# Accuracy Challenge '07 ...



## Bruce Reding

This sticky will be for posting our monthly results for our accuracy challenge. This will run to the end of '07. You should set your watches now to time.gov, and report drift relative to time.gov at the beginning of each month.

Unlike in previous challenges, pics of the watch next to a time.gov screen will not be required. A simple statement of performance will do. Pics are welcome, though.

As in previous challenges, the prize will be bragging rights. (Ain't I generous? :-d )

_Let the games begin!!!_


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## MJH

My "The Citizen" is 1.64s ahead of time.gov at the time of starting the challenge. 1.64s is the total difference in 21 months of me having it without resetting it in between. Typically I wear it 24/7.


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## Bruce Reding

MJH said:


> 1.9s is the total difference in 21 months of me having it without resetting it in between. Typically I wear it 24/7.


That's rather good. |>


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## artec

This is intended to be a test of my ability to post a photo, so that I can show the watches whose accuracy I am posting. Time will show whether it works!http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p15/artec540/IMG_3900.jpg


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## artec

Well that didn't work, let's try this: 
]http://s124.photobucket.com/albums/p15/artec540/img_3900.jpg[IMG]

Sorry, that didn't work either.......any ideas anyone?


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## artec

Try this:


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## Bruce Reding

Nice "stable"! FYI, the first worked too. Also, you can upload a pic (it will show as a thumbnail in your post) by using the "manage attachments" button in the "Additional Options" section below the "Reply to Thread" section.


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## artec

If the first one worked, I don't understand why it isn't visible? Thanks for the suggestion about thumbnails. I'll try it next time. Should one use the first code under the down-loaded picture or the third, as I did for the last attempt? I'll get there in the end!


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## Bruce Reding

artec said:


> If the first one worked, I don't understand why it isn't visible?


It isn't visible, but provides a working link to the picture.



artec said:


> Thanks for the suggestion about thumbnails. I'll try it next time. Should one use the first code under the down-loaded picture or the third, as I did for the last attempt? I'll get there in the end!


Not sure I know what you're referring to here.


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## artec

You say that the code provides a working link to the picture. I understand the words but what use is the working link if we ain't got no picture?
About the thumbnails............... Under each photo in photobucket, there are three codes. The first one is the URL and that's what I used the first time (because I had read somewhere that that was the one to use) but I used the third code and previewed it the time the picture showed up. What I'm asking is "To produce the thumbnails, should I use the first (URL) code or the third one which has IMG at each end?
Thanks!


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## Bruce Reding

artec said:


> You say that the code provides a working link to the picture. I understand the words but what use is the working link if we ain't got no picture?


In the first of your three attempts (#4 in the thread), when I clicked on the link, it opened a new window that showed your picture.



artec said:


> About the thumbnails............... Under each photo in photobucket, there are three codes. The first one is the URL and that's what I used the first time (because I had read somewhere that that was the one to use) but I used the third code and previewed it the time the picture showed up. What I'm asking is "To produce the thumbnails, should I use the first (URL) code or the third one which has IMG at each end?
> Thanks!


I don't use this method, so perhaps someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that you should use the one that has IMG at each end.

Also, when I was talking about your pic being a thumbnail, I was referring to the fact that you can directly upload your picture to the forum from your computer, rather than uploading it to photobucket then referencing the URL. (This is what I do.) You do this by pressing the "Manage Attachments" button on the bottom half of the reply screen.


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## CFR

artec said:


> Try this:


Artec, could you tell me how you did this? I haven't been able to figured out the code to put full-size images directly into posts. The standard "img src" html code doesn't seem to work for this. Thanks!


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## artec

CFR said:


> Artec, could you tell me how you did this? I haven't been able to figured out the code to put full-size images directly into posts. The standard "img src" html code doesn't seem to work for this. Thanks!


This is a classic case of the blind leading the blind. I had been trying to find out how to put a photo into a post for some time and this was the first success!
The photo was uploaded onto Photobucket. Once successfully uploaded (and that was another adventure), the photo appears in your album. Under the photo are three codes. If you click on the lowest of these, you are supposed to get a brief yellow based message saying copied. If you don't, right click on the code and select copy. Then go to the forum, start your post and when you reach the point where you want to put the photo, right click and hit drop or copy or whatever seems appropriate, or hit the combination of keys that you normally use to select from the clipboard. Then hit preview and you should be in business. That's what I did, but I've only done it once!
Good luck. Let me know if it works!
Fran


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## artec

January 31, 2007
Seiko quartz Alpinist, gained 2 seconds +
Grand Seiko no perceptible change
The Citizen Chronomaster no perceptible change
Omega Constellation Double Eagle Perpetual Calendar no perceptible change


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## ppaulusz

My Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar lost about 0.5 second in the past 30 days (the watch was worn for about 6 hours during that period).
3 months ago I had re-calibrated that watch as it was about 5-6 seconds fast (per year). I told the watchmaker what I wanted but it was obvious to me that he was not too interested in my "project". The result speak for itself: instead of getting to within +/-2 seconds per year now the watch is late by about 5-6 seconds (per year). The last calibration was free as the watch was still under warranty. I have a feeling that next time they might do a better job as it will be a paid (by me) job... I know it takes time to do a proper calibration on high-accuracy watches but one should expect more empathy from the watchmaker... I was told that I "would not be late on my next meeting if the watch is late by 6 seconds per year". In my reply I pointed out the fact that I could have bought a 5 dollar plastic watch if I was not interested in very high accuracy... Pathetic...


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## Bruce Reding

Here's my report ...

The Citizen: 0.4 seconds fast
Omega MC 2400: 2.0 seconds fast
Rolex OQ: 12 seconds fast
Citizen PMT: 5.5 seconds fast

Time reference: Time.gov w/ no more than 0.2 seconds error. Note that I goofed in starting up. In early January, I zeroed my watches using my atomic clock, not time.gov. (Yes, I'm a doofus.) The amount of error in my atomic clock can be a significant fraction of a second depending on when it last got its "fix". Therefore, the above nums might have a small error. The drift rate assessment over the months will be reliable, though. Also, this subtlety doesn't have a lot of significance for my Rolex. :roll: 

Conditions: I wear none of these more than twice a week, and usually only once. (Too many nice watches, darn it!) Our room is typically mid sixties. (I used to say I was cheap. Now I say that I'm reducing my carbon footprint. :-d )

I'll be including the Citizen PMT even though it's not thermocompensated just out of curiosity to see how it will do. It should show marked winter-to-summer cycling.

The Rolex obviously needs an adjustment. I won't do it for this year, though, just to be able to better chart its winter-to-summer cycling. Even though it's the poorest performer, I'm at the moment liking it the best. I love the styling, and, let's be honest, the performance is good enough for practical use. (Gasp! I didn't just say that, did I??!! :-d )


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## retep102

My citizen chronmaster + 1/6 sec since 1 january
i own 3 oysterquartz,all are in for service at the moment


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## allanvalle

Seiko Marine Master Spring Drive is running +1sec after 1 month to reference time.nist.gov


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## Stanford

My Omega MC 2400 has lost 1 sec.
It was worn every day until a week ago - until then it had lost less than 1 sec.


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## MJH

Since January, no change in difference between my The Citizen and time.gov - as determined with a DV camera. time.gov reported accuracy of 0.4s. watch worn 24/7. Bruce, anything special to explain your The Citizen "inaccuracy" in January? Not worn very often, zeroing to your atomic clock, anything else?


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## Bruce Reding

MJH said:


> Bruce, anything special to explain your The Citizen "inaccuracy" in January? Not worn very often, zeroing to your atomic clock, anything else?


It could be a combination of being kept in a cold room (est. 65F) w/ me wearing it 12 hours a week at most and a small error in the atomic clock. We'll see how subsequent months do.


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## ausrandoman

*Some accuracy data*

Here are ten months of data for three of my watches, a Rado Ceramica, an Omega Seamaster multifunction and a Rolex Oysterquartz. The modest Rado is the surprise winner. I've stopped the trial for the Rado, as it has just started to flash its end of battery life warning.

I suspect that if I kept collecting data for several years, I would see a sinusoidal varitation, correlated with annual variations in temperature. But I'm not that much of a geek. Stop laughing. I'm NOT!


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## Bruce Reding

*Re: Some accuracy data*



ausrandoman said:


> Here are ten months of data for three of my watches, a Rado Ceramica, an Omega Seamaster multifunction and a Rolex Oysterquartz. The modest Rado is the surprise winner. I've stopped the trial for the Rado, as it has just started to flash its end of battery life warning.
> 
> I suspect that if I kept collecting data for several years, I would see a sinusoidal varitation, correlated with annual variations in temperature. But I'm not that much of a geek. Stop laughing. I'm NOT!


Excellent way of presenting the data. |> Puts my lazy verbal report to shame. As to the notion of your being a geek, I have only one thing to say:

_"Geek Pride"!!!_

Embrace your inner nerd and be proud! :-d :-d :-d

(And now for the geeky response.) It would indeed be interesting to see the curves over a few years. I'm not seeing much of a semi-sinusoid except for possibly the Rado.


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## artec

I agree...... a great way of presenting the data. And it demonstrates a much more refined way of gathering the data than I have found. 

How do you get comparisons to decimals of a second? I've been listening to the broadcasts from WWVB, where they give a beep every second and then announce the GMT at each minute with "......six thirty-one....beep" and I watch the second hand. I can read it to plus or minus half a second but no less than that.
I saw a description given by some-one who used a video-camera, a radio-controlled digital watch, a Junghans, I think, and the candidate watch. The owner then interpolated and got the performance to within about a tenth of a second, if I remember correctly.
Is there an easier way of reading the error to tenths?


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## artec

Taking the place of the quartz Alpinist in the accuracy stakes will be my just-arrived grail-watch, an SBGA-003 Grand Seiko Springdrive. Here's a photo of it (I've been wrestling with photobucket trying to get thumbnails and more than one for most of today and this is the best I can do so far). The instruction manual says the SD should do 15 seconds a month but it seems that many owners are getting better than that in practice........ we'll see. Maybe SDs don'r belong in the same accuracy league as quartz GS and Chronomasters.
I'm going to do a short review in the appropriate forum because I think there is a good deal of interest in the SD technology..I'll try to deliver some more photos there if I can get photobucket to cooperate!


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## artec




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## Bruce Reding

Simply gorgeous, Artec! Congrats!!!! I look forward to the review.

Does it have a perpetual calendar?


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## artec

No ! That's one of a couple of disappointments. It also doesn't have a separately settable hour hand. Mr Seiko should take a lesson from Mr Citizen!


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## ppaulusz

artec said:


> ...Mr Seiko should take a lesson from Mr Citizen!


Indeed, He should!


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## JRP

Hi Guys,

sorry for entering the competition a bit late.

BUT- I just received my Breitling Chrono Colt II day before yesterday from Breitling Service center in Switzerland.

The motor has been "tuned" by Breitling - "blueprinted" in car parlence. ie the timing has been adjusted and it should be much better than specs suggest (hopefully)

I have adjusted the time to time.gov with an error of 0.8 sec (thats the best I can get in Fiji). 

So I start the competition from 1st March.

Please accept my late entry 

regards,
JRP


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## ppaulusz

JRP said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> sorry for entering the competition a bit late.
> 
> BUT- I just received my Breitling Chrono Colt II day before yesterday from Breitling Service center in Switzerland.
> 
> The motor has been "tuned" by Breitling - "blueprinted" in car parlence. ie the timing has been adjusted and it should be much better than specs suggest (hopefully)
> 
> I have adjusted the time to time.gov with an error of 0.8 sec (thats the best I can get in Fiji).
> 
> So I start the competition from 1st March.
> 
> Please accept my late entry
> 
> regards,
> JRP


I look forward to read the accuracy reports of your fine-tuned SuperQuartz.

My Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar lost around 0.5 second in the past 4 weeks. The watch was hardly on my wrist (less than 4 hours) during that period.

I will report the performance of my new Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar (Cal. E510) from the 1st of April (as an unofficial late entry).


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## DW-5600E

I am also in. 

I set my Seiko SNE001 solar diver to time.gov this morning(1 march).  

When I last measured about 2-3 years ago, it gained +7/month.

I wonder what the drift will be now. 

====
EDIT: Um, I forgot my watch is not thermocompensated(HEQ?), so can I still participate? 
====


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## Stanford

My Omega MC 2400 is now 5 secs slow - it has lost 4 secs in the last month.
It has not been worn at all during the last month.


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## artec

My entry for February:

The Citizen, unworn for almost 4 weeks, gained nearly a second; now being worn again with the Omega.
Quartz Grand Seiko, no perceptible change.
Omega Constellation etc etc etc no perceptible change.
Seiko Alpinist, consigned to outer darkness as not accurate enough to play with the big boys, replaced with late, unofficial entry the Citizen Exceed arrived and set today, March 1.


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## retep102

My result for the citizen: for february has gained 4/25 sec
So now on the 2 marts its 6/25 sec ahead
I use dv video and harddiskrecorder that allows to read 25 parts of a sec!
I own 3 oysterquartz 17000,17013 gold-stell and 17014 whitegold-steel
my17014 is now back from service and in the race too!


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## Bruce Reding

Looking good so far, guys. I'll be posting in a couple of day. (On the road.)


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## MJH

Update 1st of March: No change detected (DV video + Time.gov)


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## Tragic

My Sinn UX with the bouncy second hand is bouncing along at -2 seconds since 12/04/06.
Not too shabby.


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## Bruce Reding

*End February report ...*

I'm finally back home. Whew! Here's my late report for performance through February:

Using time.gov, with max error indicated as 0.1 seconds.

The Citizen -- 0.8 seconds fast (eyeball estimate)
Omega MC -- 4 seconds slow 
Rolex OQ -- 25 seconds fast

I've worn each at least one day per week. My room has been coldish (I'd estimate 65 to 70F) all month.

As I had noted in my end January report, I had stupidly used my atomic clock to set my watches at the beginning of the year. It can vary up to a second depending on when it last got a "fix". Anyway, this is a small effect for my MC and OQ. For my The Citizen, I'll have to continue to monitor drift.


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## Marc-B1

Since 1 january 2007 until 28 february 2007
=================================

Casio Hotbiz = + 33 seconds
Tissot T-Touch Classic = + 2 seconds
Breitling B1 = - 4 seconds
Seiko Worldtime ana/digi = - 3 seconds
Omega Megaquartz Marine Chromometer 2400 = 0 seconds ( This one since 28 jan - 28 feb )
Pulsar P2 = 0 seconds ( also bought on the 28 of january


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## snorkeler

I've been lurking on this thread, started a day late (Jan 6th). 

Seiko Kinetic Diver with the 5M62 movement: 3 months: 9 seconds fast.

Never worn the entire three months, just sitting on my desk.

Love all the high end quartz, esp the thermal comp'ed ones!


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## Bruce Reding

snorkeler said:


> I've been lurking on this thread, started a day late (Jan 6th).
> 
> Seiko Kinetic Diver with the 5M62 movement: 3 months: 9 seconds fast.
> 
> Never worn the entire three months, just sitting on my desk.
> 
> Love all the high end quartz, esp the thermal comp'ed ones!


Welcome, snorkeler. Glad you decided to de-lurk. 

Nice looking watch, and good performance for a standard quartz. (Beats my OQ all hollow, actually.)


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## dwjquest

Bruce Reding said:


> Welcome, snorkeler. Glad you decided to de-lurk.
> 
> Nice looking watch, and good performance for a standard quartz. (Beats my OQ all hollow, actually.)


Sometimes the regular quartz movements are quite accurate. I have an Omega Aqua Terra with the standard 1538 movement that has consistently ran at +3 sec/yr and is currently on a roll at +0.8 sec/yr (in a temperature controlled environment).


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## ppaulusz

dwjquest said:


> Sometimes the regular quartz movements are quite accurate. I have an Omega Aqua Terra with the standard 1538 movement that has consistently ran at +3 sec/yr and is currently on a roll at +0.8 sec/yr (in a temperature controlled environment).


The key word is: _temperature-controlled_ (environment)! In that case there is no need for thermocompensation. In theory if an ordinary quartz movement is calibrated to perform best at certain temperature and that temperature is permanently maintained then the movement will be very accurate _by itself._


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## dwjquest

ppaulusz said:


> The key word is: _temperature-controlled_ (environment)! In that case there is no need for thermocompensation. In theory if an ordinary quartz movement is calibrated to perform best at certain temperature and that temperature is permanently maintained then the movement will be very accurate _by itself._


I agree, but the 3 sec/yr was obtained in a non thermo-compensated environment at around 65-69 deg. F (watch case in an unheated cabinet in my home office). The temperature controlled environment is maintained at 88 +-0.1 deg. F during 6 am to 10 pm and then cools to room temperature during the night. I have several watches in this environment and I will report on whether or not it affects any of them in a positive or negative manner. At least 6 of the watches in this controlled environment are thermo-compensated so theoretically they will be affected the least. We will see.


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## artec

dwjquest said:


> I agree, but the 3 sec/yr was obtained in a non thermo-compensated environment at around 65-69 deg. F (watch case in an unheated cabinet in my home office). The temperature controlled environment is maintained at 88 +-0.1 deg. F during 6 am to 10 pm and then cools to room temperature during the night. I have several watches in this environment and I will report on whether or not it affects any of them in a positive or negative manner. At least 6 of the watches in this controlled environment are thermo-compensated so theoretically they will be affected the least. We will see.


A couple of months of that ought to give really interesting results.........and if you can then try wearing each of them for a month or so, we'd get even more data. I wish I had a temperature stabiliized room or cupboard. The nearest I can get is a bedroom that is only barely reached by the heating and air conditioning, but there's still a good deal of daily variation.


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## Autonomy

Bruce Reding said:


> This sticky will be for posting our monthly results for our accuracy challenge. This will run to the end of '07. You should set your watches now to time.gov, and report drift relative to time.gov at the beginning of each month.
> 
> Unlike in previous challenges, pics of the watch next to a time.gov screen will not be required. A simple statement of performance will do. Pics are welcome, though.
> 
> As in previous challenges, the prize will be bragging rights. (Ain't I generous? :-d )
> 
> _Let the games begin!!!_


Does it count if some of the contestants get their watches calibrated during the contest?



Mike


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## Bruce Reding

Cool! What are we looking at?


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## Autonomy

Hi Bruce,

This is a Rolex Oyster Quartz which belongs to one of the regular posters here (not me). That narrows it to a few dozen, eh? 

It's on my Graham Baxter-built eTimer Escapement Analyzer, after about 24 hours of running the PC we did a 12 hour calibration synched to NIST Boulder. This scan was taken 21 minutes 20 seconds after starting. I ran the watch for about 20 hours at this same rate, at room temp in my basement.

Look at the lower left corner of the screen image to see the summary details.

If you had a mechanical watch you would worry about there being two lines instead of one (representing the tick/tock of the escapement), and you would want the line to be straight, not tilted to either side (slow/fast) or jagged (dirty watch components) and so on. Which is what watchmakers generally are doing when they clean/adjust your mechanical watch.

This is kind of a boring line, isn't it? But it's darn good.

You can see the waveform in the middle of the screen; that's the Rolex's trademark loud tick which occurs every second, or 3600 times/hour.

To get this adjustment I was turning the screw one-half of the width of the slot back and forth for a dozen times over a few days.

Mike


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## Bruce Reding

Very interesting! I take it that the x axis is time. What is the y axis?


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## Onkel C

Hi all, 
I had to set my Sinn UX today, due to DST change. The last time I set it was on Oct. 27th (for Winter DST). I set it to a radio controlled G-shock. When I reset it today, the UX was a mere 2 seconds slow. Wear time was nearly 24/7 over the whole time. I was impressed, to say the least.

Greetings from Bonn,

Christian


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## ppaulusz

Onkel C said:


> Hi all,
> I had to set my Sinn UX today, due to DST change. The last time I set it was on Oct. 27th (for Winter DST). I set it to a radio controlled G-shock. When I reset it today, the UX was a mere 2 seconds slow. Wear time was nearly 24/7 over the whole time. I was impressed, to say the least.
> 
> Greetings from Bonn,
> 
> Christian


Congratulations, Christian, for your Sinn UX! Its ETA Thermoline movement works as it should!:-!


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## Stanford

Another month has passed and my OMC continues to lose around 4 seconds per month. It is now 9.5 seconds slow.
Definitely time for some adjustment.


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## ppaulusz

_Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar_: -0.5 second for the last 30 days. (the watch was not worn for during that period).
_Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar (E510):_ +1 second for the last 30 days. (the watch was worn for about 23 hours per day during that period).


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## artec

The Alpinist has gone. 
After being off the wrist for a month and gaining a second and then being back on the wrist for a month, the Citizen has recovered and is still a second fast. Evidently it's really fussy about being worn.
The Omega is still on the money.
The GS was reset early in March because it went away to have its bezel polished (looks great, too) and so far, on the money after nearly a month.
So only the Omega is in the hunt.


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## retep102

My citizen chronomaster has gained 1/5 sec and is now 11/25 ahead
i use the dv video method so ths is very precise judgement!


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## DW-5600E

Well, my Seiko diver ran +1.5 up to March 25th(end of daylight saving), so I supposed it would have been +2(or less) for March. It was worn 23/7.

I've reset the it on March 25th, and now on April 3, it is +2s, worn only during waking hours.

It will probably end up being +7(or less) for a month.


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## MJH

The Citizen Update 1st of April (DV method used): 

- "0.04 s" ahead since the 1st of January 2007.

- "1.68 s" ahead after all 24 months I've had it.

Worn close to 24/7. It's safe to say that the watch has kept time better in the last 12 months than the first. Reference used time.gov, accuracy of which is varying between reported values of 0.3s and 0.4s. (This is the best I'll get in Finland.)


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## Bruce Reding

MJH said:


> The Citizen Update 1st of April (DV method used):
> 
> - "0.04 s" ahead since the 1st of January 2007.
> 
> - "1.68 s" ahead after all 24 months I've had it.
> 
> Worn close to 24/7. It's safe to say that the watch has kept time better in the last 12 months than the first. Reference used time.gov, accuracy of which is varying between reported values of 0.3s and 0.4s. (This is the best I'll get in Finland.)


Really exceptional!! :-! :-!

I just got back in from a number of days on the road. I'll post mine tomorrow.


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## ronalddheld

Must agree. I should have my HEQ watch cooperate as well.


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## Bruce Reding

My end of March report. (Sorry it's late. I was traveling again.)

Using time.gov, with max error indicated as 0.1 seconds.

The Citizen -- 0.8 seconds fast (eyeball estimate)
Omega MC -- 6 seconds slow 
Rolex OQ -- 43 seconds fast

This is since Jan 1. When I set each with my rc clock. (Should've used time.gov, but didn't. Therefore, each may have a significant fraction of a second offset. Only relevant for the The Citizen, of course.) I've worn each at least one day per week. 

Clearly my OQ, which was bought new a little over a year ago, has issues. Still, I love it.


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## Stanford

My OMC is now 12 secs slow - I haven't got round to adjusting it.
My Citizen is about half a second fast after one month - worn most of the time, but not exclusively.


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## ppaulusz

_Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar (L.546 = ETA 252.611)_: 
around -0.5 second for the last 30 days (the watch was not worn during that period).
_Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar (E510):_
_around_ +1 second for the last 30 days (the watch was worn for about 23 hours per day during that period).


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## MJH

The Citizen Update 1st of May(DV / time.gov method used): 

- "0.2 s" ahead since the 1st of January 2007.

- "1.84 s" ahead after all 25 months I've had it.

Worn close to 24/7.


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## JRP

Hi Everyone,

my Breitling Chrono Colt is -1.5 secs on May 1st. This is from 27th February till 1st May.

My Brand spanking new The Citizen CTQ57-1022 is on the dot. Time was adjusted to time.gov on 18th April when I received the watch with an error of 0.7.

Im disappointed with the Breitling as the Breitling factory advised me that they had adjusted the rate to 0.008 secs per day. The rates do not match this.

As for The Citizen, I guess I will need to monitor it for a few more months to get an exact figure.

regards,
JRP


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## alelser

Glad to see I'm not the only geek. Here's a few quick and dirty graphs from some rate data in Excel.  Oh, please excuse the y-axis scale. -1 to 1 sec. is probably way too wide a range, but I like how it really shows the incredible accuracy of quartz watches. When I do these for autos I have the scale in COSC specs (-4 to +6), and the variation in the data points is much greater.

-Al-


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## ronalddheld

Useful information. Keep them coming.


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## Bruce Reding

My home internet is down. I will be posting my April results soon.


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## ppaulusz

I've just collected my Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar watch from the service centre where it received new lithium battery and proper calibration to achieve even better accuracy. The total service charge was less than 20 dollars so I can't complain. The watchman told me that the watch should be very accurate like within +1 second per year(!)... We'll see...

My other high-accuracy model is the Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar watch with the E510 movement. According to the super accurate digital measuring equipment it is fast: around +5 seconds per 100 days (+1 second per 20 days). That result is backed up by my own accuracy results of the past 3 months. The watch is clearly out of manufacturer's specifications (accuracy-wise) so I contacted the local authorised service centre (it is still under international warranty). I was told that it might take a few weeks to solve the problem. I'll let the forum know about the outcome.


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## Stanford

My Citizen (The) is one second fast over two months - around the extremity of the tolerance, on an annualised basis.

The OMC is off being fettled - might be gone for some time and so is effectively out of the challenge.


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## ronalddheld

My Omega MC is dead again, and may need more servicing.


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## Bruce Reding

Here's my end of May update. Since Jan 1, as measured by Time.gov (accurate to 0.1 seconds), I've got the following results:

The Citizen: 1.5 seconds fast.
Omega 2400: 10 seconds slow.
Oysterquartz: 65 seconds fast.

Each continues to diverge linearly. I had been thinking that the OQ's poor performance was due to a battery running down, but it's not getting worse. So, it's probably just poorly adjusted. Surprisingly poor performance.


----------



## JRP

Hi Everyone,

my Chrono Colt is -2 secs as at 1st June. This is from February 26.

My The Citizen Chronomaster CTQ57-1022 is nearly 1 second fast in nearly 2 months.

NEED YOUR ADVISE/OPINION

At the current rate, my The Citizen will by around 5-6 secs fast in 1 year- ie maybe borderline on the 5sec claim or a tad bit out. I have had it for nearly 2 months only.

1. Should I wear it for a while longer to get the exact accuracy figures before I start fidgetting?

2. When should I send it for caliberation- after 1 year? perhaps 2? I dont know. The current rate is not bad- but it still irks me when I know it can do better.

3. Maybe I will wait for a year or 2 before sending it to Seiya- then i can request a battery change, caliberation and case refinish (if needed). 
I have to keep in mind that I will away from my baby for at least 2 months while this is being done- another negative.

What do you guys think? What would you do?

Your comments will be appreciated

regards,
JRP


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## ppaulusz

JRP said:


> ...My The Citizen Chronomaster CTQ57-1022 is nearly 1 second fast in nearly 2 months.
> 
> NEED YOUR ADVISE/OPINION
> 
> At the current rate, my The Citizen will by around 5-6 secs fast in 1 year- ie maybe borderline on the 5sec claim or a tad bit out. I have had it for nearly 2 months only.
> 
> 1. Should I wear it for a while longer to get the exact accuracy figures before I start fidgetting?
> 
> 2. When should I send it for caliberation- after 1 year? perhaps 2? I dont know. The current rate is not bad- but it still irks me when I know it can do better.
> 
> 3. Maybe I will wait for a year or 2 before sending it to Seiya- then i can request a battery change, caliberation and case refinish (if needed).
> I have to keep in mind that I will away from my baby for at least 2 months while this is being done- another negative.
> 
> What do you guys think? What would you do?
> 
> Your comments will be appreciated
> 
> regards,
> JRP


I agree that the watch can do much better accuracy than its current rate. However I'd give it at least 6 months to measure its accuracy unless it was obviously way out of manufacturer's specifications (yours is not!). If its accuracy won't improve over the 6 months period then I would seriously consider to send it back to Japan for calibration (in your case it might make more sense to send it back when first free service is due). I expect no worse than +/-4 seconds per year accuracy from any thermocompensated watch manufactured by ETA, Citizen or Seiko that uses "digital count adjustment" to achieve high-accuracy.


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## Bruce Reding

ppaulusz said:


> I agree that the watch can do much better accuracy than its current rate. However I'd give it at least 6 months to measure its accuracy unless it was obviously way out of manufacturer's specifications (yours is not!). If its accuracy won't improve over the 6 months period then I would seriously consider to send it back to Japan for calibration (in your case it might make more sense to send it back when first free service is due).


I agree with George.


----------



## TCXO

Bruce Reding said:


> This sticky will be for posting our monthly results for our accuracy challenge. This will run to the end of '07. You should set your watches now to time.gov, and report drift relative to time.gov at the beginning of each month.
> 
> Unlike in previous challenges, pics of the watch next to a time.gov screen will not be required. A simple statement of performance will do. Pics are welcome, though.
> 
> As in previous challenges, the prize will be bragging rights. (Ain't I generous? :-d )
> 
> _Let the games begin!!!_


Bruce Reding,
Perhaps this has been asked many times before. Just a small curiosity on my part. *How are leap seconds managed in these accuracy challenges?* Do the accuracy challenges avoid June 30 or December 31? A leap second correction may bias the the measured accuracy of a watch in either direction unless accounted for. Perhaps this might be relevant for a watch with a +/- 10 second per year accuracy.
Thank you.:thanks
Respectfully,
TCXO


----------



## Bruce Reding

TCXO said:


> Bruce Reding,
> Perhaps this has been asked many times before. Just a small curiosity on my part. *How are leap seconds managed in these accuracy challenges?* Do the accuracy challenges avoid June 30 or December 31? A leap second correction may bias the the measured accuracy of a watch in either direction unless accounted for. Perhaps this might be relevant for a watch with a +/- 10 second per year accuracy.
> Thank you.:thanks
> Respectfully,
> TCXO


Well, this is a theoretical question for this year, as I don't believe that there will be a leapsecond. If there were, it would be simple, though. Just don't bother adjusting the watches, and take the fact that an extra second has been added to the year into account when judging their performance.


----------



## ronalddheld

No leap second planned for the endof this year, AFAIK.


----------



## Stanford

Citizen is approx 1.5 secs fast after 3 months, so currently well on track to achieve expected/hoped for accuracy.


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## ppaulusz

Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar (L.546 = ETA 252.611): 
around -0.3 second in the past 30 days.
Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar (Cal. E510):
keeps its +1 second per 20 days rate.


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## Bruce Reding

The Citizen: 1.5 seconds fast
Oysterquartz: 81 seconds fast
Omega MC: Over an hour slow

I'm assuming that the battery is running out on my MC. I changed it around six months ago, but perhaps the battery I used was not fresh.


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## KZZN

Oysterquartz Day-Date: -13.00 seconds

Note that this isn't since 1st January - I had to get a battery change done earlier in the year, and got the watch back and re-set it on 5th May. So that's 13 seconds lost since 05/05, which the date as I write this being just turned 07/07. So roughly 6.5 seconds a month lost, give or take.


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## Stanford

After 4 months The Citizen is two seconds fast.
OMC still being fettled.


----------



## Traps

I know it's not got a thermo movement etc etc but fwiw my SMP quartz is fast by 4 sec in the month......


----------



## ToddG

*1 Aug 07*

_Sinn UX_
set 22-Jun-07, 40 days
now -0.50 seconds (-0.0125 s/d)

_Breitling B1_
set 7-Jul-07, 25 days
now -0.50 seconds (-0.0200 s/d)

I'm using USNO by phone as my reference; therefore the closest I can estimate is about 1/8 of a second.


----------



## KZZN

Since a battery change on 05/05:
Oysterquartz Day-Date: -15 seconds

So interestingly, my OQ has only lost 2 seconds in the past month. It's actually been improving month-on-month since May, and it's worth noting that of the fifteen seconds lost, eight of those occurred within the first week after the battery change. So it's as if it took a while to settle in with the new battery, and then behaved itself quite a bit better.

For each month so far the loss breaks down as:

May: -10 seconds
June: -13 seconds
July: -15 seconds

So it lost 10 seconds in May, then three in June and only two in July. Which aside from the initial big loss (which as I say, I'm putting down to some kind of settling-in period after the battery change), it's well within the +/- 60 seconds per year that Rolex state for the OQ in the service manual. So far, anyway


----------



## MJH

The Citizen Update 1st of September (DV / time.gov method used):

- "2.00s" _behind_ since the 1st of January 2007.
- "0.36 s" _behind_ after all 29 months I've had it.
- "2.2s" _behind_ since 1st of May 2007 (4 months - this actually does not meet the 5s / year specification, but I'm not yet worried because of the following.

Worn close to 24/7 except between 1st of May and now when the watch not worn at all for 7 or so continuous days. Even though this is the first time I report here since 1st of May, it seems that the 7 continuous days not wearing the watch have caused the most of the 2.2s delay between 1st of May and now.

It seems there's some truth to the requirement of wearing the watch 12h/d in order to achieve the specified accuracy - as per the manual.


----------



## Eeeb

MJH said:


> ...
> It seems there's some truth to the requirement of wearing the watch 12h/d in order to achieve the specified accuracy - as per the manual.


Hummmm..... this would imply the movement is just accurate not accurate and thermocompensated. Am I wrong?

The isochronism seems to be 'relatively' low based on the data set given.

This data surprises me given the high regard the movement has in these circles.


----------



## ppaulusz

Eeeb said:


> Hummmm..... this would imply the movement is just accurate not accurate and thermocompensated. Am I wrong?
> 
> The isochronism seems to be 'relatively' low based on the data set given.
> 
> This data surprises me given the high regard the movement has in these circles.


It's a mystery. All we know that the movement has a 32kHz quartz crystal. We also know that the watch is very accurate but we don't know the applied technology to achieve the accuracy. I often thought that Citizen uses similar "inhibition" technology to the ETA Thermoline scheme but I also have my doubts about it. ETA does not request a minimum on-wrist time. My observation shows no difference in accuracy regardless where my VHP was kept (on-wrist or in the drawer). That makes sense as thermocompensation should cancel out the effect of temperature changes (within reason, of course). 
The bottom line is that Citizen and Seiko have managed to manufacture high-accuracy quartz watches and they also have managed to keep their technology a secret! (That latter one is the greater achievement, in my opinion.;-))


----------



## Bruce Reding

MJH said:


> - "0.36 s" _behind_ after all 29 months I've had it.


Okay I guess. :-d (Tremendous, actually).

On the presence or absence of thermocompensation, I can attest that there's _something _ that makes it insensitive to temperature. In my first year, I tracked mine closely. It varied less than a second all year. (i.e., there was never a time when it was more than a second off). More than this, while I could see some evidence of nonlinear drift, it was never large. While there was some evidence of up/down drifting, it was largely monotonic. All was while I probably wore it around 1/3rd time at most (might have been 1/4th), it being in our bedroom otherwise, and -- here's the kicker -- our room temp. varies a _lot _from season to season. (I'm a cheapskate, so I set our thermostat to 66F in the winter, and 80F in the summer.) It spent months at 66, and months at 80. So, they've done _something _to desensitize the movement to temp.

Having said this, i'm not a blind defender of the A660. My watch is still keeping time to spec., but is nowhere near 1 sec/year. Also, I know we've had one or two posters whose A660 is not keeping time to within the spec. I must say that the sudden jump, if over seven days, is pretty extreme, but these watches are demonstrably not perfect.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bruce Reding said:


> ...On the presence or absence of thermocompensation, I can attest that there's _something _that makes it insensitive to temperature. In my first year, I tracked mine closely. It varied less than a second all year. (i.e., there was never a time when it was more than a second off). More than this, while I could see some evidence of nonlinear drift, it was never large. While there was some evidence of up/down drifting, it was largely monotonic. All was while I probably wore it around 1/3rd time at most (might have been 1/4th), it being in our bedroom otherwise, and -- here's the kicker -- our room temp. varies a _lot _from season to season. (I'm a cheapskate, so I set our thermostat to 66F in the winter, and 80F in the summer.) It spent months at 66, and months at 80. So, they've done _something _to desensitize the movement to temp...


Bruce, I remember that you have spent number of hours to check _patents_ that described different _thermocompensation_ technologies or methods to make the quartz movement insensitive (or rather less sensitive) to temperature changes. Can you recall any description that involved a normal single 32kHz quartz oscillator but did not involve any temperature sensing device on the movement? I've read somewhere on the net that Citizen (when answered a question about the technology used in the A660) denied the use of thermocompensation and claimed _"proprietary technology"_ for the superb accuracy of the movement. I don't know much about the reliability of the source, it might just be an _urban legend_.
Going back to my question, if thermocompensation is not an option then the crystal needs to be cut by very special way that makes it much less sensitive to the changes of temperature than an ordinary 32kHz quartz crystal. What else can be the _trick_?


----------



## Bruce Reding

Good memory, George. Yes, I had scanned through hundreds of their patents, and found a number (more than a dozen as I remember) that dealt with various temperature compensation/insensitivity schemes. (I think I may have even summarized the best in a post, although I may just be remembering having had good intentions to do so. Either way, there's no denying that we lost a lot of good stuff in that crash. Sigh.) Some were electronic. Some were "crystal intrinsic". Two that I remember on crystals were (i) a composite crystal that had different crystal orientations bonded together, and (ii) a three pronged crystal. I may even remember a patent in which they excited torsional modes in the arms as well as simple flex modes, the ones somehow interacting to correct the others. These were early-ish patents. Not later than the late eighties, as I remember.

Very intriguing stuff, but my opinion then (and now) is that they most probably use digital count suppression as does ETA. My reasoning is as follows:

1. There was a lot of truly ingenious stuff going on in what I call the early "quartz ferment" period (when standard solutions were unavailable), most of which went by the wayside. Look at all the clever ways people came up with just to move the hands before the micro-stepper motors were perfected. (This ultimately doomed cleverness is one of the reasons I like early quartz so much, btw.) These schemes have that feel to them.

2. They look incredibly expensive to make. Also, on some, like the bonded crystal, one has to wonder about longevity.

3. Companies have a lot of patents that go nowhere. This is especially true in a technology ferment. (I have direct experience here. A lot of my own fiber patents are unused due to us finding better ways. Also, many patents are filed without intent to pursue, just to fool or block others. Done that too.)

4. These supremely clever, beautifully conceived analog schemes are always only approximate remedies. Think of the temperature solution in older mechanical watches -- split rim bimetallic balances. Gorgeously ingenious. Still, the correction was only approximate. They always had middle temperature error.

5. Against these wondrously clever, but expensive and approximate solutions, consider digital count suppression. Once digital electronics became cheap/low power/small enough, dcs is cheap and the correction can be very exact. Why would anyone do anything else? Note also the time that the A660 came out -- '95. This is when such electronics were becoming easily available.

6. Finally, about Citizen's denial of thermocompensation (which was reported in Carlos Perez's article), two comments: First, we know of at least a dozen mistakes in his (I still think quite good) article, so I don't consider it a definitive source. Second, they could be artfully dodging, motivated by a general desire to keep their methods to themselves. (My company is ultra paranoid about our IP, and it's reasonable to believe that most companies that use aggressive development to get an edge would be the same way.) One dodge would have been to be misleadingly ultracorrect. _The crystal is indeed not thermocompensated in a dcs scheme, its frequency varies with temp. as much as in any other watch; it's the after-the-fact digital manipulations with the input from a temp. sensor that does the correcting._ (Again, I've sometimes done similar artful dodging when dealing with folks outside of my company, and I've seen our Japanese fiber competitors do the same with us.)

So ... part of me sort of hopes these supremely clever schemes are still alive and being used. But my suspicion is that, like wonderful relics of yesteryear (analog computers anyone?), they're a thing of the past.


----------



## ronalddheld

I also wonder if the Seiko and Citizen watches just have a 32Khz crystal cut to minimize the temeperture effects more than the average non TC watch.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bruce Reding said:


> ...Very intriguing stuff, but my opinion then (and now) is that they most probably use digital count suppression as does ETA....


Thanks, Bruce, for revisiting in details those patents. 
Putting my doubts aside, I could not come up with a more logical solution either so Citizen (and Seiko too) must be using digital count adjustment (inhibition scheme) for thermocompensation to achieve superb accuracy.


----------



## ppaulusz

ronalddheld said:


> I also wonder if the Seiko and Citizen watches just have a 32Khz crystal cut to minimize the temeperture effects more than the average non TC watch.


Even if they have cut the 32kHz crystal in a special way, that by itself would not be enough to deliver the superb accuracy.
We have examples that show that a fine-tuned (calibrated) watch using the "inhibition" scheme can be accurate to within +/-2 seconds per year. It is a digital method and it surpasses in its effectiveness the older analog schemes (MHz-range AT-cut crystals, frequency adjustment by trimmer capacitor). I seriously doubt the claimed accuracy of the 4MHz Citizen Crystron. Instead of the claimed +/-3 seconds per year the actual performance must have been +/-10 seconds per year (which is a great achievement as it all happened in 1977!) with at least 12 hour on-wrist time! 
The current digital technology seems to be the winner thermocompensation application for a quartz watch.
Since I do have a quartz marine chronometer clock with an AT-cut crystal that oscillates at 4.19MHz, I might add that in case of a clock I can't see why the manufacturers won't go all the way and mix the present high-frequency crystal with the digital "inhibition" technology. Unlike in case of a watch, space in the box (housing of the clock) would not be a restriction for adding more hardware and heaps of power by using large sized batteries. In the other thread, Bruce mentioned the inclusion of an "oven" as well to the above package to maintain temperature and make the system fool-proof.


----------



## ppaulusz

Accuracy results of the past 30 days:
- Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar (ETA 252.611): 0 second - it is on the "beat"! (calibrated by me!)
- Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar (E510): around +0.8 second (the new electrical modul keeps it just under specification)


----------



## Bruce Reding

ppaulusz said:


> Even if they have cut the 32kHz crystal in a special way, that by itself would not be enough to deliver the superb accuracy.


I absolutely agree with all you say, George. I've definitely had my doubts about the three seconds for the Crystron. It's possible that with ultra careful tweaking, and lots of caveats about how often it's worn, many may have made it for a while. I'm guessing that it didn't last long for most, though. (Having said that, I still hold them in high if not awed regard, and if one were to show on eBay, I'd deign to place a bid. :-d)

And, to take your comment above further, I believe that the orientation of the 32 kHz crystals are already chosen to be as temperature insensitive as is possible. This low a frequency can only be achieved with bulk mechanical flexure modes such as the movement of distinct tines. Intrinsic vibrations within the body of the crystal are always much higher in frequency because the material's intrinsic stiffness is much higher. So, third order cuts like the AT, which are "intrinsic material modes", do nothing for the tuning fork flexure modes. I believe it's true to say that they've done the best they can by choosing a crystal orientation that places a local minimum around wrist temperature. (Just having done this is fantastically elegant engineering, IMO. As a techie geek, I'm pretty much as impressed with reqular quartz movements as I am with our favored turbocharged ones.)


----------



## Bruce Reding

Here's my August report ...

Since the beginning of the year ...

The Citizen -- 1.5 seconds fast
Oysterquartz -- 109 seconds fast
Omega MC 2400 -- around three hours fast

I have worn none more than 10% of the time. My OMC is clearly whacked out. I've assumed the battery is running down, and, through a combination of testing that hypothesis to see if it dies and sheer laziness, I haven't replaced it yet.


----------



## KZZN

(Posting early this month, since I might not be around on the 5th of September)

Since a battery change on 05/05:
Oysterquartz Day-Date: -17 seconds

So only another 2 seconds lost this month, which is the exact same as last month. To recap, the monthly figures break down as follows:

May: -10 seconds
June: -13 seconds
July: -15 seconds
August: -17 seconds.

It's also occurred to me that I'm in a position to give figures for my other two quartz watches, a Rado Sintra Multifunction, and a non-HEQ Seiko I've had since 1997. They were both set on Sunday 25th March from the change to GMT to BST, and haven't been adjusted at all since.

So, without further ado:

Since 25/03:
Rado Sintra Multifunction: +31 seconds (Average +6.2/month)
Seiko: +70 seconds (Average +14/month)

So, in terms of monthly gain/loss, my Oysterquartz Day-Date from 1979 has the modern Rado beat by a comfortable margin so far, and the non-HEQ Seiko is, unsurprisingly, bringing up the rear. I've obviously not been tracking the Rado or Seiko month-on-month like I have the OQ DD, so for all I know they could have been doing great up until yesterday and then gained a whopping amount of time overnight - though this is, of course, unlikely 

And with any luck, next month I'll be able to start recording figures for my JLC Master-Quartz - unless it has to take an extended trip to Switzerland, of course


----------



## ToddG

Using USNO phone, accuracy estimate to closest 1/4 second.

_Sinn_ UX: -1 second in 71 days (approx -5 sec/yr)
_Breitling_ B1: -1.25 seconds in 56 days (approx -8 sec/yr)


----------



## Stanford

My Citizen is about 3 and a half seconds fast, after 5 months.
The rate of gain appears to be increasing marginally but then I have hardly worn it over the last month.


----------



## Bruce Reding

My September report. Since the beginning of the year ...

The Citizen -- 1.5 seconds fast
Oysterquartz -- 129 seconds fast

Also, I replaced the battery in my Omega MC 2400 at the beginning of the month. It had been running wildly fast for monts, gaining a total of three hours. It has neither gained nor lost a second since the beginning of the month. So, clearly I had a battery issue. (This is a good thing.) What surprises me is that it didn't just die. The poor performance went on for at least three months. Clearly, an end-of-life indicator would have been a good thing in this model, but, hey, it was an early design.


----------



## ppaulusz

Bruce Reding said:


> My September report. Since the beginning of the year ...
> 
> The Citizen -- 1.5 seconds fast
> Oysterquartz -- 129 seconds fast
> 
> Also, I replaced the battery in my Omega MC 2400 at the beginning of the month. It had been running wildly fast for monts, gaining a total of three hours. It has neither gained nor lost a second since the beginning of the month. So, clearly I had a battery issue. (This is a good thing.) What surprises me is that it didn't just die. The poor performance went on for at least three months. Clearly, an end-of-life indicator would have been a good thing in this model, but, hey, it was an early design.


Good news about the Omega MC 2400, also excellent result for the The Citizen!|>
I can't report for this month as both of my watches had to be stopped to take some high-resolution pictures of the movements and check the inside of the "beasts"...


----------



## KZZN

Since a battery change on 05/05:
Oysterquartz Day-Date: -20 seconds

So 3 seconds lost during September. The previous figures so far:

May: -10 seconds
June: -13 seconds
July: -15 seconds
August: -17 seconds.


----------



## Ajohn

I've worn this watch a Zenith Espada since about 1994 up to about 9 months ago. I never have had to reset it except for summer / winter time. At that point it's always within 2 secs or better. I hardly ever take it off. I used to use it for manual ebay sniping but since buying a 10sec a year Seiko titanium watch I've linked my PC clock to an online atomic clock.

Prior to that I wore a Marvin Review for at least 10 years. The time keeping of that was very similar. The glass broke while I was arm wrestling a Swede - I lost too. Hence the Zenith after trying a Japanese accurist for a few months. Hopeless. Couple of seconds a day!
My brother wears my father's Marvin Review which must be over 20 years old now. That keeps remarkable time too.

I'm hoping a mid 80's oysterquartz will beat the zenith. It's with Rolex at the moment.

Anybody else have the feeling that modern quartz watches aren't as accurate as the older ones? Or maybe that thinner watches are better than thick ones?

John


----------



## ppaulusz

My Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar (L.546 = ETA 252.611) is about 0.3 second fast in the past 4 weeks.

My Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar (E510) runs at around +9 seconds per year.


----------



## KZZN

Hi;

Well, I had to re-set my Oysterquartz on Sunday when the clocks went back an hour. So, its total recorded loss so far is:

From a battery change on 05/05 until BST to GMT changeover on 28/10:
Oysterquartz Day-Date: -22 seconds

I'll post further updates on or around the 28th of each month, and continue tracking.


----------



## Bruce Reding

Belated report ...

My The Citizen: 1.7 seconds fast (est.) since 1/1/07
My Oysterquartz: 241 seconds fast since 1/1/07
My wife's Exceed is 3 seconds fast since 1/1/07


----------



## Stanford

My The Citizen is 5.5 secs fast after 7 months - not great, but not worn for several months (and it's cold in the UK!)


----------



## Peter CH

Hi all,
I'm new in this forum which I follow with pleasure. Now I would like to show you some accuracy data over more than 7 years of my Rado Diastar which I wear nearly 24/7. The endpoints of period 1 to 3 in the first diagram were given by necessary change of battery. Lifetimes of batteries vary considerably, the actual one will probably soon reach its end.

https://www.watchuseek.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=70831&stc=1&d=1195580625

For the 4 periods of time the measured accumulated errors are shown in the first diagram (purple dots). The resulting curves were then approximated by straight lines (black). For period 1 a mean error of -136 seconds per year can be derived from the slope of this line. The minus sign indicates that the watch is slow. After 3 calibrations this error has reduced to -26.8 sec/year for actual period 4, what is well within the specs of Rado (< 15 sec/month).
The measured curve shows a weak oscillation around the straight line.

https://www.watchuseek.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=70832&stc=1&d=1195580625

The second diagram should clarify this oscillation. It shows the calculated difference between the measured accumulated error and the approximating straight line on an expanded scale (red dots). This curve represents the temperature induced accumulated error that would still be present, even if the above mentioned deviation could fully be adjusted. It shows that the quartz is not (well) temperature compensated (variations of approx. ± 2 sec/year). During winter time the red curve is rising, indicating that the quartz oscillation frequency is higher at low temperature and vice versa.

As the red curve represents the integrated temperature induced error, the effective temperature can be derived by taking the (negative) first time-derivative of the red curve or more easily, of its approximating smooth function shown in black. This results in the blue curve, which gives a qualitative idea of the effective quartz temperature as a function of time. This temperature lies somewhere between my wrist temperature and the ambient temperature and cannot be calibrated without further measurements.
As can be seen the winter 2005/2006 was rather cold, whereas last winter was very mild in Switzerland. Thus, I could use my Rado as a thermometer&#8230;.

When the measured points of period 4 in the first diagram (purple dots) were approximated with a polynomial of degree two, the quadratic coefficient turns out to be admittedly small but negative. This means that the curve has a slight downward bending, indicating that the quartz, apart from seasonal, temperature induced variations, is oscillating slower and slower over the years. The reason for this phenomenon might be

decreasing voltage of the battery
aging of the quartz crystal
increasing temperature of my body (what is rather unlikely, as I'm getting on a bit&#8230;.)
increasing ambient temperature (climate change)
Which one of these hypothesis might be the right one, I don't know.
My Rado will not get any accuracy award, because she is not perfect, but that's why I like her.

Peter


----------



## Bruce Reding

First of all, welcome to the forum, Peter! We're glad you "came out of the HEQ closet". (Perhaps not the best turn of phrase. :-d) Second, let me congratulate you on an ingenious and excellent analysis! |> 

A few comments ...

1. The small deviations around your straight line fits clearly show that your watch is capable of even better performance with future rate adjustment iterations.

2. Excellent logic around the temperature discussion. It's good that you caught the fact that the deviation is an integration of the rate. By my rough eyeball estimate, the rate appears to vary 20 seconds per year from summer to winter. This is less than you would expect if the watch were bearing the full brunt of the temperature change, so it indicates the strong buffering effect or having it clamped to a constant temperature object (you). Alternatively, it could just be an indication of you being in an environment that varies little from summer to winter. Do you go outside much? When inside, what would you estimate your environment's summer and winter temperatures to be.

3. Continuing on the temperature vein, since the variation of rate with temperature is nonlinear, your derived temperature surrogate is also non-linear. You could linearize it by using the known characteristics of the temperature dependency curve. After that, you could even attempt to convert to actual temperature via knowledge of the same curve. (Of course, it may be easier to determine temperature just by looking at a thermometer. :-d))

4. Final temperature comment -- The predominant annual cyclicality of your residuals strongly indicates that temperature is by far the largest cause of rate variation. Really a good demonstrator that, for a well made quartz, other causes of rate variation are small indeed.

5. On the slight second order coefficient for the last time period, it seems to me that it would be entirely explainable by the year-to-year temp variations. Whether it's due to global warming would be a much more "heated" discussion. :-d


----------



## Hans Moleman

What a wealth of data Peter!
I always wondered what a perfectly regulated, non thermo compensated quartz watch could do if it is worn continuously.
Two seconds per year if one could regulate it with infinitesimal steps.
Thanks for that.


----------



## Eeeb

Very interesting... I need time to digest. Do you know the movement used in this Diastar?


----------



## Fatpants

Both yours and Bruce's are exactly why HEQ rule. Great stuff gents;-) 

And welcome to WUS Peter.

Alex:-!


----------



## Peter CH

Bruce Reding said:


> First of all, welcome to the forum, Peter! We're glad you "came out of the HEQ closet". (Perhaps not the best turn of phrase. :-d) Second, let me congratulate you on an ingenious and excellent analysis! |>
> 
> A few comments ...
> 
> 1. The small deviations around your straight line fits clearly show that your watch is capable of even better performance with future rate adjustment iterations.
> 
> 2. Excellent logic around the temperature discussion. It's good that you caught the fact that the deviation is an integration of the rate. By my rough eyeball estimate, the rate appears to vary 20 seconds per year from summer to winter. This is less than you would expect if the watch were bearing the full brunt of the temperature change, so it indicates the strong buffering effect or having it clamped to a constant temperature object (you). Alternatively, it could just be an indication of you being in an environment that varies little from summer to winter. Do you go outside much? When inside, what would you estimate your environment's summer and winter temperatures to be.
> 
> 3. Continuing on the temperature vein, since the variation of rate with temperature is nonlinear, your derived temperature surrogate is also non-linear. You could linearize it by using the known characteristics of the temperature dependency curve. After that, you could even attempt to convert to actual temperature via knowledge of the same curve. (Of course, it may be easier to determine temperature just by looking at a thermometer. :-d))
> 
> 4. Final temperature comment -- The predominant annual cyclicality of your residuals strongly indicates that temperature is by far the largest cause of rate variation. Really a good demonstrator that, for a well made quartz, other causes of rate variation are small indeed.
> 
> 5. On the slight second order coefficient for the last time period, it seems to me that it would be entirely explainable by the year-to-year temp variations. Whether it's due to global warming would be a much more "heated" discussion. :-d


Thank you Bruce and all the others for your helpful comments that I would like to reply as follows:

Supplying the measured (in-)accuracy data to the factory - what I never did until now - should allow for a better adjustment than those based on short time measurements in the lab.
Apart from some outside activities during weekends and holidays I'm mainly inside and my environment's temperature might vary between 19 and 26 °C during the year. As I wear my Rado nearly 24/7, the quartz temperature will therefore vary by only a few degrees, which explains the weak rate variations of only about ±2 sec.
I fully agree that there are easier and cheaper ways to determine temperature . It was more the physicist's curiosity to try to understand the laws that are behind observations :-d. Of course you are right that my simple linear model was not adequate and would need further refinement.
Final question: who can tell me what I have to do to really integrate figures into the text and not just the link :-s.


----------



## ppaulusz

My _Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar_ _(L.546 = ETA 252.611)_ is about 0.3 second fast in the past month.

My _Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar_ _(E510)_ keeps running at around +9 seconds per year.

I might do one last adjustment on the _VHP_ to make it very close to the +/-1 second yearly rate.
The _Attesa_ cannot be adjusted and it's within manufacturer's specifications (Citizen claims an accuracy within +/-10 seconds per year).


----------



## KZZN

Hi;

From 28/10 to 02/12:
Oysterquartz Day-Date: -2.50 seconds

Bringing the totals so far to:
05/05/2007 to 28/10/2007: -22 seconds
28/10/2007 to 02/12/2007: -2.50 seconds
Total since 05/05/2007: -24.50 seconds


----------



## MJH

The Citizen update December the 5th (method by eye/time.gov this time):

- "0.48s" _behind_ since 1st of May 2007 (7 months)
- "0.28s" _behind_ since the 1st of January 2007 (11 months)
- "1s" _ahead_ after all time I've had it (32 months)

Watch worn close to 24/7. It's obvious that by eye you cannot say 0.48s or 0.28s, but I leave it here anyway in order for me to see the exact offset between the three periods, the next time I'll use DV time.gov method.

It so happens that after all 32 months, it now shows spot on time even though it is essentially 1s ahead. (Leapseconds perhaps programmed in )


----------



## ppaulusz

MJH said:


> The Citizen update December the 5th (method by eye/time.gov this time):
> 
> - "0.48s" _behind_ since 1st of May 2007 (7 months)
> - "0.28s" _behind_ since the 1st of January 2007 (11 months)
> - "1s" _ahead_ after all time I've had it (32 months)
> 
> Watch worn close to 24/7. It's obvious that by eye you cannot say 0.48s or 0.28s, but I leave it here anyway in order for me to see the exact offset between the three periods, the next time I'll use DV time.gov method.
> 
> It so happens that after all 32 months, it now shows spot on time even though it is essentially 1s ahead. (Leapseconds perhaps programmed in )


Congratulations, superb performance by the The Citizen!:-!


----------



## Bruce Reding

An abridged update ...

My The Citizen is exactly two seconds fast (by eye) since the beginning of the year. I wear it roughly 10% of the time. Otherwise, it's in our now cool (low-to-mid sixties) bedroom.

It would be interesting to chart residuals vs. its ambient temperature. I'm sure that, with Han's technique, residual temperature effects would be quite apparent.


----------



## Guest

Hi Bruce. Please don't find me rude but may I ask what's your profession? 

You have a very strong command of technical vocabulary, especially with data analysis and modeling. Control background?

I'm most impressed.


----------



## Bruce Reding

vandice said:


> Hi Bruce. Please don't find me rude but may I ask what's your profession?
> 
> You have a very strong command of technical vocabulary, especially with data analysis and modeling. Control background?


Howdy vandice. Thank you. Evidently, my impersonation of technical competetence is working. :-d I'm an engineer. My background is physics. I've always been in development, and I've worked in a number of areas including sensors, metrology, optics, high speed flows, high temperatures, mechanical design, etc. Lots of experiments. Lots of data analysis. Lots of theory. Lots of design. Lots of fun! :-!

Perhaps not surprisingly, many of us here have fairly deep techical roots. There was a thread we had where many of us described what we did and how we got interested in this little diversion. I couldn't find it with a quick glance, but it's back there somewhere.


----------



## dwjquest

Bruce - here is the thread.

https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?p=338591#poststop


----------



## Guest

Bruce Reding said:


> Howdy vandice. Thank you. Evidently, my impersonation of technical competetence is working. :-d I'm an engineer. My background is physics. I've always been in development, and I've worked in a number of areas including sensors, metrology, optics, high speed flows, high temperatures, mechanical design, etc. Lots of experiments. Lots of data analysis. Lots of theory. Lots of design. Lots of fun! :-!
> 
> Perhaps not surprisingly, many of us here have fairly deep techical roots. There was a thread we had where many of us described what we did and how we got interested in this little diversion. I couldn't find it with a quick glance, but it's back there somewhere.


And I'm in research. Modeling, data analysis, multi-variable stats, control, mostly...

Pleased to meet you!

I was curious because I did not expect to find this level of technical analysis in a WATCH forum. Seriously, when did watches become part of the apparatus?

Salut!

For dedication to the cause.

Salut!


----------



## Don_Wallbaum

Gentlefolk;

Please forgive the newbie question, but I have just recently discovered this forum. I am interested in the "DV method" for determining watch accuracy.... I assume this is using digital video, but how? In the old days when I was figuring manual camera shutter timing, I would use a TV set and use the scan lines to compute the actual shutter speed, so I am assuming something similar is employed here?

Since I don't have a DV, this is just an academic question.

Oh... Seiko Perpetual Calendar model SLL015, 8F32 movement. If anyone has info on this watch, I would be very interested. Not high-end, but affordable <g>.

Many thanks!

Don


----------



## piratt

If someone know /new/battery depend of accuraci movement for wintage watch CASIO A159WA?


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## Eeeb

In general, electronics suffer when they get low voltage. Watches are no different. Usually mine seem to run slow when the battery is about to die.


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## piratt

With old battery accuracy fast only 1s./month after change with new battery is very fast...


----------



## ronalddheld

Well here is my yearly summary:



Pulsar PSR-10 +23
Seiko Final Fantasy +16
Grand Seiko Quartz +16
The Citizen +10
TAG Microtimer -26
Omega X-33 -103
Kreiger MC -26
Sjoo Sandstrom ORC -12


----------



## Bruce Reding

After one year ...

My The Citizen: 2.3 seconds fast (est.) since 1/1/07
My Oysterquartz: 227 seconds fast since 1/1/07 (It's slowing down. Wonder if the batterie's going.)
My wife's Exceed is 4 seconds fast since 1/1/07


----------



## Bruce Reding

Don_Wallbaum said:


> Gentlefolk;
> 
> Please forgive the newbie question, but I have just recently discovered this forum. I am interested in the "DV method" for determining watch accuracy.... I assume this is using digital video, but how? In the old days when I was figuring manual camera shutter timing, I would use a TV set and use the scan lines to compute the actual shutter speed, so I am assuming something similar is employed here?
> 
> Since I don't have a DV, this is just an academic question.
> 
> Oh... Seiko Perpetual Calendar model SLL015, 8F32 movement. If anyone has info on this watch, I would be very interested. Not high-end, but affordable <g>.
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> Don


Sorry for the late reply, Don. You are correct -- DV stands for Digital Video. Many digital point and shoots now do mpeg movies. The idea is to place your watch next to your reference an "film" them. You can then judge the fractional second difference between the two by counting the frame difference. Of course, your time standard still has to be good. MJH has developed this method, as I remember. You can check his posts.


----------



## Bruce Reding

dwjquest said:


> Bruce - here is the thread.
> 
> https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?p=338591#poststop


Thanks David!


----------



## ppaulusz

My _Longines Conquest VHP Perpetual Calendar_ _(L.546 = ETA 252.611)_ is about 0.3 second fast in the past month.

My _Citizen Attesa Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar_ _(E510)_ keeps running at around +9 seconds per year.

My _Omega Seamaster (Cal.1441 = ETA 255.561)_ is getting fine-tuned (by me) so next time I should be able to post about its accuracy.


----------



## Varta

*January 2008 Results*

A happy new year to all of you!

HEQ is a such a nice forum. It's great to know that other people out there also value quartz watches.

Let me just report on my only HEQ, a Sinn UX:

Period: 2007-10-28 - 2008-01-01
Average rate: -3.56 s/a
Current Offset: -0,67 s

The attached diagram shows the details of the measurement period.


----------



## KZZN

Hi;

On 02/01:
Oysterquartz Day-Date: -5.00 seconds

Bringing the totals so far to:
05/05/2007 to 28/10/2007: -22 seconds
28/10/2007 to 02/12/2007: -2.50 seconds
02/12/2007 to 02/01/2008: -5.00 seconds
Total since 05/05/2007: -29.50 seconds


----------



## Mechanikus

As a newcomer on watchuseek but long time committed to accuracy of watches, I am happy to see that accuracy is important for other people as well.

I have started tests 16-May-2002 with mechanicals then in January 2003 the High-end quartz watches with a Longines Flagship VHP.

Since then I have 17 thousand plus read-outs and a methodology.

If you are interested please visit my site (bi-lingual):
http://www.mechanikus.hu/
'Test results' section.

I would be grateful for comments.

Best regards,
Mechanikus


----------



## ppaulusz

Mechanikus said:


> As a newcomer on watchuseek but long time committed to accuracy of watches, I am happy to see that accuracy is important for other people as well.
> 
> I have started tests 16-May-2002 with mechanicals then in January 2003 the High-end quartz watches with a Longines Flagship VHP.
> 
> Since then I have 17 thousand plus read-outs and a methodology.
> 
> If you are interested please visit my site (bi-lingual):
> http://www.mechanikus.hu/
> 'Test results' section.
> 
> I would be grateful for comments.
> 
> Best regards,
> Mechanikus


Welcome to our forum, Mechanikus!
It's great to see you posting on this forum. Congratulations to your fine collection of watches. Your site is a great source of information about watches and movements (mechanical and quartz as well).:-!

On a personal note: I bought my very first thermocompensated watch - a Longines Flagship VHP - a couple of years ago. Before the purchase I did a bit of researching and the final step of that was to write an email to Mechanikus to ask for his opinion about the watch as he already owned one like that. Thanks to his advice I ended up buying the Flagship VHP and from there on got deeper and deeper into this high-end quartz "madness". :thanks again for your advice, Mechanikus!

Warning to the members: It started with _me_, then _Vizi_ and now it's _Mechanikus_... Watch out guys, the _Hungarians_ are coming!;-)


----------



## Bruce Reding

Welcome, Gabor. I must say that your site is _extremely _impressive! :-! Incredible collection. (I love the Cornavin.) Also, thank you for the excellent pics in the pictures thread.

With your permission, I will post a link to your site in our references section.


----------



## Mechanikus

Bruce Reding said:


> Welcome, Gabor. I must say that your site is _extremely _impressive! :-! Incredible collection. (I love the Cornavin.) Also, thank you for the excellent pics in the pictures thread.
> 
> With your permission, I will post a link to your site in our references section.


-----
I am very happy that you have found my collection and site interesting and feel honoured to be referenced.


----------



## vizi

Mechanikus said:


> As a newcomer on watchuseek but long time committed to accuracy of watches, I am happy to see that accuracy is important for other people as well.
> 
> I have started tests 16-May-2002 with mechanicals then in January 2003 the High-end quartz watches with a Longines Flagship VHP.
> 
> Since then I have 17 thousand plus read-outs and a methodology.
> 
> If you are interested please visit my site (bi-lingual):
> http://www.mechanikus.hu/
> 'Test results' section.
> 
> I would be grateful for comments.
> 
> Best regards,
> Mechanikus


Welcome to our forum,Gabor.I studied much it site; http://www.mechanikus.hu/


----------



## KZZN

Hi;

Haven't posted any updates in a while - here's the figures so far, as measured on 09/03/2008:

Oysterquartz Day-Date: -10.00 seconds since 28/10/2007
Grand total since 05/05/2007: -32.00 seconds

Detailed records of total loss at the end of individual time periods:
05/05/2007 to 28/10/2007: -22 seconds, watch reset to GMT
28/10/2007 to 02/12/2007: -2.50 seconds
02/12/2007 to 02/01/2008: -5.00 seconds
02/01/2008 to 10/02/2008: -7.75 seconds
10/02/2008 to 09/03/2008: -10.00 seconds


----------



## Mechanikus

*Re: Some accuracy data*



ausrandoman said:


> Here are ten months of data for three of my watches, a Rado Ceramica, an Omega Seamaster multifunction and a Rolex Oysterquartz. The modest Rado is the surprise winner. I've stopped the trial for the Rado, as it has just started to flash its end of battery life warning.
> 
> I suspect that if I kept collecting data for several years, I would see a sinusoidal varitation, correlated with annual variations in temperature. But I'm not that much of a geek. Stop laughing. I'm NOT!


I do for 6 years.There are different kinds of behaviours.
Please take alook at them on my site (please find URL below)
at 'Test results' - 'Quartz'.


----------



## Mechanikus

*Some thoughts about methodology of accuracy tests*.

I am happy to meet here other accuracy fans and am grateful to see yearly results of watches missing from my collection.

A. What is the acceptable comparable result?
I am convinced that any kind of characteristic value has to be based on stable and convergent results of measured data.
From my experience I know that concluding to stable and convergent result is really time-consuming exercise. For me one year is the pre-qualification of a HEQ or simple quartz watch to be 'on the board'.

B. What should be the parameter characterizing a calibre?
Since the actual value of deviation from the standard time on all watches can be fine-tuned, I take it rather as a parameter than a characteristic of the calibre. My hypothesis is that the distribution of the monthly (at mechanical watches daily) deviation from the standard time is the real characteristic of a single calibre. 
(To be sure that my results are well describing a calibre type I should test 5+ pieces of the same type.)
If distribution is the characteristic and average can be set on each calibre the remaining value to describe the statistical behaviour of the calibre on a long run is the standard deviation.

C. For statistical analysis long-term test are necessary
Having selected standard deviation as denominator I condemned myself to long-term tests, since 30-50 measured points are required to reach a stable result.

D. Rounding or not rounding &#8230;
There is a point where I am 'strict'. I do not tare a read-out of a fraction of a second. I think 'eyeball-guess' is not precise enough at the size of wristwatch dial and over a long period of time that is not consistent enough. That is why I round the monthly read-outs for the closest full second according to the rounding rules of basic maths. Rounding up or down on one hand will be balanced at the end of next period on the other hand on long run, having 36 - 60 measured points the single rounding errors will be eliminated.

Finally I have to tell that I do NOT think that my method would be perfect, just wanted to mention some important aspects of measuring watches.


----------



## Mechanikus

tare = take


----------



## Bruce Reding

Hi Gabor. Thanks for your thoughts on this subject! 

I agree that the standard deviation is more characteristic of the intrinsic capability of the watch than the absolute accumulated error, the latter being largely correctible on most calibers. I also agree that long periods (one year feels right) are needed for characterizing a watch. A number of folks on the forum have devised methods for extremely reliable sub second interpolation, even down to hundredths of a second. (I looked for these in the references sticky, but evidently have not saved them. Perhaps other forumners would be able to point them out.)


----------



## Mechanikus

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for your comments.

Dear All,

If someone have references to the reliable sub second interpolation methods, please let me know. I am really interested.


----------



## MJH

Me and my Citizen have our 3rd anniversary on April the 1st 2008, so thought to summarise the deviation from time.gov, even though the 2007 challenge is over )

The red line is illustrating the worst performance between any two successive measurement points. As said in my earlier posts, there was one week time between those two measurement points that the watch was not worn at all. (Watch was accidentally left in a room temp clearly below the typical wrist temp.) Other than that I have worn the watch close to 24/7.

The watch keeps reasonably good time when worn as illustrated by the green line.

MJH


----------



## Varta

Switching back to DST today is the natural end of a five month period measuring my Sinn UX's accuracy: I simply can't change the hour without hacking the seconds hand.

End result after 154 days is an offset of -1.6 seconds, which is -3.71 seconds per year. This is quite close to -0.01 seconds per day.

I'm quite happy with this result, not only because it is good, but also because it's clearly not random. The 18 measurements I took during that period are consistent.


----------



## Bruce Reding

MJH said:


> Me and my Citizen have our 3rd anniversary on April the 1st 2008, so thought to summarise the deviation from time.gov, even though the 2007 challenge is over )
> 
> The red line is illustrating the worst performance between any two successive measurement points. As said in my earlier posts, there was one week time between those two measurement points that the watch was not worn at all. (Watch was accidentally left in a room temp clearly below the typical wrist temp.) Other than that I have worn the watch close to 24/7.
> 
> The watch keeps reasonably good time when worn as illustrated by the green line.
> 
> MJH


So you have lost one second in three years? Am I reading this right? Stunning! :-! I'm trying to reconcile this with the loss you noted, however. I'm missing something. :think:


----------



## Bruce Reding

Varta said:


> Switching back to DST today is the natural end of a five month period measuring my Sinn UX's accuracy: I simply can't change the hour without hacking the seconds hand.
> 
> End result after 154 days is an offset of -1.6 seconds, which is -3.71 seconds per year. This is quite close to -0.01 seconds per day.
> 
> I'm quite happy with this result, not only because it is good, but also because it's clearly not random. The 18 measurements I took during that period are consistent.


Excellent results! :-! Those Thermolines can really perform.


----------



## MJH

Bruce Reding said:


> So you have lost one second in three years? Am I reading this right? Stunning! :-! I'm trying to reconcile this with the loss you noted, however. I'm missing something. :think:


That's correct, lost 1s in 3 years.

The watch was close to 2s ahead just before it was left in a room for a week. After this it was appr 0.5s behind. After a few months more it was 1s behind. Was this helpful or is there something still causing confusion? I'm not sure what loss I noted that you you're trying to rconcile.


----------



## Bruce Reding

Got it. An impressive run indeed! I must say, however, that the degree of temperature sensitivity is a bit surprising. Any idea how cold (or hot) the room was?


----------



## MJH

Bruce Reding said:


> Got it. An impressive run indeed! I must say, however, that the degree of temperature sensitivity is a bit surprising. Any idea how cold (or hot) the room was?


Probably was in the range of 60F-70F (=15C-20C)..


----------



## KZZN

Hi;

Here's the latest figures for my Oysterquartz Day-Date, as measured on the switchover to BST on Sunday 30/03/2008:

Grand total since 05/05/2007: -33.00 seconds

Detailed records of total loss at the end of individual time periods:
05/05/2007 to 28/10/2007: -22 seconds, watch reset to GMT
28/10/2007 to 02/12/2007: -2.50 seconds
02/12/2007 to 02/01/2008: -5.00 seconds
02/01/2008 to 10/02/2008: -7.75 seconds
10/02/2008 to 09/03/2008: -10.00 seconds
09/03/2008 to 30/03/2008: -11.00 seconds, watch reset to BST


----------



## phatpete68

Hi Bruce, 

Is there gonna be a new Accuracy Challenge? 

I m testing my Seiko Twin Quartz 9641 and synced it with a software I found at WorldTimeServer called Atomic Clock Sync v3.0, I let the software sync with their server every hour......I m new to this but can you tell me if it will show if my is accurate or not? I live in sweden so I want to be able to use local time. 

It has only been little more than a day so I will have to wait a little longer to see how it compares....but still its spot on! :-!

/Peter


----------



## Bruce Reding

phatpete68 said:


> Hi Bruce,
> 
> Is there gonna be a new Accuracy Challenge?


If we want, sure. What do others say?


----------



## KZZN

Hi;

Well, it's now been exactly one year, so here are the final accuracy figures for my Rolex Oysterquartz Day-Date:

Grand total from 05/05/2007 to 05/05/2008: -37.25 seconds

Detailed records of total loss at the end of individual time periods:
05/05/2007 to 28/10/2007: -22 seconds, watch reset to GMT
28/10/2007 to 02/12/2007: -2.50 seconds
02/12/2007 to 02/01/2008: -5.00 seconds
02/01/2008 to 10/02/2008: -7.75 seconds
10/02/2008 to 09/03/2008: -10.00 seconds
09/03/2008 to 30/03/2008: -11.00 seconds, watch reset to BST
30/03/2008 to 05/05/2008: -4.25 seconds

So well within the +/-60 seconds a year that the movement was rated by Rolex - all in all, I'm very happy !


----------



## Chas

Bruce, I'd like to see the accuracy challenge continued. I hadn't found this forum and I didn't have an HEQ watch until the last one was over. It would just be helpful to have some kind of formal continuing accuracy check even if it was limited to semi-annually or annually. If you decide to call for it, perhaps you could restate the parameters. Thanks.


----------



## vizi

I made the final adjustment/calibration on my Omega Seamaster Professional 300M (custom-made thermocompensated with the ETA 255.563) exactly 30 days ago. As the picture shows: it's still in synch with the atomic timereference!


----------



## ppaulusz

vizi said:


> I made the final adjustment/calibration on my Omega Seamaster Professional 300M (custom-made thermocompensated with the ETA 255.563) exactly 30 days ago. As the picture shows: it's still in synch with the atomic timereference!


It's good to see that your modification (replacing the electronic module with a thermocompensated one) to the original movement (_Cal.1538 = ETA 255.461_) works so well.:-!


----------



## MJH

Just an update from September 2008, mainly for my own records. Data collected in the last 41 months without resetting.


----------



## Bruce Reding

Less than two seconds net drift in nearly four years? We'll call that acceptable. :-d Do you still wear it regularly?


----------



## MJH

Yep... close to 24/7, it'll be intresting to see if there's any difference in drift when the battery is close to ready being replaced with a new one...


----------



## bompi

I got my GS SBGF019 on mid-april. Since then I've been wearing it most of the time (about five days/nights per week) except during my two weeks long vacations.

It neither lost nor gained any second.

Which suits perfectly my expectations ;-)


----------



## posquartz

My SBGF019 is just over four months old and is on about a plus 4 second per year pace.


----------



## Riehldeal

Not knowledgable about the SBGFO19 could you explain more? 
In any event it seems you got the needle in the haystack of a Quartz crystal,it happens even in some $5 watches, and you should not change a thing about your wearing habits(wrist time).


----------



## Chas

Seiko SBQK06 (8F32). After 8 months, +2 seconds.
Citizen Chronomaster CTQ57-0955. After 6 months, + 5 seconds. (I just changed the hour hand back an hour without stopping the minute and second hand. That was cool. It's only the second time I've done this since I've had the watch. Which just means I'm a hermit and haven't been anywhere for the last 6 months. :-d)


----------



## South Pender

vizi said:


> I made the final adjustment/calibration on my Omega Seamaster Professional 300M (custom-made thermocompensated with the ETA 255.563) exactly 30 days ago. As the picture shows: it's still in synch with the atomic timereference!


Vizi, I just found this post, and it kind of ties in with the thread I started yesterday on thermocompensated Omega movements. Here's a question: Will Omega make up a custom watch with a thermocompensated movement substituted into a watch that normally has a less-precise non-thermocompensated movement? For example, is that how you acquired this thermocompensated Seamaster? Or are there private watchmakers out there who will do this? (Of course, the latter would have to be able to source the thermocompensated movements from either Omega or ETA.)


----------



## vizi

South Pender said:


> Vizi, I just found this post, and it kind of ties in with the thread I started yesterday on thermocompensated Omega movements. Here's a question: Will Omega make up a custom watch with a thermocompensated movement substituted into a watch that normally has a less-precise non-thermocompensated movement? For example, is that how you acquired this thermocompensated Seamaster? Or are there private watchmakers out there who will do this? (Of course, the latter would have to be able to source the thermocompensated movements from either Omega or ETA.)


From where,how,as ,here the answer

https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=130103

https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=92227


----------



## MJH

I'll post here accuracy report for my The Citizen. I started 45 months ago and it's now (Jan 2009) slightly over 2 seconds behind. This means that now it shows close to spot on time when we have had 2 leap seconds over the last 45 months. Couple more months and it's 4 years since I got and resetted the watch in sync with time.gov. Since then I have worn it close to 24/7. See the pic for details.


----------



## MJH

My "no radiocontrol"-quartz is 2,4s behind after all 48 months I've had it. During this time it has not been reseted. The picture shows also some intermediate data. It's fair to say that specification +/-5s per year specification is met. With the 2 leap seconds we have had during the last 48 months, this means that one should understand that I'll miss start of a meeting by 0,4s.

I wear it very close to 24/7 - which, I believe, is the key for the accuracy.


----------



## Eeeb

You must smile every time you look at the watch for the time... It is nice when something works just the way you want it. Congratulations... this is quite an accomplishment.


----------



## junlon

MJH said:


> My "no radiocontrol"-quartz is 2,4s behind after all 48 months I've had it..


Very curious about your measurement method. How did you get the deviation of 2.4 seconds - with the resolution of 0.1 second?
The measurement resolution should be "seconds", since the watch and the government website (www.time.gov) both tick every second. Seems odd you could get 0.2 or 0.4 sec deviation. Besides, the government website shows some "uncertainty" - e.g., accurate with 0.3 sec. How did you know it is + or - 0.3 sec?


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## MJH

junlon said:


> Very curious about your measurement method. How did you get the deviation of 2.4 seconds - with the resolution of 0.1 second?... Besides, the government website shows some "uncertainty" - e.g., accurate with 0.3 sec. How did you know it is + or - 0.3 sec?


I record time.gov and my watch using ad digital video camera that has 1/25s counter. Then I make note of the counter reading the moment time.gov updates the second and also when my watch does so.

By experience I can say that the counter on the DV camera is very stable and reliable. As for the time.gov accuracy, the accuracy in practise is essentially better than the quaranteed 0.3s I also typically get. Sometimes, when I get very bad accuracy statement at time.gov, I can see that the time still is such as accurate. On the other hand if I reload time.gov multiple of times and compare the reading on my watch, the result is always the same, to the 0.1s. On the radio I also hear countdown every hour and this is extremely accurate. Same here, what ever difference is between the radio and time.gov, it remains constant. With this I have dared to take readings accurate to 0.1s from time.gov. True accuracy from time.gov of course is not known, but it is essentially better than stated just below the time reading.


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## junlon

MJH said:


> I record time.gov and my watch using ad digital video camera that has 1/25s counter. Then I make note of the counter reading the moment time.gov updates the second and also when my watch does so.
> 
> By experience I can say that the counter on the DV camera is very stable and reliable. As for the time.gov accuracy, the accuracy in practise is essentially better than the quaranteed 0.3s I also typically get. Sometimes, when I get very bad accuracy statement at time.gov, I can see that the time still is such as accurate. On the other hand if I reload time.gov multiple of times and compare the reading on my watch, the result is always the same, to the 0.1s. On the radio I also hear countdown every hour and this is extremely accurate. Same here, what ever difference is between the radio and time.gov, it remains constant. With this I have dared to take readings accurate to 0.1s from time.gov. True accuracy from time.gov of course is not known, but it is essentially better than stated just below the time reading.


Thanks for the info. We people in automotive industry really need good engineers like you that are creative and want to go the extra mile...


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## ppaulusz

MJH said:


> ...I wear it very close to 24/7 - which, I believe, is the key for the accuracy.


In my opinion: the key for the excellent performance is the proper base rate (out of the factory, in this case). The fact that you wear it close to 24/7 helps too.


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## Eeeb

junlon said:


> Thanks for the info. We people in automotive industry really need good engineers like you that are creative and want to go the extra mile...


You have had them for years... management just never listened to them.


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## Boxbrownie

This morning I reset my watches to BST and logged the drift since they were set last October.....in 5 months from worst to best is

5th - Omega SM120 Multifunction +27s

4th - Omega X-33 +19s

3rd - Breitling Aerospace (65) +7s

2nd - Rolex OQ (30 years old!) +3s

and in 1st place - Seiko 200m Chronograph with 7T-62 movement

+1s......one second in 5 months isn't bad for a £45 watch :-s

I might sell off my HEQs :-d

Best regards David


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## Bruce Reding

MJH said:


> With the 2 leap seconds we have had during the last 48 months, this means that one should understand that I'll miss start of a meeting by 0,4s.


Hopefully you'll be forgiven for such tardiness. :-d


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## junlon

(delete)


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## MJH

ppaulusz said:


> In my opinion: the key for the excellent performance is the proper base rate (out of the factory, in this case). The fact that you wear it close to 24/7 helps too.


Well, basing on what we know, I figured the wear time is the key. Mine gets 24/7 wear time and ronaldheld's gets no wear time at all. We do know that ronaldheld's is one extreme in wear time and accuracy, mine is opposite extreme for both. We do not know base rate of mine or that of ronaldheld's.

Two units obviously are not enough to make conclusion on this, but the wrist time requirement from manufacturer also supports thinking that the wear time is the key.

Even though much discussed, I believe, it is still a mystery for us which type of technology is behind the accuracy, so it's difficult to say how much of the accuracy can be contributed to the baserate and how much to the wear time.

It would be intresting to see if Ronaldheld's accuracy would improve once it would get more wear time. Another way would of course be if I would not wear mine at all, which I can't do because I don't have any other watch. This actually reminds me that the picture I attached yesterday shows one sudden change of the accuracy (appr -2s) and this is the only time when I had the watch off my wrist for a week or so, so this tells me that the speculated good base rate on mine, does not help if the watch gets no wrist time. The change of - 2s during such a short of time is actually meaning around -7s change in 12 months, thus violating the specification of +-5s. With this allow me to believe the wear time is the key.

Well, I guess we can agree that there is not "the key", instead one key is baserate and another, such as important, is the wear time. Neither cannot make it without the other.


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## ppaulusz

MJH said:


> Well, basing on what we know, I figured the wear time is the key. Mine gets 24/7 wear time and ronaldheld's gets no wear time at all...


... and there is Bruce's watch and his experiences of wearing it and non-weararing it for long periods (post number 3):
https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=114655
Trust me: the key is the base rate, the wear time is a much lesser factor.


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## MJH

Yes, as I read it, Bruce also did note that the accuracy was better when worn. The effect, of course, may still be less than if the watch does not have any method for compensating for the temparature.

Edit: 
BTW, when I said the wear time was the key to accuracy, I obviously meant that it was key for obtaining essentially better rate than the specified. Obviosly, the accuracy upto +-5s/y is contributed to a good base rate. Accuracy better than that is to do with the wear time, from what I see.


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## ppaulusz

MJH said:


> ...when I said the wear time was the key to accuracy, I obviously meant that it was key for obtaining essentially better rate than the specified. Obviosly, the accuracy upto +-5s/y is contributed to a good base rate. Accuracy better than that is to do with the wear time, from what I see.


I agree! Let me quote Bruce's conclusion about the effect of wear time (from the same link as the previous):
_"It could make the difference in terms of meeting the stated spec. if you regulated rate was already close to the edge."_

PS: from the above it is obvious that:
- not every timepiece leaves the factory with optimal base rate
- movements that are equipped with small steps digital calibration option are desirable if the users want optimum performance (accuracy-wise)


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## Eeeb

ppaulusz said:


> I agree! Let me quote Bruce's conclusion about the effect of wear time (from the same link as the previous):
> _"It could make the difference in terms of meeting the stated spec. if you regulated rate was already close to the edge."_
> 
> PS: from the above it is obvious that:
> - not every timepiece leaves the factory with optimal base rate
> - movements that are equipped with small steps digital calibration option are desirable if the users want optimum performance (accuracy-wise)


Temperature compensation (TC) is an attempt to compensate for variation from the base rate's ideal temperature.

If the watch sees it's life never vary from the ideal temperature, it will be very very accurate. (This is even true for non-TC watches.)

Assuming George is correct (and I strongly suspect he is) that timepieces can leave the factory with different ideal temperatures (i.e. optimal base rate), then any specified wearing/storage pattern can produce different results with different timepieces. You can not know beforehand what is optimal for any watch.

This is why the ability to adjust base rates in the field is quite important.

If one can produce watches which all have identical base rates this can still be important due to variations in the owners environment.

A mitigation for this would be a TC schema which was very very temperature insensitive, through better algorithms or better crystals. But the data suggests we have watches which do show variations in how they respond to environments, so we are not there yet.


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## Eeeb

Eeeb said:


> Temperature compensation (TC) is an attempt to compensate for variation from the base rate's ideal temperature.
> 
> If the watch sees it's life never vary from the ideal temperature, it will be very very accurate. (This is even true for non-TC watches.)
> 
> Assuming George is correct (and I strongly suspect he is) that timepieces can leave the factory with different ideal temperatures (i.e. optimal base rate), then any specified wearing/storage pattern can produce different results with different timepieces. You can not know beforehand what is optimal for any watch.
> 
> This is why the ability to adjust base rates in the field is quite important.
> 
> If one can produce watches which all have identical base rates this can still be important due to variations in the owners environment.
> 
> A mitigation for this would be a TC schema which was very very temperature insensitive, through better algorithms or better crystals. But the data suggests we have watches which do show variations in how they respond to environments, so we are not there yet.


To expand a little further, this reminds me of how one regulates a mechanical watch. You never get zero error in all positions... some positions are faster/slower than others. You regulate to a minimum.

You give the watch back to the customer. The customer wears it for a couple of weeks then brings it back in. The error is recorded and the watchmaker lowers/raises the rate in one or two positions then the customer goes back and determines if the error is low enough. If not, another interrelation is made.

This process is the time honored way of lowering the error rate of mechanicals. Being able to adjust inhibition counts seems somewhat similar.


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## MJH

ppaulusz said:


> - not every timepiece leaves the factory with optimal base rate


Optimal base rate means that the the crystal is at it's best specifically at the most typical temparature it will be subject to, right?


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## Catalin

ppaulusz said:


> ... and there is Bruce's watch and his experiences of wearing it and non-weararing it for long periods (post number 3):
> https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=114655
> Trust me: the key is the base rate, the wear time is a much lesser factor.


I would rather say that the base rate from the factory is the 'preliminary factor' - which however I would normally expect to be "by default" in a decent range for anything but a very bad quality-controlled factory.

After that there is a HUGE difference depending on the size of the compensation table - on a very fine table (many values and probably quite accurate) the 'base rate' remains the deciding factor - you can see that for the best 6 calibers from:

https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=211286

where all the 'winners' tend to remain very close to their base rate (with the exception of the Omega 1516, but that one has no thermocompensation table at all).

For the models where the table is probably small (for historical reasons, with the rest probably interpolated), sloppy or does not exist at all we will see a dramatic effect from the wearing pattern - and that was certainly the case with A660 and also most likely 8F calibers. (I am also still very curious on the 'left half' of those graphs ...)


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## South Pender

I'm more and more of the opinion that wear time is very very important. I have two Chronomasters. I wore my first one for 6 months, and it basically was dead on (maybe off by 1/4-sec., but I can't really discriminate that finely) at the end of that period. During two months of that period I had got my second Chronomaster, and, not wanting to disrupt the 6-month test of my first one, I left it in the drawer. I set it to government time when I got it; in something over two months, it had gained about 2 seconds. Now I'm closing in on two months with it being worn close to 24/7, and it is still dead on with government time that I set it to 2 months ago. In the meantime, my first Chronomaster (that had been absolutely perfect for 6 months of wearing almost 24/7)--now banished to the drawer so that I can give the second one a good 6-month test--has gained about 1.5 seconds. So it appears that, as long as I wear them most of the time, my two appear to be just about perfect (although the jury's till out on Chronomaster #2, with only 2 months of data at this point).

It was these observations that raised the question that I posted in a recent thread on the influence of temperature on HEQ accuracy. It has seemed to me--based not only on my own (limited) observations, but also on some other information on this and other forums--that warmth (I guess up to a point) seems to slow a watch down somewhat, whereas a cooler environment (those in my drawer are probably experiencing something like 70-deg. F) seems to speed them up. I commented in my post that this seemed vaguely counterintuitive, but much of the information I had access to seemed to verify this.

Any observations from the rest of you on wear time, temperature, and performance of Citizen Chronomasters or other HEQ models (I know, I know, check the archives!)?


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## ppaulusz

MJH said:


> Optimal base rate means that the the crystal is at it's best specifically at the most typical temparature it will be subject to, right?


Yes. While the given watch can be perfect for your local environment, it might be less than perfect for my local environment (local environment = wearing habit and conditions + climatic conditions). So there is no such a thing as "_the perfect base rate for all_". The department stores' "_L-size_" suits won't fit every one who are by body height fit into the description of "_L-size_". For the perfect fit most of us would see a tailor. That "_tailor_" is called "_digital calibration option_" when we talk about high-accuracy quartz watches. All of us can have a perfectly tailored suit by visiting a tailor. Unfortunatly not every high-accuracy thermocompensated quartz movement is equipped with digital calibration option therefore these watches cannot be "tailor-made" (changing the electronic module = getting the suit tailor-made over the phone without visiting the tailor) though occasionally one can get lucky... just like in the department store...;-)


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## junlon

South Pender said:


> ... It has seemed to me--based not only on my own (limited) observations, but also on some other information on this and other forums--that warmth (I guess up to a point) seems to slow a watch down somewhat, whereas a cooler environment (those in my drawer are probably experiencing something like 70-deg. F) seems to speed them up...


I got similar experience. As the temperature goes down, the watch speeds up. But, why? A few weeks ago I posted a theory of temperature effect on quartz's natural frequency. As temperature goes down, the quartz tends to get stiffer and thus the natural frequency goes up and watch runs faster. 
Some people at the forum thought I was too naive to over-simplify the quartz accuracy issue. Maybe so, but I am still waiting for any good theory and validation...

BTW, the far left guy on the photo (GM CEO) just lost his job...The other 3 guys (UAW Chairman, Ford CEO and Chrysler CEO are still here...)


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## webvan

Was looking for a "long term testing" thread and found this one linked from the "meritorious threads" sticky so thought I'd use it for my 14 month room temp numbers, from June 2010 to August 2011, maybe it could be renamed to "Accuracy Challenge" ?

Best performing first: 
- Omega Polaris -1990 - Cal 1445 ** : +2.63 spy *
- Longines Flagship VHP Perpetual - 1997 - ETA TC : -5.18 spy *
- Maurice Lacroix Miros - 2008 - ETA TC : +8.68 spy
- Citizen Exceed - 2007 - Cal E510 : +9.93 spy
- Seiko SLT047p - 2001 *** - 8F56 : +18.68 spy
- TAG F1/S - 2009 - Calibre S Non TC : +29.27 spy

No numbers for my Seiko TQ unfortunately as the battery died and I had trouble getting it restarted, looks like I need to send it in for cleaning, odd since that had been done when I purchased it in 2009.

* - regulated by myself
** - 1441 originally but replaced sometime in 1991 according to the first owner after the 1441 failed
*** - Original module was swapped with 2007 module from the Pulsar 8F56


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## Eeeb

Good time base under actual conditions. Great data here!


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