.00​5.14​-0.0477​-17.4040​





Cumulative​116.25​47.02​0.0025​0.9023​4/28/17​4:22 PM​14.00​35.00​Synch'd​


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> ... came back from a servicing ...


I came across an old post from artec where he discusses the alignment.

And I can't get over why only your watch does a 480 jump.

But your watch differs from the others. It has had some work done to it.

It there anything in the manual about aligning?
I hope we're all talking about time corrections not alignment issues.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> That's where your watch differs from the others.
> 
> It there anything in the manual about aligning?


I don't see anything in the manual. I interpreted Arne's comments in returning the watch to mean it was like a new watch with no previous memory. So I did two synchs 24 hours apart and started on my program of synching roughly every 45 days or so, as shown in the table in post #993.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I don't see anything in the manual. I interpreted Arne's comments in returning the watch to mean it was like a new watch with no previous memory. So I did two synchs 24 hours apart and started on my program of synching roughly every 45 days or so, as shown in the table in post #993.


I know you can align the hands by pressing a couple of buttons.
I wonder if it does it by itself.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> I know you can align the hands by pressing a couple of buttons.
> I wonder if it does it by itself.


I misunderstood your question. The manual does describe how to manually align the watch's hands if they are out if alignment. I don't think there is automatic adjustment.

After the repairs, my M1-3's hands have been in alignment.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I misunderstood your question. The manual does describe how to manually align the watch's hands if they are out if alignment. I don't think there is automatic adjustment.
> 
> After the repairs, my M1-3's hands have been in alignment.


Your watch might have different software now. 
All speculation off course. As ever.


----------



## ronalddheld

No way that I know off, to check the SW version the watch had.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> I came across an old post from artec where he discusses the alignment.
> 
> And I can't get over why only your watch does a 480 jump.
> 
> But your watch differs from the others. It has had some work done to it.
> 
> It there anything in the manual about aligning?
> I hope we're all talking about time corrections not alignment issues.


I am not sure that my watch is the only one making a 480 millisecond correction. Ppaulusz and his brother are using the eyeball method to see corrections, so not clear that those corrections are necessarily 333 milliseconds. It's not that easy to tell one click of the second hand from one and a half clicks.

Also, if ppaulusz's brothers watch has a base rate of 0.14 seconds per day (can't remember if fast or slow) and his watch adjusts every 82.5 hours, that would imply a correction of 481 milliseconds (481 = 140 milliseconds per day x 82.5 hours/24 hours).

Ppaulusz's watch may have a bigger adjustment, as the observed period between adjustments is longer and his base rate is also around 0.14 seconds per day.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> I am not sure that my watch is the only one making a 480 millisecond correction. Ppaulusz and his brother are using the eyeball method to see corrections, so not clear that those corrections are necessarily 333 milliseconds. It's not that easy to tell one click of the second hand from one and a half clicks.
> 
> Also, if ppaulusz's brothers watch has a base rate of 0.14 seconds per day (can't remember if fast or slow) and his watch adjusts every 82.5 hours, that would imply a correction of 481 milliseconds (481 = 140 milliseconds per day x 82.5 hours/24 hours).
> 
> Ppaulusz's watch may have a bigger adjustment, as the observed period between adjustments is longer and his base rate is also around 0.14 seconds per day.


Our observation is just by the "eyeball method"... We just wanted to detect the fairly large (around 0.3 second) TC adjustment and the period between adjustments. We were not measuring the exact size of the adjustment, that was not our goal. We also noted that discrete adjustments had been taken place as well.


----------



## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> Our observation is just by the "eyeball method"... We just wanted to detect the fairly large (around 0.3 second) TC adjustment and the period between adjustments. We were not measuring the exact size of the adjustment, that was not our goal. We also noted that discrete adjustments had been taken place as well.


I did not mean any criticism. The corrections are large enough to see with the eyeball method. Your discovery that there are large discrete corrections was very interesting and important to starting to understand the MW watches.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> I did not mean any criticism. The corrections are large enough to see with the eyeball method. Your discovery that there are large discrete corrections was very interesting and important to starting to understand the MW watches.


Bill, I did not take your comment as a criticism, I understood your post. I just used the opportunity to state that I kept using the word "approximately" when I reported the 0.3 second TC adjustment. Your camera is better with its 400 fps resolution then my 50 fps camera for detecting the exact size of the TC adjustment. If (and that is a big IF) my technician modifies my quartz tester then that would certainly help me to come up with more accurate numbers. In the meantime we just share our findings and with the common wisdom of the forum try to solve the mystery of the Morgenwerk's TC adjustment.
My brother just called me on the phone: his M1-1 did the usual around 0.3 second or 1 beat of the second-hand adjustment (average period of the adjustment is 82 hours) so now his watch is in synch with the GPS time reference.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> ... Still interesting...


Glad to hear.
Funny in a perverse way. Now that you can tell the time to within milliseconds, you find out that the watch happily makes hundreds of them disappear.

A correction period of 8 days. Who would have guessed?

The alignment angle is a bit far fetched. I take that back.


----------



## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> Glad to hear.
> Funny in a perverse way. Now that you can tell the time to within milliseconds, you find out that the watch happily makes hundreds of them disappear.
> 
> A correction period of 8 days. Who would have guessed?
> 
> The alignment angle is a bit far fetched. I take that back.


I don't understand why you wouldn't make smaller, more frequent corrections to keep the watch even closer to correct time.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> I don't understand why you wouldn't make smaller, more frequent corrections to keep the watch even closer to correct time.


That is the right question.
There's probably only two people in the world that can answer that one.

I am not one of them.


----------



## ronalddheld

I would like to know why such large corrections need to be made.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...A correction period of 8 days. Who would have guessed?...


It could be even worse: My M3-1 that I received as a 1 year old used watch in top condition (and with this statement from the seller: "_The watch was synchronised when I received it then again one hour later as discussed with Arne from Morgenwerk and then on every 45 days. The watch is very accurate it has never been more than 0.5 seconds out in the year i don't have any specialized measuring equipment I just check it against a app on my iPhone called Emerald Sequoia._") has not done any correction in the past 18.5 days and now it is 1 second behind the GPS reference time! Furthermore the watch was not adjusted for leap second when I received it (so I adjusted it for the leap second a few hours later). When I received the watch it was about 0.5 second ahead of the GPS reference time and after the leap second adjustment it was 0.5 second behind of the GPS reference time. Then on the same night (18.5 days ago) I synchronized it to the GPS and since that it is about 1 second slow (that is in line with its on-wrist base-rate of -0.06 second/day - I used it 17.5 days out of 18.5 days in that period - its off-wrist base-rate is around -0.03 second/day). 
Obviously, my measurements are different then the quoted one from the seller... Actually, this M3-1 behaves like my M1-1 in its first 6 weeks: runs by its base-rate without any TC adjustment! Like the M3-1's memory was reset(!) just before I received it... so now it is waiting for its first 6 weekly synchronization to the GPS to establish a base-table for TC adjustment... It's bizarre but that is how it's behaving right now! 
So considering the above, I do not expect any TC adjustment till the end of May when I will synchronize it to the GPS...


----------



## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> It could be even worse: My M3-1 that I received as a 1 year old used watch in top condition (and with this statement from the seller: "_The watch was synchronised when I received it then again one hour later as discussed with Arne from Morgenwerk and then on every 45 days. The watch is very accurate it has never been more than 0.5 seconds out in the year i don't have any specialized measuring equipment I just check it against a app on my iPhone called Emerald Sequoia._") has not done any correction in the past 18.5 days and now it is 1 second behind the GPS reference time! Furthermore the watch was not adjusted for leap second when I received it (so I adjusted it for the leap second a few hours later). When I received the watch it was about 0.5 second ahead of the GPS reference time and after the leap second adjustment it was 0.5 second behind of the GPS reference time. Then on the same night (18.5 days ago) I synchronized it to the GPS and since that it is about 1 second slow (that is in line with its on-wrist base-rate of -0.06 second/day - I used it 17.5 days out of 18.5 days in that period - its off-wrist base-rate is around -0.03 second/day).
> Obviously, my measurements are different then the quoted one from the seller... Actually, this M3-1 behaves like my M1-1 in its first 6 weeks: runs by its base-rate without any TC adjustment! Like the M3-1's memory was reset(!) just before I received it... so now it is waiting for its first 6 weekly synchronization to the GPS to establish a base-table for TC adjustment... It's bizarre but that is how it's behaving right now!
> So considering the above, I do not expect any TC adjustment till the end of May when I will synchronize it to the GPS...


Oh dear.
That sounds like broken.

You're saying, it does not keep time between GPS synchronizations. It has had enough of those to get going. It's not that it was starved of input or something.

It it using the off wrist base rate for its schedule?
The M3-1 on-wrist rate of 0.06 per day is the same as Bill's.

Off-wrist it is 0.03 and it might not even bother with corrections.
We would expect a period of double that of Bill's: 2 times 8 days, every 16 days. It should have happened by now.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Oh dear.
> That sounds like broken.
> 
> You're saying, it does not keep time between GPS synchronizations. It has had enough of those to get going. It's not that it was starved of input or something.
> 
> It it using the off wrist base rate for its schedule?
> The M3-1 on-wrist rate of 0.06 per day is the same as Bill's.
> 
> Off-wrist it is 0.03 and it might not even bother with corrections.
> We would expect a period of double that of Bill's: 2 times 8 days, every 16 days. It should have happened by now.


All I'm saying is what I have experienced in the past 19 days since the watch arrived and quoted the info that the original owner of the watch shared with me about his observation of the 12 months he owned the watch. I added to the above that the watch behaves like its memory (the self-learned info of the past year) had been reset recently so it lacks the data of previously learnt info. That is how the watch has been behaving in the past 19 days (and that is the period I have _100% reliable info_ about...). Anyhow, I've just sent an email to Arne inquiring any past service (especially very recent one) of this watch. I'll keep you informed.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...I've just sent an email to Arne inquiring any past service (especially very recent one) of this watch. I'll keep you informed.


Here comes the prompt reply from Arne: "_We have not serviced that watch recently. It seems that the previous owner might have reset the watch without our knowledge. I suggest a few more syncs to get the software up to speed_."
The next synchronization is due at the end of May so I'll wait till then - by that time the watch will be around 3 seconds late...


----------



## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> Here comes the prompt reply from Arne: "_We have not serviced that watch recently. It seems that the previous owner might have reset the watch without our knowledge. I suggest a few more syncs to get the software up to speed_."
> The next synchronization is due at the end of May so I'll wait till then - by that time the watch will be around 3 seconds late...


I wonder if the watch could reset and lose its performance memory if it loses all battery power? See the discussion in post #9 by artec in the Morgenwerk troubles thread.

If it reset and you have not done two synchs, perhaps the watch does not know its baseline rate? And if your watch does not know its base rate, perhaps it won't do the corrections we have been seeing, particularly the larger ones?

Arne has previously recommended that members synch their new watch twice, 24 hours apart when they receive it. Give what we are seeing re base rate and corrections, perhaps this is to let the watch learn its base rate. Maybe later synchs are are to hone the correcting process.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> ...If it reset and you have not done two synchs, perhaps the watch does not know its baseline rate? And if your watch does not know its base rate, perhaps it won't do the corrections we have been seeing, particularly the larger ones?...


When I received the watch 19 days ago it was 0.5 second off indicating that it was synchronized a couple of days earlier. Then I also synchronized it on that day when I received it. These 2 synchronizations should have established a base-rate and the 3rd synchronization at the end of May will be used for correction/learning. One thing is absolutely certain: the watch had to have _at least_ 2 proper synchronizations by now.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> I wonder if the watch could reset and lose its performance memory if it loses all battery power?...


Yes, if the Morgenwerk loses all battery power then it loses its performance memory (reset) as well.
Why? For the very same reason as it needs separate action for the leap second adjustment: the performance memory would receive false info and the watch would learn by the false info.


----------



## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> Yes, if the Morgenwerk loses all battery power then it loses its performance memory (reset) as well.
> Why? For the very same reason as it needs separate action for the leap second adjustment: the performance memory would receive false info and the watch would learn by the false info.


Based on earlier exchanges with Arne, the watch keeps its internal time on GPS time (without leap seconds) and judges performance against such GPS time. It then uses time zone and leap second data to translate GPS time into the appropriate time to display. Leap second data does not affect the watch's rate or performance memory.

There is a separate user-initiated procedure to obtain leap second data because the process takes more time than a simple time synch and hence uses more battery power. Since leap seconds occur infrequently and irregularly, the choice was not to check for leap second data on a regular basis (e.g. with each synch).

When I use GPS time as a reference in my testing, my GPS clock also applies leap second data to the clock's displayed output. I have loosely referred to this as GPS reference time, but it is adjusted.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Based on earlier exchanges with Arne, the watch keeps its internal time on GPS time (without leap seconds) and judges performance against such GPS time. It then uses time zone and leap second data to translate GPS time into the appropriate time to display. Leap second data does not affect the watch's rate or performance memory.
> 
> There is a separate user-initiated procedure to obtain leap second data because the process takes more time than a simple time synch and hence uses more battery power. Since leap seconds occur infrequently and irregularly, the choice was not to check for leap second data on a regular basis (e.g. with each synch).
> 
> When I use GPS time as a reference in my testing, my GPS clock also applies leap second data to the clock's displayed output. I have loosely referred to this as GPS reference time, but it is adjusted.











If I assume that there are only 3 corrections every correction cycle.
And that the largest D-E is determined only by the base rate.
And that the smaller B-C and F-G are only determined by the temperatures experienced during the last period.

Then that looks very much like the VHP correction scheme.

And I now understand ppaulusz disbelief that his M3-1 can't handle being taken out of the box and being worn.
Surely the watch notices the warmer temperatures and compensates for them?

But if the watch has determined its base rate when it was not worn, and determined that no corrections D-E are required, will it still make the B-C and F-G corrections?

It looks to me like it does not do any corrections.


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## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...I now understand ppaulusz disbelief that his M3-1 can't handle being taken out of the box and being worn.
> Surely the watch notices the warmer temperatures and compensates for them?
> 
> But if the watch has determined its base rate when it was not worn, and determined that no corrections D-E are required, will it still make the B-C and F-G corrections?
> 
> It looks to me like it does not do any corrections.


I do believe and Arne's reply to my inquiry confirmed it that my M3-1 must had been reset (either intentionally or unintentionally) recently by the previous owner. I'm sure that Arne would have indicated other possibilities if he would have thought so...


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## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> I do believe and Arne's reply to my inquiry confirmed it that my M3-1 must had been reset (either intentionally or unintentionally) recently by the previous owner. I'm sure that Arne would have indicated other possibilities if he would have thought so...


I look forward to more of these 'mysterious resets'.

This watch makes a fool of all of us.


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## Bill R W

Hans Moleman said:


> View attachment 11699354
> 
> 
> If I assume that there are only 3 corrections every correction cycle.
> And that the largest D-E is determined only by the base rate.
> And that the smaller B-C and F-G are only determined by the temperatures experienced during the last period.
> 
> Then that looks very much like the VHP correction scheme.
> 
> And I now understand ppaulusz disbelief that his M3-1 can't handle being taken out of the box and being worn.
> Surely the watch notices the warmer temperatures and compensates for them?
> 
> But if the watch has determined its base rate when it was not worn, and determined that no corrections D-E are required, will it still make the B-C and F-G corrections?
> 
> It looks to me like it does not do any corrections.


Intersting. Similar in some ways to VHP -- similar shape and also a large main correction plus smaller ones. Yet the MW corrections are many times larger in magnitude and spread over a much longer period.


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## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Intersting. Similar in some ways to VHP -- similar shape and also a large main correction plus smaller ones. Yet the MW corrections are many times larger in magnitude and spread over a much longer period.


A lot of white space.

If you can measure D-E repeatedly and it remains very constant, that would give a good clue.

A real pain to pick the right time in those 8 days.

You can not use a watch timer with this watch with such long inhibition periods.
If that was the intention?


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## Tom-HK

Hans Moleman said:


> You can not use a watch timer with this watch with such long inhibition periods.
> If that was the intention?


My timer (MicroSet) can run continuously for as long as the Earth has coal and I imagine Arne has something even more specialised.

On a side note, for those of us watching this thread develop over the weeks, all of this is becoming very confusing. Would someone like to briefly summarise what has been discovered so far and lay out the principal theory of How It All Works?


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## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> I look forward to more of these 'mysterious resets'.
> 
> This watch makes a fool of all of us.


I might have missed them but I'm not aware of "_these mysterious resets_". As far as I know all resets that have been discussed in the forum have been accounted for except mine. Letting the battery run out or disconnecting the battery is not mysterious. Even in my case I'd rather mention "_withhold info_" than "_mystery_" (the original owner did not mention the reset).

Let's forget just for argument sake my M3-1 for a while (till it gets back to normal behavior after the reset) and focus on the 3 Morgenwerk M1 watches (Bill's, my brother's and mine) we have measured in the past couple of weeks: _*we have solved the method of TC adjustments!*_ The TC adjustment is based on the base-rate that can vary from watch to watch and includes fairly large (around 0.33 second = 1 beat of the second-hand) TC adjustment with fairly large periods/intervals (that can be easily foreseen if one is aware of the base-rate of the watch). There could be discrete adjustments as well but the main ones are pretty large and they are the "_important_" ones. _*That solved TC adjustment if carried out properly is good enough to keep the watch within factory specifications!

*_I don't really see the validity of this repeatedly asked question: _Why Morgenwerk opted for this method?! _(Did we question the TC method of ETA or Citizen or Seiko? They too could have used some other methods...) But I have the answer for it: _Why not... as long as it works... (and it does!)?!_ Earlier I pointed out that it could be for "_patent issues_" but you guys did not buy that and kept asking the question so here is my new answer: _*Why not?!*_ ;-)


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## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> I might have missed them but I'm not aware of "_these mysterious resets_". As far as I know all resets that have been discussed in the forum have been accounted for except mine. Letting the battery run out or disconnecting the battery is not mysterious. Even in my case I'd rather mention "_withhold info_" than "_mystery_" (the original owner did not mention the reset).
> 
> Let's forget just for argument sake my M3-1 for a while (till it gets back to normal behavior after the reset) and focus on the 3 Morgenwerk M1 watches (Bill's, my brother's and mine) we have measured in the past couple of weeks: _*we have solved the method of TC adjustments!*_ The TC adjustment is based on the base-rate that can vary from watch to watch and includes fairly large (around 0.33 second = 1 beat of the second-hand) TC adjustment with fairly large periods/intervals (that can be easily foreseen if one is aware of the base-rate of the watch). There could be discrete adjustments as well but the main ones are pretty large and they are the "_important_" ones. _*That solved TC adjustment if carried out properly is good enough to keep the watch within factory specifications!
> 
> *_I don't really see the validity of this repeatedly asked question: _Why Morgenwerk opted for this method?! _(Did we question the TC method of ETA or Citizen or Seiko? They too could have used some other methods...) But I have the answer for it: _Why not... as long as it works... (and it does!)?!_ Earlier I pointed out that it could be for "_patent issues_" but you guys did not buy that and kept asking the question so here is my new answer: _*Why not?!*_ ;-)


Why not?
I demand a watch that is closer to the actual time.
It may be half a second off. A week after synchronizing. That's too much. Sorry, that does not work for me. 
Is that within factory specifications? Mmm.

Please MW do the corrections more often. 
Please let it be a minor design slip up, nothing political.

I don't think everything is explained: 
Why did yours do two corrections of 300 at the same time? 
What was the rationale behind that? 
Will Bill's jump two times 480 ms as well? 
How is he going to do testing with that sort of behavior?
Why 480 for Bill, and not 300?
We need a set of predictable rules that we know the watch sticks to. Only then you can set up your testing.

Let's go with Arne's explanation about having been reset. He must know, he build it.


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## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> Why not?
> I demand a watch that is closer to the actual time.
> It may be half a second off. A week after synchronizing. That's too much. Sorry, that does not work for me.
> Is that is within factory specifications? Mmm...


Morgenwerk requests periodical (1-2 months) synchronization to the GPS in the first 12 months to meet factory specifications thereafter. So far my brother and I have done only two of those (the next one is scheduled at the end of May) in case of our M1-1 watches and none in case of my reset M3-1. The M1-1 are performing very well even at this very early stage. It's very promising, in my opinion.

My Longines VHP watches are performing well within factory specifications after careful calibration. That is the case with every other VHP watches as long as they are properly calibrated. But one might be very critical about these VHP watches as they demonstrate extreme inaccuracy at _small-scale _and even the cheapest quartz watch demonstrate far better _small-scale_ accuracy. Measure a 5 minutes segment on a VHP and do the same on a cheap quartz watch and the cheap quartz will be closer to the actual time.

A properly calibrated Morgenwerk has at least(!) the same chance to stay within 1 second of atomic time then a VHP or a The Citizen or a Grand Seiko quartz.


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## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> Bill, I did not take your comment as a criticism, I understood your post. I just used the opportunity to state that I kept using the word "approximately" when I reported the 0.3 second TC adjustment. Your camera is better with its 400 fps resolution then my 50 fps camera for detecting the exact size of the TC adjustment. If (and that is a big IF) my technician modifies my quartz tester then that would certainly help me to come up with more accurate numbers. In the meantime we just share our findings and with the common wisdom of the forum try to solve the mystery of the Morgenwerk's TC adjustment.
> My brother just called me on the phone: his M1-1 did the usual around 0.3 second or 1 beat of the second-hand adjustment (average period of the adjustment is 82 hours) so now his watch is in synch with the GPS time reference.


It might be interesting if you were to measure the size of one of the large corrections on your M1. Even at 50 fps, you can resolve around 20 milliseconds. While not as fine a resolution as 400 fps, it will still tell us if your watch's larger adjustments are around 333 milliseconds or are closer to the 480 milliseconds I see on my M1-3. Interesting to measure this to see if the watches are using the same or a different size large correction. I would expect the same size, unless the large correction changes based on performance experience, but who knows.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.30 second about half an hour ago. This is the 4th TC adjustment since synchronization to the GPS (about 388 hours after the GPS synchronization - the average TC adjustment period is 97 hours)! Now the watch is approximately 0,33 second (1 beat of the second-hand) ahead of the GPS reference clock!...


Just a quick update: My Morgenwerk M1-1 was TC adjusted approximately 0.55 - 0.60 second at around 3:00 o'clock in the morning. This is the 5th TC adjustment since synchronization to the GPS (about 20 days and 5 hours after the GPS synchronization - the average TC adjustment period is 97 hours = 4 days and 1 hour)! Now the watch is approximately 0,33 second (1 beat of the second-hand) ahead of the GPS reference clock!


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## ppaulusz

Bill R W said:


> It might be interesting if you were to measure the size of one of the large corrections on your M1. Even at 50 fps, you can resolve around 20 milliseconds. While not as fine a resolution as 400 fps, it will still tell us if your watch's larger adjustments are around 333 milliseconds or are closer to the 480 milliseconds I see on my M1-3. Interesting to measure this to see if the watches are using the same or a different size large correction. I would expect the same size, unless the large correction changes based on performance experience, but who knows.


At 3:00 o'clock in the morning (see my earlier post) I can't make any proper video...;-)
However I can report that the TC adjustments have been varied between 0.3 and 0.6 second in the past 5 occasions.
Also I can see the trend that the accuracy of the watch is slowly deteriorating... but let's not forget that the watch only has done two 6-weekly self-learning GPS synchronizations out of the planned 8 (in the first year following the manufacturer's advice) so there is still opportunity for self-learning and improving the accuracy.


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## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> It might be interesting if you were to measure the size of one of the large corrections on your M1. Even at 50 fps, you can resolve around 20 milliseconds. While not as fine a resolution as 400 fps, it will still tell us if your watch's larger adjustments are around 333 milliseconds or are closer to the 480 milliseconds I see on my M1-3. Interesting to measure this to see if the watches are using the same or a different size large correction. I would expect the same size, unless the large correction changes based on performance experience, but who knows.


Can you record the second when the correction happens?
It looks like you can predict the minute(s) when it is about to happen.

Since you record only on the full minute you don't see the actual second.

But what if you record, on normal speed, those minute(s) you should see the seconds hand make it's merry dance when it corrects?


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## Bill R W

ppaulusz said:


> At 3:00 o'clock in the morning (see my earlier post) I can't make any proper video...;-)
> However I can report that the TC adjustments have been varied between 0.3 and 0.6 second in the past 5 occasions.
> Also I can see the trend that the accuracy of the watch is slowly deteriorating... but let's not forget that the watch only has done one 6-weekly self-learning GPS synchronization out of the planned 8 (in the first year following the manufacturer's advice) so there is still opportunity for self-learning and improving the accuracy.


Understand the needing-to-be-present problem with video methods. An issue for me, given my recent travel schedule. Out of town this week until Friday night. Given I synched my watch on 4/28, expecting my M1-3 may do a larger correction on Saturday, assuming no change to the base rate (and expecting no base rate change given your observations). Hope I can catch it, as out at a family event in the morning.


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## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Morgenwerk requests periodical (1-2 months) synchronization to the GPS in the first 12 months to meet factory specifications thereafter. So far my brother and I have done only two of those (the next one is scheduled at the end of May) in case of our M1-1 watches and none in case of my reset M3-1...


My brother's M1-1 is performing so well (always within 0.33 second of GPS time-reference) that he decided to skip the next GPS synchronization!|>

I however just completed the GPS synchronization an hour ago on my M1-1 (the 3rd one on this watch) and on my M3-1 (the first one on this watch due to the possible reset by the previous owner).

(Note: the initial synchronizations are not counted only the "_6-weekly_" or better called "_periodical_" ones!)

Background info: 
- my brother's M1-1 has been on-wrist about 99% of the time since he acquired the watch (at the end of January, 2017) 
- my M1-1 has been on-wrist about 30% of the time since the end of January, 2017 
- my M3-1 has been on-wrist about 99% of the time since the middle of April, 2017


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## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...just completed the GPS synchronization an hour ago on my M1-1 (the 3rd one on this watch).


Just a quick update: I've just checked my M1-1 about 3 days and 3.5 hours (about 75.5 hours) after synchronization to the GPS and the watch is spot on when compared to the GPS time-reference (observation by naked eye). It means that the watch must have made a major (about 0.3 second) TC adjustment recently. That is already a huge difference/improvement to the earlier running of the watch when it made one major TC adjustment in every 95 hours. Obviously the watch learnt a lot by the recent synchronization.;-)


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## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: I've just checked my M1-3 about 3 days and 3.5 hours (about 75.5 hours) after synchronization to the GPS and the watch is spot on when compared to the GPS time-reference (observation by naked eye). It means that the watch must have made a major TC adjustment recently. That is already a huge difference/improvement to the earlier running of the watch when it made one major TC adjustment in every 95 hours. Obviously the watch learnt a lot by the recent synchronization.;-)


The update frequency changed from 95 hours to less than 75.5.
Has the base rate changed with it?


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## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> The update frequency changed from 95 hours to less than 75.5.
> Has the base rate changed with it?


No, Hans, the base-rate has not changed and it won't.


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## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Just a quick update: I've just checked my M1-1 about 3 days and 3.5 hours (about 75.5 hours) after synchronization to the GPS and the watch is spot on when compared to the GPS time-reference (observation by naked eye). It means that the watch must have made a major (about 0.3 second) TC adjustment recently. That is already a huge difference/improvement to the earlier running of the watch when it made one major TC adjustment in every 95 hours. Obviously the watch learnt a lot by the recent synchronization.;-)


How about a grand _fluke_? I was not sure 3 days ago about the _exact_ time-frame of the TC adjustment of my M1-1. All I knew that it was not more than 75.5 hours. Guess what? It is exactly 75.5 hours! The second major TC adjustment since synchronization has happened exactly 151 hours after the synchronization (an average of 75.5 hours/TC adjustment). Wasn't I lucky in the first time when I must have checked my watch just right after the synchronization?! How about _my_ timing?!;-)

More importantly the first time (3 days ago) my watch was about 1 beat of the second-hand (about 0.33 second) fast and was adjusted to be spot on, while now it was about 1 beat of the second-hand (about 0.33 second) fast and was adjusted to be 1 beat of the second-hand (about 0.33 second) slow. So it means that the second time the TC adjustment was about 2 beats of the second-hand (about 0.6) second. That is still fine as the base-rate of the watch is about +0.14 second/day (off-wrist) so it will catch up. 
Now, here is the 64 dollars question: What will be the size of the TC adjustment next time (0.3 second or 0.6 second or else)? 
We'll know the answer by Wednesday night (3 days from now).


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## Hans Moleman

ppaulusz said:


> What will be the size of the TC adjustment next time (0.3 second or 0.6 second or else)? .


And what's more important, and difficult: Why?


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## Bill R W

I synched my M1-3 on 4/28/17 at 4:22 pm. I have taken a number of measurements of the watch's time against my GPS references (using my usual 400 fps video) in May and just had time to go through them today. I have not worn the watch for the last month or so. 


Several observations. 


1. Consistent with what ppaulusz has seen, the base rate of my watch did not change after the synch -- at least within the limits of what I can observe with my equipment and no quartz tester. My watch still runs approximately 2.5 milliseconds slow per hour versus GPS time or about 60 milliseconds slow per day. 


2. The watch did a large adjustment sometime between 12:02 am and 6:00 am on 5/7/16. The watch was 192 frames (480 milliseconds) slow at 12:02 am and 1 frame fast (2.5 milliseconds) at 6:00 am. So the adjustment appears to have been 199 frames = 192 - (-1) + (6 frames for base rate over 6 hours) at some point in that interval. 199 frames is 497.5 milliseconds. 


3. The watch did a second large adjustment between 9:21 am and 9:57 am on 5/15/17. The watch was 196 frames (490 milliseconds) slow at 9:21am and was the same as my GPS references at 9:57 (0 milliseconds offset). So the adjustment was 196 frames or 490 milliseconds. Interestingly, the amount of the adjustment was the same as the adjustment I observed in April, when I found an adjustment between two measurements that were an hour or less apart. See post #969 above. 


4. The adjustment on 5/15/17 was approximately 401.25 hours after I synched the watch on 4/28 (assuming for this purpose that the adjustment occurred at 9:39 am, the midpoint between the two measurements I took on 5/17). This suggests that the correction period is half that or approximately 200.625 hours, or 8.36 days. This period is consistent with the range I determined for the first correction on 5/7. In the measurements I took in the prior cycle, I estimated that the time between large adjustments was somewhere between 8 and 9 days. So no evidence that the period between the large adjustments on my M1-3 changed materially after the synch. This would make sense if the large adjustments are based on a base rate that does not change after synchs, at least over this time scale (but might change over longer periods as the quartz crystal ages). 


5. An adjustment of 490 milliseconds over an 8.36 day period would imply a base rate of 58.6 milliseconds per day, not far from my estimate without a quartz tester. 


6. I have not noticed any smaller adjustments in this cycle. I had hoped to catch a smaller adjustment over one of the shorter intervals I measured (and I measured more than 60 of them this month), in the same way that I captured a larger adjustment, but I did not see one. Perhaps something will show up if I graph the data. 


7. The 2 large adjustments in this cycle seem to bring the watch very close to GPS time, closer than the large adjustments in the prior cycle. Is this evidence of the watch learning from its performance in the prior cycle?


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> And what's more important, and difficult: Why?


I did not write "difficult" only more important. Because the last two adjustments were different in size and wonder about the size of the upcoming third one.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ...the first time (3 days ago) my watch was about 1 beat of the second-hand (about 0.33 second) fast and was adjusted to be spot on, while now it was about 1 beat of the second-hand (about 0.33 second) fast and was adjusted to be 1 beat of the second-hand (about 0.33 second) slow. So it means that the second time the TC adjustment was about 2 beats of the second-hand (about 0.6) second. That is still fine as the base-rate of the watch is about +0.14 second/day (off-wrist) so it will catch up.
> Now, here is the 64 dollars question: What will be the size of the TC adjustment next time (0.3 second or 0.6 second or else)?
> We'll know the answer by Wednesday night (3 days from now).


My M1-1 has just made a 1 beat of the second-hand (around 0.33 second) TC adjustment: it was about 0.1 second fast compared to the GPS reference-time and now it is about 0.3 second behind of the GPS reference-time. That is ideal as the base-rate of the watch is +0.14 second/day (off-wrist) so it will catch up for the next TC adjustment that is due in 3 days. The average TC adjustment period is around 3 days and 3.5 hours (75.5 hours) - in fact about 2-3 minutes less than that...


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> ... just completed the GPS synchronization an hour ago ... on my M3-1 (the first one on this watch due to the possible reset by the previous owner).
> 
> (Note: the initial synchronizations are not counted only the "_6-weekly_" or better called "_periodical_" ones!)
> 
> Background info: ... - my M3-1 has been on-wrist about 99% of the time since the middle of April, 2017


Finally my M3-1 has completed its first TC adjustment! (It was just about time!) The base-rate of this watch is about -0.07 second/day (on-wrist).
The TC adjustment happened between 248 and 253.5 hours (yes, about 10.5 days!) after the synchronization to the GPS. Now the watch is in synchronization with the GPS time-reference. The size of the TC adjustment is about 0.7 second! _If_ the watch maintains that period and size of the TC adjustments in the future then it would be still (just!) within factory specification... but it is too early to predict with that watch as this watch has only had one _periodical_ synchronization to the GPS since the now proven reset took place.


----------



## ppaulusz

ppaulusz said:


> Finally my M3-1 has completed its first TC adjustment! (It was just about time!) The base-rate of this watch is about -0.07 second/day (on-wrist).
> The TC adjustment happened between 248 and 253.5 hours (yes, about 10.5 days!) after the synchronization to the GPS. Now the watch is in synchronization with the GPS time-reference. The size of the TC adjustment is about 0.7 second! _If_ the watch maintains that period and size of the TC adjustments in the future then it would be still (just!) within factory specification... but it is too early to predict with that watch as this watch has only had one _periodical_ synchronization to the GPS since the now proven reset took place.


Just an update on the performance of my M3-1: It has completed its 2nd TC adjustment exactly 506 hours after the synchronization to the GPS. The average TC adjustment period is 253 hours (10 days and 13 hours). Now the watch is slightly (exactly 0.3 second) late to the GPS reference-time so I will conduct another periodical synchronization to the GPS (21 days after the first periodical one) within the next 20 minutes to fine-tune the running of the watch. It looks very promising so far. My bet is that I won't need a third periodical synchronization to the GPS for a while because the watch will be running according to specifications after the second one. We shall see...

Edit: I captured the action on 50fps video so here are the exact figures:
- just before the TC adjustment the M3-1 was 0.82 second behind the GPS time-reference
- just after the TC adjustment the M3-1 was 0.30 second behind the GPS time-reference
- conclusion: the TC adjustment size is 0.52 second - I expect an improvement from the 2nd periodical synchronization to the GPS


----------



## cfmcmillan

I'm new to the forum - hence I beg pardon for mistakes or duplicating the work others have already done. I recently received an M1-X from Arne and have begun making measurements to see if I can add to what's already understood about these watches.

*Measurement technique and equipmen*t

I've seen that others are using video techniques to make measurements. Since those techniques seem to be well explored, I'm taking a different approach, using a MicroSet 3 with GPS PPS reference from Bryan Mumford. The MicroSet 3 has a TCXO which Bryan has adjusted using a a 16x divider applied to a GPS PPS. I have checked Byran's calibration by putting a GPS PPS signal into the counter and confirmed by averaging that his calibration has not drifted.

The measurement technique uses the GPS PPS signal to trigger the counter. It then times from the GPS trigger until it receives the first pulse. The GPS PPS signal provides long term stability and the TCXO is required to do only short timing measurements. The system makes a measurement every 10th GPS pulse - every 10 seconds. The drift in the measured pulse can be used to determine both the base rate (the slope of the drift line) and to see very accurately when inhibition/temperature correction occurs.

The sensor is an inductive sensor that measures the pulses to the second hand. In addition to the GPS drift measurements, the normal measurements of beat length can be recorded from the sensor.

Both types of measurements can be recorded directly to the computer so it is easy to make long records and save tab delimited files for further analysis.

*Results for beat length*

The three beats in a second are not all the same length nor is the ordering of the beat lengths the same for each second. The following are measurements for two successive seconds:

Second 1: length = 1.001948 : .314449 - short 1 | .310549 - short 2 | .376950 - long 1
Second 2: length = 0.998048 : .310549 - short 2 | .314449 - short 1 | .373050 - long 2

Note that the seconds are not the same length. However, taken together they total 1.999996 seconds rather than 2 seconds. Long term averaging using a 2 second period showed a base rate that is about a 2 ppm fast. This is consistent with the long-term base rate determined from the GPS drift method below.

Note also that the pattern of reversing the two short pulses followed by two slightly different long pulses is repeated every two seconds.

*Results for drift relative to GPS PPS*

I have recorded the drift from the GPS PPS signal every 10 seconds for 169,190 seconds (1.95 days). During this time I have seen two corrections occur. Based on the slope derived from a least squares fit of the GPS drift data, the watch's natural rate is 2.058 ppm fast (or 0.178 seconds/day fast). The corrections were separated by 118,700 seconds (32.97 hours). The correction following this period was -0.184039 seconds. This is substantially less than would be expected from the base rate. I would have expected 0.2443 seconds from the base rate alone. Could the difference be because of temperature corrections?

While I don't know at this point, a plot of the difference between the GPS drift and the least squares fit shows long-term variations of up to 600 microseconds during a 10 second integration period.

The base rate does not appear to change after the correction.

I am making longer records now that may provide more insight into both the period and the magnitude of the corrections.


----------



## Tom-HK

Welcome and well done for such a detailed first post! I also had an M1-X and one of Bryan's MicroSet devices, but I was never really able to set-up and leave my MicroSet timer running for long enough to get results like these. I also struggled with EM interference which periodically cropped up, spoiling some of my lengthier timing attempts.

What I find when using my MicroSet is that, for all the information it gives you, it doesn't easily tell you the true real-world rate of your watch. I had a dreadful time trying to convince Citizen that my real-world timings of my The Citizen's performance over nearly a year was an actual, factual record of the watch's true performance and that the result they got from popping the watch on their timing machine for five minutes was not nearly as reliable. They asked to see my spreadsheets and questioned me at length about my timing methods.

To cut a long story short, I applaud your introduction to the forum and hope you have more joy with your M1-X and MicroSet arrangement than I had with mine. I also hope you will, from time to time, record the watch's actual off-set from Standard Time and see if the real-world drift aligns with expectations derived from the MicroSet timer.


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## cfmcmillan

Tom -HK, once I have a few more posts up, I believe the system will allow me to post plots as well. There are some interesting complexities with MicroSet and GPS - that is a "blanking window" of about 100ms following the GPS pulse when it won't detect the next pulse. In general this isn't a problem as long as you can convince yourself that every 10 seconds you're seeing the same pulse (remember, they aren't all the same length). However, when that pulse drifts below the 100ms window, you're now looking at the next pulse. However, when the correction happens, you go back to the first pulse. I believe I've handled that correction properly, but there's more checking to do.

When you did your measurements, did you use the GPS reference from Mumford?

I expect to have about a week of data in the next day or so - hence more data analysis to come. Given that there does not appear to be a simple way to reach the claimed accuracy (eg. accounting for crystal aging, getting timing corrections to better than about 1ppm, etc) I suspect that long term data collection and intermittent data collection with long periods between collection periods is important.


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## Tom-HK

When I ran my tests I tried two different modes: the 10 second GPS mode (utilising Bryan's GPS add-on) and the second-by-second mode using the 10 MHz TCXO time base (obviously dividing the result by three to accommodate the three-ticks-per-second nature of the movement). For me, neither mode produced useful results.

I really find my MicroSet most entertaining when I time my more run-of-the-mill HAQs. It is possible to clearly identify inhibition corrections on various ETA movements and when you plot the fall of each second it is fascinating to see just how different approaches to thermocompensation can be, even from the same manufacturer (Citizen's E510 has an incredibly flat graph, bar the 10 second corrections, whereas their A010 is all over the place, with each second coming in at a seemingly random interval after the last).

In terms of getting a useful rate, the only mode I have found to deliver the goods has been the Accutron mode. I popped my 1960s Accutron on the sensor and the timer quickly gave me a daily rate that corresponded to my real-world timings. With that confidence established I was able to crack open the watch and adjust the timing quickly and easily. Shame I couldn't get the same sort of utility out of the thing for regulating my HAQs.


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## ronalddheld

Can someone explain to me why each "second" is not a GPS second in length?


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## Tom-HK

It is a minor irritant in Bryan Mumford's system, but he has set up his timer in such a way that when it runs in GPS mode it takes measurements from your watch only once every ten seconds.

Edit: for the second-by-second stuff, the TCXO 10 MHz time base really is stable enough (and although it isn't GPS-disciplined it can be recalibrated via the GPS reference once it starts drifting). The GPS add-on was conceived for measuring things even more accurately and I imagine the thinking was quite simply that measurements taken against a GPS reference over a 10 second period would be meaningfully more precise than those taken against the TCXO reference over a 1 second period.

Edit 2: Bryan very kindly worked up a custom version of the software for me, to add a few more decimal places to the displayed timing results. These are only meaningful when used in GPS mode. Despite having created the facility for it, Bryan hadn't considered that so many decimal places would ever be relevant to a wrist watch, but then again he had never before heard of a watch spec'd to five seconds per year. I still don't think this degree of precision or resolving a GPS measurement to 13 places is genuinely relevant to the way in which I interact with my HAQs, but at least we know that the technology exists and Bryan is happy to make custom adjustments if there is sufficient interest.


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## cfmcmillan

I agree with Tom, I used the TCXO for measuring the second by second. Over a short time scale with more-or-less constant temperature, it can easily look at variations within the second. As to why each second (or each tick) is not the same, I can only guess that this is part of the design of the Morgenwerk.


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## cfmcmillan

Tom - as I get more data, it would be interesting to compare results on different instantiations of the Morgenwerk.


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## cfmcmillan

Tom, Thanks for the pointer to Bryan's "special software", I'll send him a note to see if I can get it.


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## Tom-HK

cfmcmillan said:


> Tom - as I get more data, it would be interesting to compare results on different instantiations of the Morgenwerk.


I'm sorry to report that I have limited results to share. I sold my Morgenwerk earlier this year.


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## jisham

@cfmcmillan: welcome to the forum. A fine first post! I can't wait until you can post plots here...



ronalddheld said:


> Can someone explain to me why each "second" is not a GPS second in length?


I guessing the GPS second is a true second in length, within the timing spec of the GPS, typically around 20 nsec (essentially zero)

The sample rate of the timing device, on the other hand varies quite a bit more. It is derived from it's own crystal controlled clock, after all, and is probably not up to HAQ standards.

It sounds like the Microset is on the right track, using the PPS to drive a TCXO.

With my similar setup using a 192kHz soundcard, I see rates that are off by 23ppm (192004.5 samples/s vs. 192000 samples/s). Note that this typically has large jitter - measurements can only be made at integer samples, sometimes 192004, sometimes 192005, an error of up to 5.2 usec every second. But measuring referenced to the PPS I can get an average sample rate over many seconds with sub-sample resolution (e.g. 192004.507824 samples/s). My "measurement second" is not a "GPS second" in length, but can be corrected to it with a little care.

Note that the measurement of each tick from the watch is also jitter-ing to an integer sample (in my case, 5.2usec), but again can be averaged to sub-sample precision over many measurements. I don't know what the sample rate of the microset is, but some of this "seconds inequality" may be sampling jitter at whatever rate the microset measures at [it looks like .314449 - .310549 = .0039s -> 256Hz? or perhaps a higher multiple of 256Hz if there is more resolution hiding in there...] [and this is further complicated by only taking one sample every 10 seconds].


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## Tom-HK

jisham said:


> I guessing the GPS second is a true second in length, within the timing spec of the GPS, typically around 20 nsec (essentially zero)
> 
> The sample rate of the timing device, on the other hand varies quite a bit more. It is derived from it's own crystal controlled clock, after all, and is probably not up to HAQ standards.
> 
> It sounds like the Microset is on the right track, using the PPS to drive a TCXO.


The TCXO time base on the MicroSet is not GPS-disciplined but it is incredibly stable and well up to HAQ standards. Bryan Mumford has a long history in timing technologies and he designed and builds the time bases himself. He uses a very stable 10 MHz XO and he calibrates the IC against a GPS signal over, I believe, several months. The TC implementation is of Bryan's own creation and I am not sure how it works but from testing and observation I can say I have never witnessed an obvious correction from his device. It just keeps a dead steady rate, second after second, hour after hour.

I have tested several watches (there are earlier posts on this) and every single one of them has ticks of varying lengths. The MicroSet's seconds, however, are as near to being completely consistent as I am able to measure. This is easily tested by plugging the 1 PPS GPS output into the watch sensor input and 'timing' the GPS pulse. Of course, the GPS pulse being absurdly consistent, what you're actually doing is testing the TCXO time base. And the result is a reading of 1.000000 (that's one second accurate to six decimal places) over and over again for hours on end. This, of course, is precisely the result Bryan seeks to achieve and it is the standard to which all his TCXO time bases are set prior to shipping. Indeed, Bryan says he went with this method rather than an ovenised XO because it saved weight, size and cost and, for pretty much all practical clock and watch timing applications, was just as good. For those requiring greater precision, Bryan added on the GPS option.


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## cfmcmillan

My experience with the MicroSet mirrors Tom's. I have checked agains the GPS signal going in to the watch sensor port. The MicroSet with the TCXO reads the GPS PPS signal as 1.000000 and stays true to that when I average. I don't know as much about Bryan's technology as Tom does, but his calibration seems to be spot on. I would also note that Bryan is VERY responsive to questions, weird requests etc.


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## cfmcmillan

Jisham - I have also used a good quality sound card and simulataneously record the GPS PPS signal and a clock tick. My experience is the same as yours - the clock is neither accurate nor stable over time. So far, I've found the MicroSet to be a different animal.


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## ronalddheld

Do we need a separate thread to document the varying llength of time the seconds hand moves?


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## cfmcmillan

Using the technique of drift from the GPS pulse described above, I have now made a continuous measurement every 10 seconds for about a week and have seen 5 corrections. This leads to 4 intervals between the corrections. For my watch, the interval is stable at 32.975 hours per interval. Translating into seconds, I see a mean correction period of 118,711.25 seconds with a maximum variation of 4 seconds in the interval size. Given that the drift measurements are taken every 10 seconds, it's probably best to consider these measurements to be accurate to +-5 seconds. The four intervals, in seconds are:

118,710
118,711
118,710
118,714

Since the measurements were made continuously, I am confident that no corrections were missed.


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## cfmcmillan

Double checking the arithmetic, I found a mistake. The correct average is 118,712.75 The raw values are:

118710
118711
118710
118720


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## cfmcmillan

In my previous posts I reported an interval between corrections of 32.975 hours or ~1.4 days. After syncing the watch to the GPS signal 26 June 2017 at 14:36, I have now observed three corrections at a new interval ~2.4 days. While I have not yet analyzed these data in the same detail as I applied to the first set, there is no question that the correction period changed after the GPS sync. 

The overall sync history of this watch is as follows:

13 June 2017 21:10
15 June 2017 21:00
26 June 2017 14:36

The overall measurement technique was as before, measuring the time from the GPS PPS signal to the first tick from the watch (after a 100ms blanking window). 

Could these adjustments to the sync period be what is learned from the GPS sync?


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## Hans Moleman

cfmcmillan said:


> In my previous posts I reported an interval between corrections of 32.975 hours or ~1.4 days. After syncing the watch to the GPS signal 26 June 2017 at 14:36, I have now observed three corrections at a new interval ~2.4 days. While I have not yet analyzed these data in the same detail as I applied to the first set, there is no question that the correction period changed after the GPS sync.
> 
> The overall sync history of this watch is as follows:
> 
> 13 June 2017 21:10
> 15 June 2017 21:00
> 26 June 2017 14:36
> 
> The overall measurement technique was as before, measuring the time from the GPS PPS signal to the first tick from the watch (after a 100ms blanking window).
> 
> Could these adjustments to the sync period be what is learned from the GPS sync?


Probably.
Check this previous post


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## cfmcmillan

Hans Moleman said:


> Probably.
> Check this previous post


Thanks - I should be able to double check the base rate today. I don't expect it to change, but I don't want to assume anything.


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## cfmcmillan

I now have two different week-long records looking at the drift of my MorgenWerk relative to the GPS signal. The first data set followed the sync to GPS on 15 June 2017, the other followed the sync on 26 June 2017. The slope of the GPS record gives the base rate of the watch. I evaluated the slope five times in each record choosing piecewise continuous sections between the corrections in noise-free regions of the record. Thus I was able to estimate the average slope over the course of a week as well as the standard error of the mean. The analysis is as follows:

15 June 2017: Correction period = ~1.374 days; slope = -0.1782 +- 0.0009 seconds/day
26 June 2017: Correction period = ~2.354 days; slope = -0.1818 +- 0.0008 seconds/day

The negative slope indicates that the base rate of the watch is fast relative to the GPS pulse.

I did a t-test on the null hypothesis that these means are the same. The t-test rejects the null hypothesis at the 98% confidence level. 

Whether the observed differences are a result of the GPS sync, mean temperature differences or something else can't be determined from these measurements. All that i can say is that the base rates determined over these periods to not appear to be the same and the correction periods are very different.


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## cfmcmillan

For completeness, the following are the measured times of the corrections/inhibitions following the GPS sync on 26 June 2017. The times at which the corrections occurred are in the left column and are measured in days and fractions thereof (starting on 26 June 2017). Since the measurements extend into July, I've just incremented the day counter so that it's easy to take differences in days. Thus day 31 is 1 July 2017 and so on.

*
Fractional Day* *Difference between corrections in days*

26.6083333333 <- GPS sync time measured in days - this is an estimate from the watch itself.
28.9620717593 2.3537384259
31.3155439815 2.3534722222
33.6690509259 2.3535069444

The mean correction period for these data is 2.3535725309 days.

Note that to this level of accuracy, the GPS sync starts a new correction cycle (as you would expect).

The computer recording these time stamps was synced to GPS via three independent NTP servers on the local network using PPS from three separate GPS receivers. The time stamps should be accurate to about 25 microseconds however, since they are only recorded to the nearest second, they aren't that precise.

Edit 1: As Ronalddheld rightly notes, all these digits aren't significant. Because the times are recorded to the nearest second in the date stamp, there should only be five places past the decimal (a second is ~1E-5 of a day). Thus the numbers above should read:

26.60833 <- GPS sync time measured in days - this is an estimate from the watch itself.
28.96207 2.35374
31.31554 2.35347
33.66905 2.35351

The mean correction period for these data is 2.3536 days.

Thanks for the correction.
*
*


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## ronalddheld

cfmcmillan said:


> For completeness, the following are the measured times of the corrections/inhibitions following the GPS sync on 26 June 2017. The times at which the corrections occurred are in the left column and are measured in days and fractions thereof (starting on 26 June 2017). Since the measurements extend into July, I've just incremented the day counter so that it's easy to take differences in days. Thus day 31 is 1 July 2017 and so on.
> 
> *
> Fractional Day* *Difference between corrections in days*
> 
> 26.6083333333 <- GPS sync time measured in days - this is an estimate from the watch itself.
> 28.9620717593 2.3537384259
> 31.3155439815 2.3534722222
> 33.6690509259 2.3535069444
> 
> The mean correction period for these data is 2.3535725309 days.
> 
> Note that to this level of accuracy, the GPS starts a new correction cycle (as you would expect).
> 
> The computer recording these time stamps was synced to GPS via three independent NTP servers on the local network using PPS from three separate GPS receivers. The time stamps should be good to about 25 microseconds.
> 
> *
> *


All of those digits are not significant, if your estimates are good to ~25 microseconds?


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## cfmcmillan

*Plot of GPS drift*

For those who may be interested in what these GPS drift plots look like, I've attached one below. If you have a MicroSet and intend to make a plot like this, you need to be aware that there is a "blanking window" of 100ms after the GPS pulse. This means that the MicroSet measures the time to the first clock tick _after _100ms. Since the watch is running fast, this pulse moves closer and closer to the blanking window. When it reaches the blanking window, the MicroSet starts measuring the time to the next pulse that is beyond the blanking window. Since the beats are not all the same length (as noted before, they are approximately 0.314, 0.374, 0.314 during a second) you have to offset the portions of the graph that are affected by the pulse that has disappeared into the blanking window.

I did all of the necessary unwinding in a spreadsheet. The graph below shows what's going on when the corrections occur.









As you can see there's occasional noise. It is also the case that when a pulse arrives at the 100ms boundary triggering sometimes jumps between pulses. Nevertheless, this plot makes it pretty clear what's going on.

It's conceivable that the slow march upwards after the correction represents the residual error in the timekeeping of the watch. If this were the case, it would suggest that this watch is running about 0.4 seconds/month slow since over the course of about a week, the pulse immediately after a correction has moved about 0.1 seconds further away from the GPS pulse. I'm not at all certain that this is the right way to think about estimating the current accuracy of the watch, but I am sure that if you make a measurement of the offset at some random point in this cycle, you can't tell very much about how the watch is performing over a short time period (like a week). If you measure over a long time period, you'd certainly like to know where you are in the cycle in order to minimize noise in your measurement since the variations within the cycle are of order 0.5 second.

I'd be interested in other's thoughts on this graph.


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## cfmcmillan

You're absolutely right - I just copied from the spread sheet. The difference should be good to about four places past the decimal. However, 25 microseconds is 3E-10 of a day so more of them may have significance than you'd initially guess since they are measuring fractions of a day.


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## cfmcmillan

All of those digits are not significant, if your estimates are good to ~25 microseconds?​






cfmcmillan said:


> You're absolutely right - I just copied from the spread sheet. The difference should be good to about four places past the decimal. However, 25 microseconds is 3E-10 of a day so more of them may have significance than you'd initially guess since they are measuring fractions of a day.


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## cfmcmillan

*The amount of the correction for GPS drift measurements*

The measured values for the the time change at each of the corrections shown in the graph above are:

-0.500 seconds
-0.500 seconds
-0.498 seconds

it's interesting that all the corrections are, for all practical purposes, a half-second. It suggest the question, "The correction is a half-second, what's the period?" I suspect I'll have to wait for further synchronizations with the GPS in order to see what's constant and what's not.


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## cfmcmillan

*How minutes are marked*

Before I did the 26 June 2017 GPS synchronization, I was able to predict when a correction would occur and captured the individual beats of the correction. In addition, immediately after the 26 June 2017 GPS synchronization I captured beats on the assumption that using a computer that was synchronized via NTP and a watch that had just been synchronized I would be able to identify the pattern at the beginning of the minute and then use that to decode what's going on within the minute where the correction occurs.

A minute begins as follows for both a normal minute and a minute during which a correction occurs:

normal minute Correction minute

0.3190.3190.3680.3690.3110.311

The way the start of the minute can be recognized is the 0.319|0.368 pattern - this tells you where the watch believes the minute starts.
*
How the periodic correction is done*

The pattern below shows what happens in both a normal minute and a correction minute. The pattern begins at second 8 and runs through second 13 for the normal minute. The correction minute has 182 beats rather than the normal 180. The two red beats in the correction minute show where they are added in the 10th second which is long by 0.500 second.

Normal minute Correction minute

0.3110.3110.3760.3760.3110.3110.3140.3140.3740.3740.3140.3140.3110.3110.1890.3760.3110.3110.3760.3110.3140.3140.3740.3740.3140.3140.3110.3110.3760.3770.3110.3110.3140.3140.3740.3740.3140.314

Taken together 0.189 and 0.311 total 0.500 second. The correction minute has an extra 0.500 second compared to a normal minute. This is how the correction is done. I confirmed that the correction minute was long by looking for the top of the next minute with the pattern above and confirming that indeed there were two extra beats in the minute. As expected, a normal minute is ~60 seconds long, a correction minute is ~60.5 seconds long.

Because the beat data for the correction minute were captured _before_ I did the 26 June 2017 GPS synchronization. I believe this adds credence to the anzatz that the correction may always be 0.500 second and that the period of the correction is what is adjusted following a GPS sync in order keep the watch accurate to within about a half second over a long period. These measurements are consistent with the long-term GPS measurements shown above that also exhibit a half-second correction.

I suspect that additional time and GPS syncs will have to pass before this can be definitively answered.


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## Bill R W

Enjoying the reports of your tests, cfmcmillan. Very interesting. 

Using high speed video methods and a GPS PPS signal, less precise in detecting corrections and measuring the corrections than using a MicroSet -- I have also seen corrections that are in the range of 0.49 to 0.5 seconds with my M1-3. With corrections this large, I agree that it does not make much sense to talk of the watch's rate over short periods of time, as the observed rate over a short period varies a great deal based on whether the measurement period includes a correction or not. 

In my measurements, I have seen some variation in the time period between corrections. Not large so far, but maybe a couple of hours over an 8-day or so correction period for my watch (which runs slow between corrections). Have also wondered whether some TC adjustments are done by varying the lengh of the correction period rather than the size of the correction. 

May have to get a MicroSet this fall for more testing. Hard to get more precise and comprehensive with the video method, particularly since, with my setup, I need to be present to start the video for each measurement, so labor intensive. 

Will be interested to see if my watch's base rate seems to change in the summer, given warmer weather, and whether that changes the correction period after a synch. Think the watch may re-determine its base rate after each synch and also make TC adjustments between synchs, perhaps by changing the correction period.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Bill R W said:


> Enjoying the reports of your tests, cfmcmillan. Very interesting.
> 
> Using high speed video methods and a GPS PPS signal, less precise in detecting corrections and measuring the corrections than using a MicroSet -- I have also seen corrections that are in the range of 0.49 to 0.5 seconds with my M1-3. With corrections this large, I agree that it does not make much sense to talk of the watch's rate over short periods of time, as the observed rate over a short period varies a great deal based on whether the measurement period includes a correction or not.
> 
> In my measurements, I have seen some variation in the time period between corrections. Not large so far, but maybe a couple of hours over an 8-day or so correction period for my watch (which runs slow between corrections). Have also wondered whether some TC adjustments are done by varying the lengh of the correction period rather than the size of the correction.
> 
> May have to get a MicroSet this fall for more testing. Hard to get more precise and comprehensive with the video method, particularly since, with my setup, I need to be present to start the video for each measurement, so labor intensive.
> 
> Will be interested to see if my watch's base rate seems to change in the summer, given warmer weather, and whether that changes the correction period after a synch. Think the watch may re-determine its base rate after each synch and also make TC adjustments between synchs, perhaps by changing the correction period.


Bill R W, based on some very preliminary comparisons that I've done of minutes, I suspect that interesting things may be going on between the major 0.5 second corrections. However, I have not yet had the time to look at these in detail so I have nothing of substance to report, at least for now.


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## ronalddheld

Did a visual quick check, and was 2 seconds fast, one of which was due to the last leap second. Will do a better check January 1st.


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## Bill R W

Bill R W said:


> Enjoying the reports of your tests, cfmcmillan. Very interesting.
> 
> Using high speed video methods and a GPS PPS signal, less precise in detecting corrections and measuring the corrections than using a MicroSet -- I have also seen corrections that are in the range of 0.49 to 0.5 seconds with my M1-3. With corrections this large, I agree that it does not make much sense to talk of the watch's rate over short periods of time, as the observed rate over a short period varies a great deal based on whether the measurement period includes a correction or not.
> 
> In my measurements, I have seen some variation in the time period between corrections. Not large so far, but maybe a couple of hours over an 8-day or so correction period for my watch (which runs slow between corrections). Have also wondered whether some TC adjustments are done by varying the lengh of the correction period rather than the size of the correction.
> 
> May have to get a MicroSet this fall for more testing. Hard to get more precise and comprehensive with the video method, particularly since, with my setup, I need to be present to start the video for each measurement, so labor intensive.
> 
> Will be interested to see if my watch's base rate seems to change in the summer, given warmer weather, and whether that changes the correction period after a synch. Think the watch may re-determine its base rate after each synch and also make TC adjustments between synchs, perhaps by changing the correction period.





cfmcmillan said:


> Bill R W, based on some very preliminary comparisons that I've done of minutes, I suspect that interesting things may be going on between the major 0.5 second corrections. However, I have not yet had the time to look at these in detail so I have nothing of substance to report, at least for now.


Looking forward to hearing more.

In a graph of some of my earlier testing, there were suggestions that there were smaller corrections also being made over shorter periods. But nothing definitive. My most recent test checked 60 different intervals (most around an hour long) to see if there were changes over the interval beyond the base rate. Did not find any direct evidence and have not had time to plot the data to see if something would show up in a graph. If a MicroSet allows for continuos unattended testing, it should be a much better way to find such adjustments.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Bill R W said:


> Looking forward to hearing more.
> 
> In a graph of some of my earlier testing, there were suggestions that there were smaller corrections also being made over shorter periods. But nothing definitive. My most recent test checked 60 different intervals (most around an hour long) to see if there were changes over the interval beyond the base rate. Did not find any direct evidence and have not had time to plot the data to see if something would show up in a graph. If a MicroSet allows for continuos unattended testing, it should be a much better way to find such adjustments.


60 intervals?
That should have been enough to get one.

Mmm.


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## cfmcmillan

*Effects of Temperature on MorgenWerk rate*

While I don't understand the details of how the MorgenWerk does temperature compensation, I do believe I can measure the magnitude of the effect of temperature on the MorgenWerk rate using the GPS drift measurements shown above.

By taking the difference between a least-squares-fit to a linear portion of the drift record and the drift record itself I can produce residuals - that portion of the record not fit by a straight line. These residuals measured in seconds and plotted below are not noise. They are slowly varying over a nearly two day period during which the temperature in the room varied from 25.3 to 27.5 °C. They show a variation of ~+-1 ms and a clear daily cycle. The integrated change over a full diurnal cycle was ~0.8 .









A logical question is, "Is the observed variation because of the MorgenWerk or because of the TCXO oscillator in the MicroSet?" This question is easily answered by recording the GPS pulse over about a half day during which the temperature varies over about the same range. The graph is shown below:







*Time [days]*
​The temperature variation over this record was from 24.3 to 28.4 °C. The variation shown in the plot above is 1 microsecond. It does not appear to vary with temperature. Thus, the variations shown in the first figure must be because of the MorgenWerk and not of the MicroSet.

This suggest the following hypothesis for how the MorgenWerk seeks to achieve accuracy.

1. Use a DTCXO (per the MorgenWerk web page) to take care of as much of the temperature compensation as possible. However, acknowledge that there will be remaining temperature variations.

2. Use the GPS syncs to get an estimate of average rate

3. Assume that the residual of the variation about the average rate caused by temperature when integrated over the daily temperature cycle will be small (say less than 1ms). If this accumulates for a year, it only amounts to ~.35 seconds.

4. Adjust the period of the 0.5 second correction to compensate for the average rate.

This hypothesis may well be completely wrong. However, having a hypothesis for how it works should suggest ideas for how the hypothesis can be tested and disproved.


----------



## Hans Moleman

cfmcmillan said:


> *Effects of Temperature on MorgenWerk rate*
> 
> ... and plotted below are not noise ...


What I find even more important is that you've proven that the MicroSet has a resolution of at least 0.1 ms:

You simply can't draw that graph with less. Impressive!

I was going to say; do the same while wearing the watch. Bit of a hassle with that sensor though.


----------



## Bill R W

I have been spending most of the summer at a cabin in northern Minnesota. I have my M1-3 here, but not my testing equipment. Conditions are different here than at home where I was doing prior testing -- no air conditioning, so more temperature fluctuations and higher temperature at times, and higher humidity. Also wearing the watch more. 

I synched my watch on 7/26, the end of the most recent roughly 45-day period. I have compared the M1-3 to Emerald Time on my iPhone from time to time using the eyeball method and the audible clicks that Emerald Time produces on 1 and 5 second intervals. Can see changes over time, but can't do precise measurements. 

On Tuesday, 8/1, the watch appeared to be close to 1 second slow (can't conclude whether the watch was within 0.75 seconds of true time or not on this evidence -- but if not, it was likely close). On Wednesday, 8/2, the watch was approximately one tick slow or around 1/3 of a second. Thus my M1-3 made a large adjustment between these two checks, presumably in the range of 0.5 seconds as we have seen before. While I can't be certain of the exact size of the adjustment, it is clear there was a large one. 

When I was testing the watch at home, it made a large adjustment approximately every 8 days as noted in the posts above. Here, however, the large adjustment was made at most 6 days and 23 hours after my last synch.

So it appears to me that the timing of the large adjustments on an M1-3 can change. Perhaps, the watch shortens or lengthens the period between changes as some form of TC. Or perhaps the watch's base rate was measured as different, given the different conditions it has been in the last 45 days, thus changing the timing of the large adjustments. Or maybe both. Or something else. 

Curious to hear if others have seen something like this, particularly as conditions change seasonally.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Looking at the graph from cfmcmillan, I'd say that the TC correction happens straight away. Not accumulated and applied at the end of a week.

But that's easy enough to test when you get home.


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## cfmcmillan

I did a third sync on the M1-3 at 15:47 on 29 July 2017. I then measured the period between 0.5 sec corrections. It is 2.775 days measured over two full periods. The sync history and measured inhibition times for this watch are as follows:

15 June 2017: Inhibition period = ~1.374 days | base rate = ~0.1782+-0.0009 s/day
26 June 2017: Inhibition period = ~2.354 days | base rate = ~0.1818+-0.0008 s/day
29 July 2017 : Inhibition period = ~2.775 days | base rate = ~0.1855+-0.0003 s/day

Since there are three peaks associated with measuring two full periods, I am able estimate the drift rate of the watch by looking at the slope of these peaks.

Days Time [sec] from GPS pulse immediately before 0.5 second correction
32.4324 0.2036
35.2075 0.1888
37.9824 0.1749

The slope of these peaks is -0.005165 s/day or approximately 1.9 sec/year fast. After three syncs, this is not yet consistent with the advertised accuracy.

At this point, there is no question that the inhibition period is what is being adjusted after a GPS sync. In addition, the current base rate of -0.1861 s/day, when coupled with a 0.5 sec. correction implies an inhibition period of 2.69 days. After the third GPS sync, the inhibition period appears to be approaching what would be expected based on the base rate. As shown before, the base rate appears to vary ever so slightly. Hence, I expect that part of the strategy for gaining accuracy is to average over a long enough period in order to get an adequate estimate of the base rate as it fluctuates with temperature and time.


----------



## Hans Moleman

cfmcmillan said:


> ... Hence, I expect that part of the strategy for gaining accuracy is to average over a long enough period in order to get an adequate estimate of the base rate as it fluctuates with temperature and time....


I wonder if it makes a difference when you synchronize. If you do it before the 0.5 second correction or after.
Is the MW be clever enough to realize that a 0.5 second correction is coming up and, no, the watch isn't 0.5 second fast.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Hans Moleman said:


> I wonder if it makes a difference when you synchronize. If you do it before the 0.5 second correction or after.
> Is the MW be clever enough to realize that a 0.5 second correction is coming up and, no, the watch isn't 0.5 second fast.


It's easy to derive the formula for how to do this correctly. However, at this point, I haven't done enough syncs to be able to see what the formula is that the watch is using.

I have, however, been forming another conjecture. I wonder whether the base rate is also being changed. If you look at the base rates I measured above, they change by about 2% each time. This is much larger than either the measurement error or what you would expect from crystal aging. If adjustments were being made to the calibration of the thermistor (or whatever is used to determine the temperature for the DTCXO) in order to minimize the variability arising from temperature variations (see the earlier post) I believe this change in calibration would probably manifest itself as a change in the base rate. Whether that's what's happening or something else, I think something intentional may be going on with the base rate as well as the inhibition period.


----------



## Hans Moleman

cfmcmillan said:


> If adjustments were being made to the calibration of the thermistor (or whatever is used to determine the temperature for the DTCXO) in order to minimize the variability arising from temperature variations (see the earlier post)


Optimizing the thermo compensation is very difficult.

If you synchronize a MW every month, then that watch will have been through thousands of temperature changes during a month. The MW only sees the end result; the offset increased by 0.1 second.

There is just too much going on to draw conclusions out of.

I don't think a MW 'learns' anything beyond 'too fast' or 'too slow'.
And that is tough enough. It is very easy to draw incorrect conclusions out of limited observations.

I would hope for something clever like 'too fast for the last 3 synchronizations, I need to take some action now'.

But, who knows? You'll measure it.


----------



## ppaulusz

Hans Moleman said:


> ...I don't think a MW 'learns' anything beyond 'too fast' or 'too slow'...


I agree!


----------



## ronalddheld

Mt. Moderator cannot remember if anyone looked for MW patents. Will search the thread when I have more time.


----------



## cfmcmillan

ronalddheld said:


> Mt. Moderator cannot remember if anyone looked for MW patents. Will search the thread when I have more time.


One that may be of interest is Patent US5392005 - https://encrypted.google.com/patents/US5392005.


----------



## ronalddheld

cfmcmillan said:


> One that may be of interest is Patent US5392005 - https://encrypted.google.com/patents/US5392005.


This is used by MW as I did not see that it is a MW patent. If so it is not obvious.


----------



## cfmcmillan

ronalddheld said:


> This is used by MW as I did not see that it is a MW patent. If so it is not obvious.


I didn't see who owned it. Rather, I point it out as it may be licensed.


----------



## ppaulusz

cfmcmillan said:


> I didn't see who owned it...


At&T Corp. according to this info:


Publication number
US5392005 A
Publication type
Grant
Application number
US 08/129,539
Publication date
Feb 21, 1995
Filing date
Sep 30, 1993
Priority date
Sep 30, 1993
Fee status
Paid
Inventors
James R. Bortolini, Gary J. Grimes
Original Assignee
At&T Corp.


----------



## DaveM

Hans Moleman said:


> Optimizing the thermo compensation is very difficult.
> 
> If you synchronize a MW every month, then that watch will have been through thousands of temperature changes during a month. The MW only sees the end result; the offset increased by 0.1 second.
> 
> There is just too much going on to draw conclusions out of.
> 
> I don't think a MW 'learns' anything beyond 'too fast' or 'too slow'.
> And that is tough enough. It is very easy to draw incorrect conclusions out of limited observations.
> 
> I would hope for something clever like 'too fast for the last 3 synchronizations, I need to take some action now'.
> 
> But, who knows? You'll measure it.


I agree.
All that you can measure is the ( hopefully tiny) total error.
This might be caused by :-
> mistakes in the software
> inaccurate thermo-compensation factor
> inaccurate measurement of XTAL temperature (ie lag between sensor and XTAL)
> ageing of XTAL
So you should do as good a job as possible on thermo-compensation algorythms at the design stage, and then leave well alone.
When the watch is in-use you should introduce a compensation-factor based on measured errors, but be very gentle about it !
I would do it like this :-
a) Error-rate is measured over at least one month of running.
b) If the Error-rate is X the compensation-factor is changed by no more then X/3, ie if the watch gains 1 second in 1 month its rate would be reduced by no more than 1/3 second-per-month.
I think that this is very important, the numbers are so small that tiny effects can result in 'rough running' if compensations are based on short-term measurements. If they are applied in a gentle, slow way good results will be obtained for almost any cause of variation.


----------



## cfmcmillan

*Stability of inhibition period and base rate between syncs*

Before synching the watch again, I decided to see if the inhibition and base rate were stable between syncs.

The inhibition period remains stable at 2.7750+=0.0001 days when measured in intervals spanning about a month following the sync that occurred on 29 July 2017.

Likewise, the base rate as measured by the mean slope of the drift relative to the GPS PPS signal is -0.1855+-0.0003 sec/day for a set of measurements starting on 29 July 2017 and -0.1840+-0.0013 sec/day for a period starting 17 August 2017. Applying a two tailed hetroscedastic (unequal variance) T-test to these two sets of data returns a probability of 0.3 - this implies that we should "fail to reject the null hypothesis" that these two data sets are drawn from the same distribution.

*In less statistical terms, it appears that both the inhibition period and the base rate are stable over a period of about a month provided there has not been an intervening synch to the GPS.*


----------



## Hans Moleman

cfmcmillan said:


> *Stability of inhibition period and base rate between syncs*
> 
> Before synching the watch again, I decided to see if the inhibition and base rate were stable between syncs.
> 
> The inhibition period remains stable at 2.7750+=0.0001 days when measured in intervals spanning about a month following the sync that occurred on 29 July 2017.
> 
> Likewise, the base rate as measured by the mean slope of the drift relative to the GPS PPS signal is -0.1855+-0.0003 sec/day for a set of measurements starting on 29 July 2017 and -0.1840+-0.0013 sec/day for a period starting 17 August 2017. Applying a two tailed hetroscedastic (unequal variance) T-test to these two sets of data returns a probability of 0.3 - this implies that we should "fail to reject the null hypothesis" that these two data sets are drawn from the same distribution.
> 
> *In less statistical terms, it appears that both the inhibition period and the base rate are stable over a period of about a month provided there has not been an intervening synch to the GPS.*


I've been pondering this.

A stable base rate? And I thought you had clearly shown that it wasn't.

You can mathematically eliminate the periodic variations and extract a constant component. But what is that going to tell you?
The periodic variations are 1.3 ms for the second period.
The change(?) in base rate after the GPS sync is 1.5 ms.

I don't think you can deduce a lot from that. The temperature noise is drowning things out.

The only thing that you know for sure is that the base rate doesn't change a lot. It stays within a 1.5 ms band.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Hans Moleman said:


> I've been pondering this.
> 
> A stable base rate? And I thought you had clearly shown that it wasn't.
> 
> You can mathematically eliminate the periodic variations and extract a constant component. But what is that going to tell you?
> The periodic variations are 1.3 ms for the second period.
> The change(?) in base rate after the GPS sync is 1.5 ms.
> 
> I don't think you can deduce a lot from that. The temperature noise is drowning things out.
> 
> The only thing that you know for sure is that the base rate doesn't change a lot. It stays within a 1.5 ms band.


By the "base rate" I mean the average (or in this case the linear fit) about which the there are very small changes because of the errors remaining from the temperature compensation. As you would expect, the watch is set to run fast - in this case about 180 ms/day. Variations of 1.5ms that average close to zero over the course of a day are small by comparison. However, what I've also seen is that this base rate appears to change after a synch. This observation has generate some very understandable skepticism - see the posts above. Hence, I wanted to see if the base rate was constant (in a statistical sense) when measured without an intervening synch. Of course, the small temperature variations are still occurring; however, on the gross scale I'm examining here, they are a second order (or higher) effects.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Correction: The integrated value is not 0.8, rather it is 0.5 microseconds.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Following the sync on 27 August, 2017 the base rate was -0.1835 s/day and the inhibition period was 2.6269 days. The table below shows both the base rate and the inhibition period since I began measuring this watch after first receipt.


SyncBase Rate [sec/day]Period [days]15. Jun. 2017-0.1782*1.3740*26. Jun. 2017-0.1818*2.3536*29. Jul. 2017-0.1855*2.7750*27. Aug. 2017-0.1835*2.6268*

Based on the long-term average base rate of -0.1836+-0.0005 [sec/day], I would expect the inhibition period to be (0.5 [sec]/0.1836) to be 2.72 [days]. We'll see whether the iteration converges toward that on the next sync.


----------



## Hans Moleman

cfmcmillan said:


> ... iteration converges toward that on the next sync....


In principle, yes.
But the watch does not live in a perfectly stable environment and it is pushed off course all the time. The temperature changes will make it oscillate around the 2.72 days.

If the temperature correction was working flawlessly, you'd be right.


----------



## cfmcmillan

I fear that my explanations of base rate have been less than clear. Since I keep referring to it, I'll provide a graphical explanation that I hope will be a bit clearer than what I've provided in words. The graph below shows a portion of the drift of the watch relative to the GPS pulse.









Because the measured "tick" from the watch is getting closer to the GPS pulse over the two day period, this tells us that the watch is running fast relative to the GPS (which for my purposes is close enough to true time that I will consider them to be the same). The slope of this line is the base rate. For this particular period, the slope is approximately -0.185 sec/day. This base rate is what is being corrected (at least to first order) by the addition of a half-second every 2.63 days right now.

While these data look very much like a straight line, we would expect very small variations from this line; it would be miraculous for the watch to perfectly corrected for temperature. In fact it isn't. If we take the difference between these data and a least squares fit to the data, we can see the very small effects that temperature makes on the rate of the watch. This difference is what I mean by residuals and is shown in the following graph:









Note how much smaller this effect is than the base drift rate. While the base rate is changing the time relative to the GPS at the level of tenths of a second per day, these variations have an amplitude of about +- 0.0005 seconds over the course of a day and are approximately periodic. The integrated effect over the course of a day is only about 15 microseconds per day - this integrated effect is four orders of magnitude smaller than the base rate. This is _very small_ effect. Of course, the estimates of the base rate by the watch from a GPS sync are affected by the integrated effects of the temperature as are my measurements. Nevertheless, it's important to keep track of which sources are first order and which are second order.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Hans Moleman said:


> In principle, yes.
> But the watch does not live in a perfectly stable environment and it is pushed off course all the time. The temperature changes will make it oscillate around the 2.72 days.
> 
> If the temperature correction was working flawlessly, you'd be right.


Agreed - hence my interest in estimating the order of magnitude of the temperature effect.


----------



## ronalddheld

Anyone got a large enough thermally controlled oven to leave the watch in?


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## cfmcmillan

ronalddheld said:


> Anyone got a large enough thermally controlled oven to leave the watch in?


I don't. However, I've consider a refrigerator or freezer as a mechanism for getting a pretty stable source of temperature control below ambient.

OK, this isn't quite accurate, I do have access to a kiln for working glass - it has a great programmable temperature control - it's just that the range is a bit off. I'm not willing to put a good watch in there.


----------



## Tom-HK

cfmcmillan said:


> I don't. However, I've consider a refrigerator or freezer as a mechanism for getting a pretty stable source of temperature control below ambient.
> 
> OK, this isn't quite accurate, I do have access to a kiln for working glass - it has a great programmable temperature control - it's just that the range is a bit off. I'm not willing to put a good watch in there.


I have an ex-lab, Torrey Pines Echotherm chiller/heater. It isn't as good as an oven, but it can chill or heat a metal plate from about -3 centigrade to far hotter than I would like to subject a watch to, and it can hold it there (to within half a degree) for as long as you like. I picked it up off eBay for precisely this sort of performance testing.

So far, though, life has just got in the way of my grand plans and the heater/chiller lives in the same box as my MicroSet, waiting for a time when I have a bit more freedom. That said, I did manage to get a couple of graphs off the MicroSet-Torrey Pines combo before it all got packed away. Too little data to be meaningful, but enough to get me interested in where further testing might lead.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Tom-HK said:


> I have an ex-lab, Torrey Pines Echotherm chiller/heater. It isn't as good as an oven, but it can chill or heat a metal plate from about -3 centigrade to far hotter than I would like to subject a watch to, and it can hold it there (to within half a degree) for as long as you like. I picked it up off eBay for precisely this sort of performance testing.
> 
> So far, though, life has just got in the way of my grand plans and the heater/chiller lives in the same box as my MicroSet, waiting for a time when I have a bit more freedom. That said, I did manage to get a couple of graphs off the MicroSet-Torrey Pines combo before it all got packed away. Too little data to be meaningful, but enough to get me interested in where further testing might lead.


Very interesting idea. These don't seem to be terribly expensive - particularly for the single plate version. Did you try putting an insulting box over the plate to make a miniature oven? I'm guessing that if the volume were kept small, it might be able to maintain a pretty uniform temperature throughout a limited volume.

If you get back to doing experiments with the microset, I'd be happy to share what experience I've gained so far.


----------



## Tom-HK

cfmcmillan said:


> Very interesting idea. These don't seem to be terribly expensive - particularly for the single plate version. Did you try putting an insulting box over the plate to make a miniature oven? I'm guessing that if the volume were kept small, it might be able to maintain a pretty uniform temperature throughout a limited volume.
> 
> If you get back to doing experiments with the microset, I'd be happy to share what experience I've gained so far.


I did consider how I might insulate the set-up, but during my fairly brief flirtation with the equipment I went with a fairly simple set-up.

Here is my DS-2 sandwiched between the chiller/heater and the MicroSet sensor. The temperature on the chiller/heater has been set to -5 centigrade and it is holding steady at -3 centigrade (I guess its degraded performance is why it is a piece of 'ex' lab equipment rather than one in current employment).


----------



## cfmcmillan

This seems like a very reasonable setup. Were you able to measure a change in the base rate?


----------



## Tom-HK

cfmcmillan said:


> This seems like a very reasonable setup. Were you able to measure a change in the base rate?


Sadly no. I had two basic problems - not being able to leave the equipment set-up in one place for very long, and EM interference spoiling the results. If I switched everything on early in the morning then I could get an hour or two of clear results, but by mid-morning I'd start to see unexpected spikes and troughs.

In the short time I had available to me, I focused on investigating different tick patterns across different movements of varying vintages. Really interesting to see how Swiss and Japanese approaches differed and how modern movements all seemed to have no clear pattern in contrast to the dead steady patterns of older watches. As I said before, however, I never really got enough data to do anything useful with.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Tom-HK said:


> ... unexpected spikes and troughs ...


Good for you to try!
I can't tell from here if this is an issue, but:

Remember that what is picked up from the watch are tiny EM chirps. A by-product of the even tinier motor.

If the environment is noisy, you're making life a lot harder for the sensor.

Keep the sensor in a quiet environment. Away from computers. Away from wires. Anything electrical.

I am not sure how the chiller works, but can you check with a AM radio? Is it creating a lot of static?

If you could listen in to what the MicroSet receives, that would be great.


----------



## Tom-HK

Hans Moleman said:


> Good for you to try!
> I can't tell from here if this is an issue, but:
> 
> Remember that what is picked up from the watch are tiny EM chirps. A by-product of the even tinier motor.
> 
> If the environment is noisy, you're making life a lot harder for the sensor.
> 
> Keep the sensor in a quiet environment. Away from computers. Away from wires. Anything electrical.
> 
> I am not sure how the chiller works, but can you check with a AM radio? Is it creating a lot of static?
> 
> If you could listen in to what the MicroSet receives, that would be great.


All good points. I'm conscious of sidetracking this Morgenwerk thread but it may be helpful to clarify that I would find the same random peaks and troughs whether using the chiller/heater or not. And it all tended to start at around 9.30 in the morning and get worse towards lunch time. I isolated my equipment as much as possible but I consistently found that if I hadn't started testing by about 9.00 then I wouldn't get any clean results. I think some of my early results and observations were included in an old thread, somewhere.


----------



## Hans Moleman

Tom-HK said:


> All good points. I'm conscious of sidetracking this Morgenwerk thread but it may be helpful to clarify that I would find the same random peaks and troughs whether using the chiller/heater or not. And it all tended to start at around 9.30 in the morning and get worse towards lunch time. I isolated my equipment as much as possible but I consistently found that if I hadn't started testing by about 9.00 then I wouldn't get any clean results. I think some of my early results and observations were included in an old thread, somewhere.


Sounds like you were keeping an eye out for the EM pollution. It gets frustrating very quickly doesn't it?

It's where a standard solution falls flat. It either works perfectly or not at all. And you have no way of working your way towards a solution.

I am sure Brian has a debugger mode with which he can work out where it goes off the rails.

Close to a WIFI router maybe?


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## CERTomaz

Hi, anyone having the watch going +1 sec. even after sync???


----------



## ppaulusz

CERTomaz said:


> Hi, anyone having the watch going +1 sec. even after sync???


Have you executed the leap-second adjustment?


----------



## CERTomaz

No, i just tried to sync it multiple times, but it is +1 sec.... i checked the hands alignment, its ok... how can i adjust leap second?


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## Bill R W

CERTomaz said:


> No, i just tried to sync it multiple times, but it is +1 sec.... i checked the hands alignment, its ok... how can i adjust leap second?


Here are the instructions for an M1 model, from the supplementary MW manual on leap seconds.

"M1 leap second procedure

Make sure your Morgenwerk is fully charged.

Please position the watch close to a window when searching for a signal inside a car or building. Also, stand clear of high objects or buildings to asure better satellite reception when outside.

Press button 3 for 8 seconds to activate the leap second data reception. The second hand will move to the 9 o'clock position and count for 15 minutes. Successful reception of the leap second information is confirmed by a beep. To cancel the procedure press button 3 for 3 seconds. To complete the procedure please charge the watch again. "

Note, button number 3 is the middle button.


----------



## ppaulusz

CERTomaz said:


> No, i just tried to sync it multiple times, but it is +1 sec.... i checked the hands alignment, its ok... how can i adjust leap second?


You should obtain the Manual of the leap-second adjustment either by:
- asking one from the manufacture
- asking one from Mr. Moderator
- or simply reading back in this topic as the adjustment procedure is described in at least one of the posts
It's always wise to read the earlier posts of the subject as there are plenty useful info available in those posts.


----------



## CERTomaz

Bill R W said:


> Here are the instructions for an M1 model, from the supplementary MW manual on leap seconds.
> 
> "M1 leap second procedure
> 
> Make sure your Morgenwerk is fully charged.
> 
> Please position the watch close to a window when searching for a signal inside a car or building. Also, stand clear of high objects or buildings to asure better satellite reception when outside.
> 
> Press button 3 for 8 seconds to activate the leap second data reception. The second hand will move to the 9 o'clock position and count for 15 minutes. Successful reception of the leap second information is confirmed by a beep. To cancel the procedure press button 3 for 3 seconds. To complete the procedure please charge the watch again. "
> 
> Note, button number 3 is the middle button.


Thank you! I am doing everything you said, but with no result. The watch does normal sync and beeps after a few seconds, but its stil 1sec ahead. Pressing middle button for 8 seconds does not seem to work, as the seconds hand does not go to 9 and etc... it just starts normal sync.


----------



## CERTomaz

Thank you, i’ve red the thread, found the same info on the procedure. Used google, used search of the forum.. no more info. I don’t know who is mr. moderator, will try to find out. Will try to contact morgenwerk aswell.... This is idiotic.. my astron and casio with gps are so easy and simple to use without “procedures”......


----------



## ronalddheld

CERTomaz said:


> Thank you, i've red the thread, found the same info on the procedure. Used google, used search of the forum.. no more info. I don't know who is mr. moderator, will try to find out. Will try to contact morgenwerk aswell.... This is idiotic.. my astron and casio with gps are so easy and simple to use without "procedures"......


I am the moderator here.


----------



## CERTomaz

Thanks everyone, it was a bit odd, and little frustrating, but it worked out eventually and now the watch is spot on the second. Everything is fine now, thanks again!


----------



## Bill R W

CERTomaz said:


> Thanks everyone, it was a bit odd, and little frustrating, but it worked out eventually and now the watch is spot on the second. Everything is fine now, thanks again!


Glad it worked. It worked fine on my M1-3 when I tried it last January.

I believe the reason the watch does not check for leap second data automatically (i.e., after 12/31 and 6/30, given leap seconds are generally added on either 12/31 or 6/30 by convention) is to save power, given leap seconds are not added that often. I think there have been 27 leap seconds added in the last 45 years, the last one being on 12/31/16. Checking for and receiving leap second data takes a fair amount of time and uses more power than a simple time synch.


----------



## ronalddheld

Fairly certain it is a power saving measure. My wstch has done the leap second correction, but I will try it after my next test is successfully done.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Following my sync on 29 Sept. 2017, the history of the base rates and inhibition periods for the M1-3 are


SyncBase Rate_Std. Err._PeriodDriftHistory[Sec/day]_[Sec/day]_[days][Sec/yr]2017-06-15-0.1782_0.0009_*1.3740*67.82017-06-26-0.1818_0.0008_*2.3536*11.22017-07-29-0.1855_0.0003_*2.7750*-1.9-0.1840_0.0013_*2.7750*-1.42017-08-27-0.1822_0.0014_*2.6269*3.0-0.1835_0.0007_*2.6268*2.52017-09-29-0.1882_0.0007_*2.6400*0.4

In this table, the two base rates marked in red indicate changes in the base rate from that of the previous sync. This is determined by a T-test failing to reject the null hypothesis that the base rates remain the same at the 98% confidence level. Given the most recent slope and inhibition period, this leads to a drift of approximately 0.4 s/yr. Thus, after five syncs, my M1-3 appears to be approaching the accuracy specified by Morgenwerk when measured over nine days. I note the continuing puzzle of changes in the base rate that appear to be statistically significant. Whatever the algorithm being used by the watch, the drift does appear to be converging as expected.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Bill R W - 

Did the MW service on your M1-3 solve the problem with the slipping second hand? I'm seeing the same behavior with my M1-3. I'm loath to give up the synchronizations I've done so far (you mentioned that the service reset the watch) but it's pretty annoying to have the second hand slipping all over the place - even when it's just sitting in the box.


----------



## Bill R W

cfmcmillan said:


> Bill R W -
> 
> Did the MW service on your M1-3 solve the problem with the slipping second hand? I'm seeing the same behavior with my M1-3. I'm loath to give up the synchronizations I've done so far (you mentioned that the service reset the watch) but it's pretty annoying to have the second hand slipping all over the place - even when it's just sitting in the box.


I received my M1-3 back in January this year from its visit to Hamburg for service. The hands have stayed properly aligned since then. I am wearing the watch now and the hands are aligned. I have not had to use the hand alignment procedure since the watch came back from service. So yes, the repair has worked so far for me.

The "slippage" (apparently a malfunctioning bearing, so slippage may not be a proper engineering description of the problem) on my watch was bad enough it needed fixing and it got worse after I first noticed the problem. Interestingly, it did not "slip" when I stopped the second hand in the low power usage mode, consistent with the idea it was a bearing issue, not a loose connection between the second hand and the rest of the watch.

Arne told me that the service caused the watch to lose its memory of prior synchs and performance. So I started over on synching in January, first with two synchs 24 hours apart (assume this lets the watch measure a base rate to use in determining how long to wait between 0.5 second adjustments in the following period between synchs). I have done synchs every 45 days or so since then, so will get through a year in January, 2018. After that, I plan to let the watch run without synchs for a longer period, to see how it does.

The repair was covered by the MW 2-year warranty. That runs out for me sometime next month (November).


----------



## cfmcmillan

Bill R W said:


> I received my M1-3 back in January this year from its visit to Hamburg for service. The hands have stayed properly aligned since then. I am wearing the watch now and the hands are aligned. I have not had to use the hand alignment procedure since the watch came back from service. So yes, the repair has worked so far for me.
> 
> The "slippage" (apparently a malfunctioning bearing, so slippage may not be a proper engineering description of the problem) on my watch was bad enough it needed fixing and it got worse after I first noticed the problem. Interestingly, it did not "slip" when I stopped the second hand in the low power usage mode, consistent with the idea it was a bearing issue, not a loose connection between the second hand and the rest of the watch.
> 
> Arne told me that the service caused the watch to lose its memory of prior synchs and performance. So I started over on synching in January, first with two synchs 24 hours apart (assume this lets the watch measure a base rate to use in determining how long to wait between 0.5 second adjustments in the following period between synchs). I have done synchs every 45 days or so since then, so will get through a year in January, 2018. After that, I plan to let the watch run without synchs for a longer period, to see how it does.
> 
> The repair was covered by the MW 2-year warranty. That runs out for me sometime next month (November).


Bill - many thanks.

My problem has become intermittent and the watch seems to behave better when it's being worn. In any case, I think I'm going to wait a bit before contacting Arne since I still have plenty of time on my warranty clock. I'm glad to hear that the fix was effective.


----------



## cfmcmillan

My watch, like Bill's before it, is off to Hamburg to get the clutch on the second hand fixed. I look forward to having a second hand that again corresponds to the time that the watch believes to be correct.

Since this will inevitably cause a hiatus in measurements, I thought it useful to provide a summary of what's happened after the syncs since June 2017. The table below shows all the inferred rates.


_Positive is slow, negative is fast_SyncBase Rate_Std. Err._PeriodDriftHistory[Sec/day]_[Sec/day]_[days][Sec/yr]2017-06-15-0.1782_0.0009_*1.3740*67.82017-06-26-0.1818_0.0008_*2.3536*11.22017-07-29-0.1855_0.0003_*2.7750*-1.9-0.1840_0.0013_*2.7750*-1.42017-08-27-0.1822_0.0014_*2.6269*3.0-0.1835_0.0007_*2.6268*2.52017-09-29-0.1882_0.0007_*2.6400*0.4-0.18840.0006*2.6400*0.42017-11-05-0.18620.0004*2.5273*4.22017-11-12-0.18820.0004*2.0020*22.52017-11-16-0.18670.0009*2.4510*6.32017-12-01-0.19330.0019*2.5975*-0.32017-12-08-0.19200.0012*2.0955*17.012018-01-15-0.18610.0038*2.6552*0.82018-02-23-0.18890.00102.49154.3

I expect that the differences in base rate are a function of the temperature history during the measurement. They are almost constant although a couple are statistically different at the 95% confidence level. I suspect the algorithm is choosing the inhibition period based on the rate history as determined by synchronization to the GPS.

An examination of the table above shows that the inhibition period (and hence the rate error in seconds/year) does not converge monotonically to the correct value (something around 2.65 days). Furthermore, several of the later syncs (particularly 2017-11-12, 2017-12-08 and 2018-02-23) are quite a distance from the correct value after the algorithm has already found a good solution. What's leading to this algorithmic instability? I don't know - in part because I don't know what algorithm MorgenWerk has chosen to use for selecting the inhibition period. I've posed the question to Arne - he may have some insights into what's going on. Nevertheless, if this is typical behavior, it would be rather frustrating to have a watch that is running very accurately and then, after another sync is way off again. You don't want to have to measure the watch after every sync to find out if it was a good one or not.


----------



## Hans Moleman

'Synchronizing off GPS' is used a bit loosely by the manufacturers.

I believe most GPS watches require only one satellite to synchronize from. This is only accurate to tens of milliseconds.
It has come up before.

You won't notice if your watch is out by tens of milliseconds. For daily use 'good enough'.

For rate calculations you'd better take those milliseconds into account.
I can't tell if that explains everything though.

I am surprised that MW decides to make changes after only one week. 2017-11-05 - 2017-11-12.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Hans Moleman said:


> I am surprised that MW decides to make changes after only one week. 2017-11-05 - 2017-11-12.


The decision to sync after a week was my decision, not theirs. However, as you can see from some of the other cases, the time between syncs was longer.


----------



## cfmcmillan

Hans Moleman said:


> 'Synchronizing off GPS' is used a bit loosely by the manufacturers.
> 
> For rate calculations you'd better take those milliseconds into account.
> I can't tell if that explains everything though.


A quick orders of magnitude calculation suggests that sync errors of the order of 10 ms can probably be tolerated. 1 second in a year is 3*10e-8; 0.01 seconds in a week is 2*10e-8 these are of the same order of magnitude so, while it would be desirable to have GPS syncs at the nanosecond/microsecond level, of order 10 ms probably works.


----------



## Bill R W

My M1-3 arrived at Morgenwerk in Hamburg today. As noted in the Morgenwerk Troubles thread, I am having second hand issues again. The second hand loses time and also simply stops. It feels like a mechanical issue, but who knows. Arne wants to look at the watch to see what's wrong, particularly as the watch was repaired in January, 2017 for what looks to me, at least, like the same or a similar problem. My 2-year warranty expired in November of 2017, before the problem surfaced again. It will be interesting to see if the company is willing to repair it without a charge, given the prior work on the same or similar problem.


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## pindu

is it known if current production watches are still having these issues?


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## ppaulusz

pindu said:


> is it known if current production watches are still having these issues?


I don't think there is such a thing in case of the Morgenwerk watches as "_current production_"...


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## ppaulusz

pindu said:


> is it known if current production watches are still having these issues?


They are limited-editions only as can be read on the Morgenwerk homepage: "_From early on in our development of the first MORGENWERK, it was clear that the M-Series models had to be produced as a limited-edition only_."


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## pindu

ppaulusz said:


> I don't think there is such a thing in case of the Morgenwerk watches as "_current production_"...


ok,can we take "current production" to mean watches being produced and sold now whether to order or otherwise.


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## pindu

is this the recommended procedure when you get your watch? :

1) sync gps once on the first day

2) sync gps once on the second day

3) sync gps every 2 months thereafter 

also if you are getting your watch in 2018 is it necessary to do the leap second adjustment?


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## ronalddheld

pindu said:


> is this the recommended procedure when you get your watch? :
> 
> 1) sync gps once on the first day
> 
> 2) sync gps once on the second day
> 
> 3) sync gps every 2 months thereafter
> 
> also if you are getting your watch in 2018 is it necessary to do the leap second adjustment?


Have you read any of the manuals plus leap second ones?


----------



## ronalddheld

pindu said:


> is this the recommended procedure when you get your watch? :
> 
> 1) sync gps once on the first day
> 
> 2) sync gps once on the second day
> 
> 3) sync gps every 2 months thereafter
> 
> also if you are getting your watch in 2018 is it necessary to do the leap second adjustment?


Have you read any of the manuals plus leap second ones?


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## pindu

yes thanks i couldnt find the answer to my specific questions.


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## Bill R W

pindu said:


> yes thanks i couldnt find the answer to my specific questions.


I believe the recommendation to synch the watch on the first day and again 24 hours later came from Arne at Morgenwerk. I do not see it in my M1-3 manual. There is some discussion of this topic earlier in this long thread. Look at post #449 & #450. It may also be in other places. You might search the thread.

As to how often to synch thereafter, I'm not sure there is any official recommendation.

The MW website mentions 8 synchs per year to achieve an offset of not more than +/-0.75 seconds. That would be roughly every 45 days, if evenly spaced.

"Through this process, a MORGENWERK accomplishes with only eight synschronisations per year, a minimal aberration of up to +/- 0.75 seconds."

My M1-3 manual notes that the watch should run 2 months on a full charge if the watch is synched twice a month and describes that as moderate use of synching:

"If the time-signal reception is used moderately (twice per month), the runtime of the internal battery improves from two months without energy-save mode, to up to 14 months with energy-save mode on a single charge."

I believe Arne has told members here that synchs are good for the watch's learning mechanism, although synchs over relatively short intervals are not helpful (not sure what is short for this purpose).


----------



## Bill R W

As to leap second data, I would anticipate if you buy a new MW, it should come with up-to-date leap second information. I think the last leap second was in December of 2016. There is no leap second scheduled for this June. Haven't seen yet whether one will be scheduled for December. Assume that will be announced one way or the other shortly. 

Getting leap second data for the watch is not difficult, although it takes a few minutes and uses a fair amount of battery power (which is why the process is user-triggered, not automatic). There is a separate, small leap second procedure manual. On a M1-3, you hold button 3 down for 8 seconds to start the process. Arne told me that it was best to do this after the leap second in question, rather than before.


----------



## Bill R W

Bill R W said:


> My M1-3 arrived at Morgenwerk in Hamburg today. As noted in the Morgenwerk Troubles thread, I am having second hand issues again. The second hand loses time and also simply stops. It feels like a mechanical issue, but who knows. Arne wants to look at the watch to see what's wrong, particularly as the watch was repaired in January, 2017 for what looks to me, at least, like the same or a similar problem. My 2-year warranty expired in November of 2017, before the problem surfaced again. It will be interesting to see if the company is willing to repair it without a charge, given the prior work on the same or similar problem.


My M1-3 arrived back on Friday from its service visit to Hamburg. Glad to have it back. Arne tells me that they rebuilt my watch's movement. Arne did not charge anything for the repair, even though this second failure occurred outside of the 2-year warranty period. A good business decision, I think, and it leaves me feeling that the company has dealt with the problem in a satisfactory manner. Arne says my experience with two failures has been unusual -- no details on exactly what that means.

Checking the watch against Emerald Time after it arrived, using the eyeball method and without doing a synch, I could see no difference between the watch's time and Emerald Time.

I will restart the synching/learning process shortly, with 2 synchs 24 hours apart, followed by synchs over 45 days. I am hopeful that things will go smoothly.


----------



## Hans Moleman

> ... rebuilt my watch's movement ...


"Found the problem", would be more reassuring, but what the heck. What choice do you have?
Good to see you're still sticking with it. The journey is the goal, or something.


----------



## t_mano

Factory Reset Procedure for M3 ?

Found the hands in Calibration mode, Min hand at 12 and Hour Hand at 6. Tried Charging over night, Battery indicator showing just half. Tried GPS sync as time showing in 2015.
Plugging into Charge, does not show in Charging mode, and no charge current being drawn...
Do remember some Reset procedure, may be imagining it..


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## cheznous

I note the watches still show each model as limited editions. No idea at what point these 150 editions or 250 editions will sell out but what is Morgenwerk plan then.
Surely standard editions is the obvious way forward, it does seem odd to advertise as limited editions. What happens when they have sold 1,600 pieces in total?


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## cheznous

If any is interested Morgenwerk watches are currently half price until Nov 27th.


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## ronalddheld

https://www.watchuseek.com/f9/mw-black-friday-4835829.html


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## signum8

I'll research this a bit and ask later.


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## farmerboy

I really like the looks of these watches. If there was a 1/2 off coupon code still available, I might try one. They hit a lot of my check points for a new watch. Yet, some questions linger.

Is it correct that the Morganwerks M1 series was made in one batch? Sounds as if the watches were produced in a limited run back in 2014/2015.
If so, the lithium ion battery is at least 4 years old. Does this cause trouble for the rechargeable battery?

Also, seeing how the watch is marketed it seems these are German watches. Yet, there is no indication i have seen of the country of manufacturing.
Most German brands seem to be marked as such. I suspect these watches are made in China but the marketing hides it if it is so.
Does any of the literature with the watches show country of origin?

Lastly, for those that have some wear time, how are the GPS antenna covers holding up? And other than the bearing issue on the hands, are there other issues that have developed?

EDIT: mineral glass not plastic antenna covers


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## cheznous

You make some good points. I have two Morgenwerks, the M2-X and the M-3 both were new and both needed updating for the leap second which implied they had been around a while in stock.
Two issues with the M2 are that the carbide (?) black wears off on the sharper edges of the dial. It is slight but noticeable.Secondly because of the design of the dial it can gather small particles of dust around the edges where it meets the body.
There is almost a little moat that collects very small particles. You can clean it with a air duster for your computer.
GPS cover fine.
In saying all that I still admire the watch, it really does work as says and is remarkably accurate once it learns after the initial regular settings. I prefer the M2 to the M3 because it is so easy to read the face.
You are only recharging 4 times a year so do not see any issues with battery.
I do not see where Morgenwerk go forward though if they are still selling original limited editions though I hope they do as the idea behind them deserves success.
Certainly here in the UK have come across only one other person with a Morgenwerk.


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## signum8

I scored an M1 off Ebay and I love it for its' minimalist looks. The minute hand reminds me of a train station clock as it jumps the minute marks. So far it's been keeping time to the second mark and even for someone obsessed with the hands touching the marks, it's good. I'm aware it only allows Time Zone and DST offset adjustments, but for an analog watch I don't worry about hacking the minutes and seconds as the satellites do fine work. There are no numerals on the dial except for the odd calendar days, there are no timers or stop watch functions as with my Casios, but it is a welcome addition to my collection. So I'm happy to be an M1 owner, no buyer's remorse at all.

Gene


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## signum8

farmerboy said:


> I really like the looks of these watches. If there was a 1/2 off coupon code still available, I might try one. They hit a lot of my check points for a new watch. Yet, some questions linger.
> 
> Is it correct that the Morganwerks M1 series was made in one batch? Sounds as if the watches were produced in a limited run back in 2014/2015.
> If so, the lithium ion battery is at least 4 years old. Does this cause trouble for the rechargeable battery?
> 
> Also, seeing how the watch is marketed it seems these are German watches. Yet, there is no indication i have seen of the country of manufacturing.
> Most German brands seem to be marked as such. I suspect these watches are made in China but the marketing hides it if it is so.
> Does any of the literature with the watches show country of origin?


No, but surprisingly the team seems to be based in Hong Kong if I read this article correctly.
https://www.audemarspiguetreview.co...atch-is-more-accurate-than-your-mobile-phone/


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## cheznous

signum8 said:


> No, but surprisingly the team seems to be based in Hong Kong if I read this article correctly.
> https://www.audemarspiguetreview.co...atch-is-more-accurate-than-your-mobile-phone/


Does not actually say they based in Hong Kong though. I believe they are German based. This is an old article as well with prototype charger.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## signum8

Yes I understand Morgenwerk HQ is in Germany. Most watch brands do outsource their production.

I was talking about the production team being in Hong Kong. The author of that 2012 article met them and was shown or took pictures of the models there.

There are also some Morgenwerks for sale on Ebay. In the "Item Specifics" Ebay lists the country/region of manufacture as Hong Kong.


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## ronalddheld

An email I received today claimed 50% of until November 30th.


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## gaijin

ronalddheld said:


> An email I received today claimed 50% of until November 30th.


Is there a discount code? I see no discount or mention of a discount on the web site...

TIA


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## ronalddheld

gaijin said:


> Is there a discount code? I see no discount or mention of a discount on the web site...
> 
> TIA


Email had no code, that I saw.


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## ronalddheld

gaijin said:


> Is there a discount code? I see no discount or mention of a discount on the web site...
> 
> TIA


Email had no code, that I saw.


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## DaveM

gaijin said:


> Is there a discount code? I see no discount or mention of a discount on the web site...
> 
> TIA


Just had a look on their web site.
No mention of discount but I think that listed prices are reduced. For example M1-1 is listed as 649 euros, which seems to me like a good price !


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## gaijin

DaveM said:


> Just had a look on their web site.
> No mention of discount but I think that listed prices are reduced. For example M1-1 is listed as 649 euros, which seems to me like a good price !


Is it the case, then, that the 1199 Euro price for the M3-1 currently displayed on the Morgenwerk site is a 50% off price?


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## DaveM

I am replying to the last post by gaijin 
 *>>Is it the case, then, that the 1199 Euro price for the M3-1 currently displayed on the Morgenwerk site is a 50% off price?*

I am confused
When I looked at the Morgenwerk website
>> MORGENWERK Zeitmesser 
five minutes ago I saw a price of 649 Euros for M1-1, not 1199 Euros.
I do not know the 'original' price, but while 649 is not 50% of 1199 it is certainly a lot less.


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## DaveM

I now understand the confusion, 639 is the (cheapest) M1-1, 1199 is the (most expensive) M3-1.

I thought that these prices were lower than the original prices, but may be wrong ?
639 euro for a low-volume, well made innovative watch seems like was good value by watch-market standards


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## DaveM

DaveM said:


> I now understand the confusion, 649 is the (cheapest) M1-1, 1199 is the (most expensive) M3-1.
> 
> I thought that these prices were lower than the original prices, but may be wrong ?
> 649 euro for a low-volume, well made innovative watch seems like was good value by watch-market standards


I just looked at some Morgenwerk watches on Ebay
Based on the 'new' prices that they quote prices have now been reduced by 50%
The 'cheapest' M1-1 was 1299 euro ( according to ebay seller) and is now 649 Euro (according to Morgenwerk website).


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## ronalddheld

Another email the sale is good until November 30 2019.


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## signum8

On the subject of Morgenwerk's leap second procedure, how do I know if it has been already performed and will it throw anything off if I were to run the procedure? (Press button 3 for 8 seconds).


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## cheznous

signum8 said:


> On the subject of Morgenwerk's leap second procedure, how do I know if it has been already performed and will it throw anything off if I were to run the procedure? (Press button 3 for 8 seconds).


If the time is out by a few seconds after getting a normal time adjustment then you will know. Will not do any harm to do just takes a while and needs to be fully charged.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## signum8

Much appreciated, cheznous. This is a M1X Perrarus and I was able to have my jeweler replace the titanium band with a MW rubber strap. The most stylish HAQ I've ever had the pleasure of owning.

Gene


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## Tom-HK

Another sale is on. 50% off all models until Christmas Eve.

After that, look out for the New Year sale.


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## hernandoco

Tom-HK said:


> Another sale is on. 50% off all models until Christmas Eve.
> 
> After that, look out for the New Year sale.


Thanks for the heads up. I've been a long time lurker but I guess I never signed up. Finally created an account today.

I'm really considering getting an M1-3 and taking advantage of the discount. This thread has gone on for a few years now. For those of you who still own any of the Morgenwerk watches after a few years:

- How is it holding up for you in terms of build quality? 
- Would you folks say that at 50% of the price it's worth it still even after a few years after its initial release?
- I read in the many pages that some owners ran into issues with misalignment of the hands, is this still an issue today (2019)?


----------



## cheznous

hernandoco said:


> Thanks for the heads up. I've been a long time lurker but I guess I never signed up. Finally created an account today.
> 
> I'm really considering getting an M1-3 and taking advantage of the discount. This thread has gone on for a few years now. For those of you who still own any of the Morgenwerk watches after a few years:
> 
> - How is it holding up for you in terms of build quality?
> - Would you folks say that at 50% of the price it's worth it still even after a few years after its initial release?
> - I read in the many pages that some owners ran into issues with misalignment of the hands, is this still an issue today (2019)?


I think at the reduced price it is worth considering. The hands can be easily aligned and it really takes 30 seconds so not an issue. Build quality is good my only complaint would be the black on the M2 X has rubbed of in a very small part where it maybe got caught. Price wise though very good.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## murokello

cheznous said:


> I think at the reduced price it is worth considering. The hands can be easily aligned and it really takes 30 seconds so not an issue. Build quality is good my only complaint would be the black on the M2 X has rubbed of in a very small part where it maybe got caught. Price wise though very good. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 30 s LOL. What a joker.


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## cheznous

murokello said:


> 30 s LOL. What a joker.


Not sure if you being a dick or not? Takes around 30 secs to align on my M2.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ronalddheld

Mr. Moderator asks to Please phrase things a little more civilly


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## DaveM

cheznous said:


> I think at the reduced price it is worth considering. The hands can be easily aligned and it really takes 30 seconds so not an issue. Build quality is good my only complaint would be the black on the M2 X has rubbed of in a very small part where it maybe got caught. Price wise though very good.
> 
> I bought M1-3. I think that at the reduced price it is good value & has some nice design features :-
> > Using satellite data to calibrate HAQ watch has to be the 'gold standard'
> > I like the simple dial layout and user interface.
> It is easy to switch the seconds-hand between date, seconds and 'battery save'.
> Reading date as 'minute indicated by seconds hand' works really well.
> It is well made and something a little bit out of the ordinary.
> 
> It makes me think
> a) Morgenwerk (unlike Longines) have used the separate seconds and minute-hand motors to implement a convenient and economical user interface.
> b) The light-interface of Longines GHP GMT is a clever idea. It could provide a high-speed data-link without significantly reducing battery-life.
> This could be used to implement 'like Morgenwerk' features using a mobile phone as 'virtual satellite'.
> It could also be used to improve original rate calibration by exposing trays of 'on test' watches to an 'Atomic clock' flashing light while they are being temperature cycled !


----------



## hernandoco

DaveM said:


> I bought M1-3. I think that at the reduced price it is good value & has some nice design features :-
> > Using satellite data to calibrate HAQ watch has to be the 'gold standard'
> > I like the simple dial layout and user interface.
> It is easy to switch the seconds-hand between date, seconds and 'battery save'.
> Reading date as 'minute indicated by seconds hand' works really well.
> It is well made and something a little bit out of the ordinary.
> 
> It makes me think
> a) Morgenwerk (unlike Longines) have used the separate seconds and minute-hand motors to implement a convenient and economical user interface.
> b) The light-interface of Longines GHP GMT is a clever idea. It could provide a high-speed data-link without significantly reducing battery-life.
> This could be used to implement 'like Morgenwerk' features using a mobile phone as 'virtual satellite'.
> It could also be used to improve original rate calibration by exposing trays of 'on test' watches to an 'Atomic clock' flashing light while they are being temperature cycled !


I currently don't have any HAQ watches, and the Longines VHP was one of the front runners in my search for an HAQ watch. I downloaded the app just to see how it works with the light flashing, pretty cool stuff. I just wish the app connected to an atomic time source or GPS then flash into the watch. The app seems to be using the clock from your phone and doesn't have any adjustments for network delay. For me the app is about 1.5 to 2 seconds behind time.is or time.gov which adjust for network delay.

I even considered the standard 3 hand VHP. There's a thrift store locally that has it for $500! It's like new in box, but with the M1-3 half off, I might just jump on this deal. Ugh man just typing this out, I might just end up with both.


----------



## signum8

hernandoco said:


> Thanks for the heads up. I've been a long time lurker but I guess I never signed up. Finally created an account today.
> 
> I'm really considering getting an M1-3 and taking advantage of the discount. This thread has gone on for a few years now. For those of you who still own any of the Morgenwerk watches after a few years:
> 
> I've had my M1X (white dial) for two months. Very happy with it. For someone who wants the hands to be on the marks, this is much better than pressing in the stem of some watches and seeing the minute hand shift. The satellite signal takes care of that and unlike radio-time signals does not have to be performed daily.
> Water resistance is 50m, but I tend to keep expensive timepieces away from water and chemicals. The second hand hops in three steps and does land on the second marks and the minute hands do hit the minute marks. The minute hand does not move to the next mark until the 60 seconds are completed. The hands are nicely designed and time/date function is fine with me. Shifting to other time zones and even Savings/Summer time is just a push of a button. Charge time is an hour when the battery needs it...and two months drain is average using the second hand and the occasional satellite check.


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## DaveM

[QUOTE I currently don't have any HAQ watches, and the Longines VHP was one of the front runners in my search for an HAQ watch. I downloaded the app just to see how it works with the light flashing, pretty cool stuff. I just wish the app connected to an atomic time source or GPS then flash into the watch. The app seems to be using the clock from your phone and doesn't have any adjustments for network delay. For me the app is about 1.5 to 2 seconds behind time.is or time.gov which adjust for network delay.

Yes, I agree. As is the feature does not add much to the watch. But perhaps they are working on more interesting applications.
For me the clever bit is that you can get fast data into the case without any significant cost, battery-life or case-size penalty.


----------



## signum8

I don't know the proper forum for this, so bear with me. Using Safari(MacOS) instead of my usual Firefox on time.is got me a surprise redirect to a phoney Norton subscription expiration message and a Flash Player "download" request.. (My preferences are set to only let Adobe install Flash updates.) 
It might have been a glitch if it happened on this one Macbook, but my backup Macbook caught the same thing. An install of Ghostery stopped that, but scamware redirects like that are really over the line. So a heads up to Safari users and wondering if anyone else caught this? :-(


----------



## hernandoco

signum8 said:


> I don't know the proper forum for this, so bear with me. Using Safari(MacOS) instead of my usual Firefox on time.is got me a surprise redirect to a phoney Norton subscription expiration message and a Flash Player "download" request.. (My preferences are set to only let Adobe install Flash updates.)
> It might have been a glitch if it happened on this one Macbook, but my backup Macbook caught the same thing. An install of Ghostery stopped that, but scamware redirects like that are really over the line. So a heads up to Safari users and wondering if anyone else caught this?


Ah, girlfriend's mac just had something similar. What I noticed was, just as you open up Safari, look at the address bar, there's a site that pops up before the redirect. Google that website and you'll find that you have an application that was installed that's causing the redirect. The address that pops up changes real quick so what I did was make a video on my phone of the redirect and just rewind.

You might have installed something but didn't unclick the "...also install this software for blah blah...". That's what happened to me. I was installing some video converter, and didn't realize it installed something. Hope this helps.


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## murokello

hernandoco said:


> Ah, girlfriend's mac just had something similar. What I noticed was, just as you open up Safari, look at the address bar, there's a site that pops up before the redirect. Google that website and you'll find that you have an application that was installed that's causing the redirect. The address that pops up changes real quick so what I did was make a video on my phone of the redirect and just rewind. You might have installed something but didn't unclick the "...also install this software for blah blah...". That's what happened to me. I was installing some video converter, and didn't realize it installed something. Hope this helps.


 Yep. There is nothing wrong with time.is.


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## farmerboy

I am glad this was brought up. I run mac and also got that message. I have been avoiding time.is

Did the email from Morgenwerk have a ending date for the discount pricing?


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## signum8

Strange that the redirect only happened on time.is First I had ever seen this. I would expect it on other sites. I checked a fresh copy of Safari on another user account and time.is behaved there. I run Malwarebytes, so it is odd. Anyway the situation is under control now.


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## Eadward

I see some MW watches listed on eBay apparently from a dealer in HK. Any thoughts on if that would be a good source?


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## hernandoco

Eadward said:


> I see some MW watches listed on eBay apparently from a dealer in HK. Any thoughts on if that would be a good source?


I saw those too and I was really close to getting it but when MW offered 50%, I decided to put more thought into it. Yes, even at 50% off it's still more than that eBay seller but I'm willing to pay for that extra insurance direct from MW.

In fact, after a few emails back and forth with MW, I decided to get it. Arne's quick responses and responses to my concerns made me feel comfortable. Late Christmas gift to myself.


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## signum8

Eadward said:


> I see some MW watches listed on eBay apparently from a dealer in HK. Any thoughts on if that would be a good source?


I got the M1X Perrarus for $439 (inc. state sales tax) two months ago. It arrived with boxes manuals chargers and a cleaning cloth. When the titanium band was not comfortable, the seller even shipped me the rubber strap for a reasonable cost. It's been about a month and it keeps time to the second and charges in an hour. The dealer is responsive to my emails and has a 100% feedback. The M1X has been discounted to 1100 USD equivalent on the Morgenwerk website. It's a generous drop from $2200, but still as Pat Boone put it, "All that kind of money ain't within my reach."


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## Eadward

Good to hear. Out of curiosity, why did you find the TI band uncomfortable? I was thinking to get one with the TI band. Also would you mind PM'ing me the cost of the rubber strap? TIA


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## Eadward

If someone could send me manuals for following, I’d appreciate: M1-3, M2-1, M2-2, M2-X, M3-1. Thanks and Merry Christmas


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## ronalddheld

PM sent


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## hernandoco

ronalddheld said:


> PM sent


Me too please. I just ordered an M1-3 but I wanted to read up on it before I get it.


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## ronalddheld

I received another email with up to 50% off on selected models up to February 21st.


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## Vioviv

I've been interested in HAQs for a while, and have a DS-2 Precidrive. I have been thinking about upgrading to a Citizen Chronomaster or maybe a Junghans, but the prices have deterred me. When I saw an amazing deal on an M2-1, I snagged it.
It arrived 2 weeks ago, and I was disappointed that it ran a full second fast after the initial satellite sync. I re-synced 24 hours later, and re-calibrated the handset, but it is still stubbornly fast. I re-synced it again yesterday, but no change. 
My accuracy tests are not very sophisticated, and I apologize for the crude pictures (we're all friends here, right?) -- I eyeball it against time.is, and check the Exif data on my iPhone pics -- and while they only show 1-second increments, it's enough to see that the watch is running fast ...









I came here to look for help ... I bought it gray market, & going to Morgenwerk isn't an option. I ended up reading _most_ of this thread. I comprehend about 45% of it ... how you guys are able to detect TC-corrections is way over my head ... but I did get acquainted with the notion of the LEAP SECOND ... I don't understand it, but I'm happy that Morgenwerk does.
At lunch, I ran outside and pushed Button #3 for 8 seconds. It took about 2 minutes to reset & resume timekeeping, & it worked!









But ... now that it's running at +/- 0 seconds, I'm realizing there's no point in owning a 0.75 SPY watch without a more precise method of measuring accuracy. One thing I've learned on the HAQ forum is that one second is a long-ass period of time. Again, this thread had answers ... I found out about the Emerald Sequoia time app (love the audible ticking), and from another thread discovered the Timestamp Camera app, which can shoot video & still pics w/a 1/1000th-sec timecode. I'm tempted to buy a timegrapher and to learn how to use it, but I'm gonna try the camera first.
In the meantime, I'm gonna do the syncs every 45 days, and give it some wrist time, and I'm excited to see how well it "learns" over the next year. I'm worried this will lead me down another horological rabbit hole, but for now it's interesting & fun.

So this is just a very wordy way of saying _thanks_ for a really informative thread!

Have a great weekend, and stay healthy y'all!


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## chris01

For anyone interested in an almost new MW1-3, titanium with titanium bracelet, mine is for sale.
Brilliant watch, but just too big for my insignificant wrist.

https://www.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-morgenwerk-mw1-3-gps-high-precision-full-black-titanium-watch-bracelet-5147419.html


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## watchcrank_tx

Vioviv said:


> But ... now that it's running at +/- 0 seconds, I'm realizing there's no point in owning a 0.75 SPY watch without a more precise method of measuring accuracy. One thing I've learned on the HAQ forum is that one second is a long-ass period of time. Again, this thread had answers ... I found out about the Emerald Sequoia time app (love the audible ticking), and from another thread discovered the Timestamp Camera app, which can shoot video & still pics w/a 1/1000th-sec timecode. I'm tempted to buy a timegrapher and to learn how to use it, but I'm gonna try the camera first.


You might also want to try shift+s on time.is to add tenths of seconds or milliseconds to enhance the utility of your filming. (See the time.is usage page and customization page for more useful shortcuts and customization.)

(Hat tip to BrianBinFL for posting this info over in the Grand Seiko forum.)


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## Vioviv

watchcrank_tx said:


> You might also want to try shift+s on time.is to add tenths of seconds or milliseconds to enhance the utility of your filming. (See the time.is usage page and customization page for more useful shortcuts and customization.)
> 
> (Hat tip to BrianBinFL for posting this info over in the Grand Seiko forum.)


Thanks, I was looking for it!


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## ronalddheld

Just got another email claiming 50% off on all models until April 15th. I did not verify this.


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## mark1958

I dug my Morgenwerk M1 out but cannot find the manual to set it. I cannot believe it is not offered on their website. does anyone have a pdf Version. Thanks


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## mark1958

I found the manual and re-set.. after a few minutes I noticed the seconds hand stopped.. it restarted and was a second or two off an now it is really off... However the minute hand moves to the appropriate minute regardless of where the seconds hand is..

on further resetting the hands.. The seconds hand resets to the correct location and I notice that as it goes around the dial in a couple spots (not necessarily the same one each time) it beats backwards and then moves forward and now the seconds hand is off --- and after a couple of minutes-- the seconds hand usually stops while the minute hand continues to accurately move to the appropriate time ever 60 seconds... Any advice?


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## ronalddheld

mark1958 said:


> I dug my Morgenwerk M1 out but cannot find the manual to set it. I cannot believe it is not offered on their website. does anyone have a pdf Version. Thanks


PM sent.


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## ronalddheld

mark1958 said:


> I dug my Morgenwerk M1 out but cannot find the manual to set it. I cannot believe it is not offered on their website. does anyone have a pdf Version. Thanks


PM sent.


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## mark1958

Update.... I let it run for another day and did multiple resets --- and the watch jumped time zones and did various crazy things and after awhile---- seemed to start working correctly.. So overnight doing well.. Maybe after a few years of not running needed time to wake up ... I did write the company and got no reply



mark1958 said:


> I found the manual and re-set.. after a few minutes I noticed the seconds hand stopped.. it restarted and was a second or two off an now it is really off... However the minute hand moves to the appropriate minute regardless of where the seconds hand is..
> 
> on further resetting the hands.. The seconds hand resets to the correct location and I notice that as it goes around the dial in a couple spots (not necessarily the same one each time) it beats backwards and then moves forward and now the seconds hand is off --- and after a couple of minutes-- the seconds hand usually stops while the minute hand continues to accurately move to the appropriate time ever 60 seconds... Any advice?


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## signum8

I basically give mine a full charge first. Then with the TZ and DST set, I go outside and press button 3 for the GPS birds. When I started out,it would be off a second then it would "train" itself to keep better time. If you followed the manual closely and it hasn't settled down, you will have to contact Morgenwerk suppport.


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## mark1958

During the following week.. every day or so --- the seconds hand was about 5 to 7 seconds slow but minute hand changed at the minute mark so out of synch with seconds hand. The 3 reset did nothing to fix.. So I tried the 1 and 3 reset and corrected the synch between the seconds and minutes hand. The 1/3 reset is called the shock reset but just to note- the watch was sitting on my desk... This happened 3x and I was about ready to store it away and be done with Morgenwerk (they never answered my email so I would not order from them again) but now for the last 2.5 days seems to working ok.. Will continue to monitor. .BTW I did do a complete charge after taking out of storage.



signum8 said:


> I basically give mine a full charge first. Then with the TZ and DST set, I go outside and press button 3 for the GPS birds. When I started out,it would be off a second then it would "train" itself to keep better time. If you followed the manual closely and it hasn't settled down, you will have to contact Morgenwerk suppport.


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## signum8

mark1958 said:


> During the following week.. every day or so --- the seconds hand was about 5 to 7 seconds slow but minute hand changed at the minute mark so out of synch with seconds hand. The 3 reset did nothing to fix.. So I tried the 1 and 3 reset and corrected the synch between the seconds and minutes hand. The 1/3 reset is called the shock reset but just to note- the watch was sitting on my desk... This happened 3x and I was about ready to store it away and be done with Morgenwerk (they never answered my email so I would not order from them again) but now for the last 2.5 days seems to working ok.. Will continue to monitor. .BTW I did do a complete charge after taking out of storage.


Ok, good to know you got it going. I hope they are around. I'd hate to have toneed service if they are the only place to go.


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## edlee

So, do the Morgenwerk watches use a proprietary rechargeable battery that you can only get from Morgenwerk? Every rechargeable battery that I have used eventually loses its ability to hold a full charge.

Do you only have to calibrate a Morganwerk watch for the first year?


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## ronalddheld

edlee said:


> So, do the Morgenwerk watches use a proprietary rechargeable battery that you can only get from Morgenwerk? Every rechargeable battery that I have used eventually loses its ability to hold a full charge.
> 
> Do you only have to calibrate a Morganwerk watch for the first year?


I do not think the battery is user replaceable. 
Have you looked at any of the manuals?


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## edlee

I could not find copies of any of the watch manuals on Morgenwerk's web site. I think they would sell more watches if they made their manuals readily available so that people could become more familiar with their watches.

One thing I don't like is the proprietary rubber strap. Lots of people would like options for switching the watch strap to one of their choosing, whether they like stainless steel, leather, nylon, or whatever.


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## ronalddheld

edlee said:


> I could not find copies of any of the watch manuals on Morgenwerk's web site. I think they would sell more watches if they made their manuals readily available so that people could become more familiar with their watches.
> 
> One thing I don't like is the proprietary rubber strap. Lots of people would like options for switching the watch strap to one of their choosing, whether they like stainless steel, leather, nylon, or whatever.


If you want specific manuals,PM me with your email address and I will send them to you.


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## DaveM

I made this picture to remind me which button to press.
I really like the way you can easily switch the seconds-hand between :- EnergySave, Date, Time-zone & Seconds.


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## edlee

Thanks for the manual, Mr. Held. My question remains: If a person regularly synchronized their Morgenwerk watch for a year with GPS satellites and then stopped all synchronization, would the watch still be accurate to less than 1 second per year at the end of the second year? Is Morgenwerk claiming <1 second per year accuracy for their watches simply because the watches are regularly synchronized to GPS time and don't have time to drift more than 1 second from the atomic time standard?


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## Gerald_D

edlee said:


> Thanks for the manual, Mr. Held. My question remains: If a person regularly synchronized their Morgenwerk watch for a year with GPS satellites and then stopped all synchronization, would the watch still be accurate to less than 1 second per year at the end of the second year? Is Morgenwerk claiming <1 second per year accuracy for their watches simply because the watches are regularly synchronized to GPS time and don't have time to drift more than 1 second from the atomic time standard?


From their website -

"Through this process, a MORGENWERK accomplishes with only eight synschronisations per year, a minimal aberration of up to +/- 0.75 seconds."

The key word there is "per". To maintain its claimed precision, it needs to regularly synchronise with GPS time signals. For all the marketing speak about AI, it's pretty clear this watch is "only" independently accurate to 0.75 seconds over a period of 1.5 months, ergo, 6 seconds per year.

Somehow Grand Seiko are able to beat this (just) without having to resort to any "artificial intelligence".


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## DaveM

Gerald_D said:


> From their website -
> 
> "Through this process, a MORGENWERK accomplishes with only eight synschronisations per year, a minimal aberration of up to +/- 0.75 seconds."
> 
> The key word there is "per". To maintain its claimed precision, it needs to regularly synchronise with GPS time signals. For all the marketing speak about AI, it's pretty clear this watch is "only" independently accurate to 0.75 seconds over a period of 1.5 months, ergo, 6 seconds per year
> Somehow Grand Seiko are able to beat this (just) without having to resort to any "artificial intelligence".


It is very hard to compare watches based on 'marketing' spy
I think that Grand Seiko only claim 5spy on 'special-edition' versions. 
Here is the standard spec.








So the 'monthly rate' can be 24spy
Over a year they suggest 10spy so long as you wear it for 8hours per day.
So if I live in the tropics without air-conditioning and only wear it 8 hours per day will it achieve 10spy ?
I think not .
If I have it regulated to match my life-style ( which is easy to do on GS) it probably will !

The Morgenwerk does its own regulation.
Using GPS and artificial-intelligence to regulate a thermo-compensated movement has to be the best solution. 
I bought a Morgenwerk just over a year ago, have only done 3 or 4 synchronisations and it has always been accurate ( ie within about 1second). When I have time I will check rate without any synchronisations.

My ideal watch would similar to Morgenwerk, but with the GPS circuit transferred to the battery-charger.
This could retain the 'self regulation' feature while reducing the size of the watch.


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## ronalddheld

Manufacture specs are a guide. Taking measurements in real world wearing patterns is more indicative of performance.


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## hoverdonkey

Hi 

I have an M1-2 coming to me and thought I would fill in some of the waiting time by reading this thread. Sometimes I felt like a child listening to the grown-ups speak through the living room door, but I have learnt a lot. There was some great work done in working out how the watch does its thing, especially from @Bill R W,@Hans Moleman and @ppaulusz (and his brother!), all coolly kept on track by @ronalddheld. Thank you. 

How is everyone finding their MWs in the longer term? In particular, I wonder, does their precision hold well without further GPS syncs after the first year's syncing schedule? Did anyone get any further in uncovering the inner workings of these watches? Did Arne ever comment further?!

I would be very grateful if @ronalddheld might please be able to PM pdf info on the M1-2.

Many thanks.


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