DCF77 radio clock for synchronization of
computers and networks
The board PCI32 has been designed for the
reception of the DCF77 signal, the transfer
of the time information to a computer with
PCI bus interface and the translation of the
received codes into a serial telegram.
The drivers package for Windows
contains a time adjustment service which runs
in the background and adjusts the Windows
system time continously and smoothly. A
monitor program is also included which lets
the user check the status of the device and
the time adjustment service, and can be used
to modify configurable parameters.
The driver package for Linux
contains a kernel driver which allows the
board to be used as a reference time source
for the NTP daemon which is shipped with most
Linux distributions. This also turns the
computer into a NTP time server which can
also provide accurate time to other NTP
clients on the network. Some command line
tools can be used to setup configurable
parameters and monitor the status of the
board.
Additional drivers packages are available
for DOS, Novell NetWare, and
OS/2. At the bottom of this page
there's a link to the download area.
The device's serial port can be used to
update the card's firmware. Additionally it
can be connected to the serial port of a
computer to use the card as reference time
source under operating systems where a serial
time string is supported, e.g. by NTP, but no
kernel device driver is available.
