Shown on the left is the circuit diagram for the receiver part of the clock. This schematic is essentially a sensitive 60kHz receiver and ASK demodulator. You could use it as a simple receiver for other frequencies by just taking the signal at point 4 and adjusting the Inductor (antenna) and shunt capacitor […]

I’ve just moved back to University for my final year, and as such have found some time to draw up half of the schematic for the rugbyPICclock! I was pleased to find that as soon as I arrived in Bath, I plugged in the clock, it received the signal fine and was displaying the […]

The clock still isn’t in a case, I managed to find a metal case just big enough for the receiver board, so I trimmed the receiver board down to size to get it in, to then discover that it hates metal boxes and stops working all together, d’oh!
I’ve spent a long time reworking the PIC […]

In order to receive the now super low power signal, I had to add another amplification stage to the receiver.  The new stage is identical to the first stage.  I’m using a TL081 JFET input op amp, but any decent op amp will do the job (note that a 741 isn’t decent!).  The op amp […]

…..and I can’t decode it anymore!
The signal has moved from being transmitted 60 miles away from me, to being transmitted 360 miles away from me, and my receiver isn’t having any of it.
I’ve tried a few little things to try and improve the sensitivity of the receiver, but so far to no avail.  I also […]

Now I’ve got to the point where the display needs to be built. True to form, I’ll be mounting the digits on stripboard. I’ll be using three double digit red LED displays, two for hours, two for minutes and two for seconds. Every segment of each digit needs to be connected to […]

I’ve built a simple decoder circuit on some breadboard, using a PIC. The inputs to the decoder are +5v, 0v and the time code signal obtained from the receiver. The PIC has code running on it that decides whether each pulse is a 0 or a 1, it does this by using simple […]

After going through the theory on the receiver circuit below, I’m pleased to report that I’ve had some success with a fairly simple little circuit that I knocked up.
After a lot of trial and error with capacitor values (which culminated in me asking the guy in Maplin for 2 of every value capacitor he had) […]

Been a little while since I’ve updated this, but I’ve been hunting down an oscilloscope to try and develop a receiver circuit, trying to work on the circuit at work (where I have access to every piece of test equipment under the sun) in my lunch breaks has proved difficult as I’m too busy at […]

It took a while to get working, but I’ve finally got the PIC programmer working perfectly with my PC!
I’ve included the final circuit below, I can confirm that this works 100%, with Winpic PIC programming software, using NOPPP.ini that is included with Winpic (don’t bother with the NOPPP software on the official site). You […]