Seiko SBFG001, problems with time after synch.

[antjoh]

I bought a Seiko SBFG001 just before christmas and I've worn it pretty much daily since then. It's a great watch and I love it!

I live on the border to where the radio control towers can reach and I get the watch to synch maybe 3 times a week if I'm lucky. That is quite alright I think but ever since we switched over to daylight savings time the watch has started to set the wrong time (one hour a head). Not always but sometimes...

I live in Sweden so I have my home set to BER +1 on the watch. I have also tried PAR +1 to see if it made any difference but I get the same result. Sometimes it synchs to the tower in Engand and sometimes to the one in Germany. They both, occasionally, set the watch one hour too fast.

Am I doing anything wrong here? Is there anything I can do to correct the problem?
It's pretty anoying not to be able to "trust" the watch when it has synched :(

[Sedi]

Seems like there might be something wrong with your "DST"-setting. Can't say how this works on the Seiko (I only have Casio watches with radio-control) - on a Casio you can either set the DST to "AUTO", "ON" or "OFF". If you're barely in reach of the tower that sends the signal it's best to do the DST change manually - so in the summer time set it to "ON". Hope that might solve the problem. However it's strange that the watch is one hour ahead. Shouldn't it be one hour behind? If DST is set to "ON" - it adds one hour. So right now you should have UTC+2. So if the watch syncs and doesn't get the DST info because the signal is too weak then it should be one hour behind. Or am I making a mistake here ?

cheers, Sedi

[antjoh]

Unfortunately I only have ON or OFF to chose from and right now it is set to ON.
Just like you I think the offset is weird and if anything goes wrong when synching I would have thought that it would be one hour slow.

Thanks for your reply anyway!
It doesn't look like I have missed something fundamental when it comes to setting up the watch or how these things are supposed to work :)

[Zimmer]

It doesn't look like I have missed something fundamental when it comes to setting up the watch

I doubt if you have.

Seiko SBPG001 - atomic sync off by an hour

[xevious]

Hmmmmm... that makes another person with the same complaint. So you have successful sync with a specific radio tower in one evening, but then on another evening with the same tower it is off by 1 hour. I'd do the following:

1) On a given evening, if you're prepared to stay up late, do a manual sync at the following hours: 11pm, 12am, 1am, 2am. Repeat with each of the two towers. if you're ambitious enough, repeat several times at each hour interval, or add a half-hour interval. Note the signal strength each time. Examine the results you get and see if there's any pattern.
2) Repeat step #1 again on another night. Check to see if there is any consistency.

Hopefully you may find that if sync occurs at a specific hour, the DST calculation is wrong. If so, this would significantly isolate the problem for Seiko.

If this does not happen, but instead the wrong hour is set at seemingly random points (e.g. the first time it is at 11pm and 2am, then the next time it is at 11pm and 12am only), then it may be some kind of issue with how the watch receives the signal.

If this problem was happening for everyone, Seiko would know about it by now and have issued a recall. Contact them and see if this is the case, if there have been any other reports. It may also be an issue whereby the problem happens to do with how certain radio towers are broadcasting the signal, or something to do with signal strength fluctuation.

Remember, this is a Japan market watch... it is possible that the bulk of owners are in Japan. There may be very few people owning these watch models in range of the towers you are trying to work with.

[antjoh]

I doubt if you have.

Seiko SBPG001 - atomic sync off by an hour

That is a great find Zimmer. Thanks!
At least I know now how this watch is... ehummm.. supposed to work :)

Oh, and also thanks to xevious. I don't know if I'm abitious enough to do that testing you are suggesting, but I will definately contact Seiko about it.

[Zimmer]

I have tried everything with mine, but to no avail. It usually syncs fine, but it simply can't be trusted. Defeats the purpose of an atomic sync, when you have to double check the time with another watch in case it's an hour "out". The trusty g-shock is in the same window and never once missed a proper sync.
I have contacted Seiko (Ireland) a number of times by email, even pointed them to the thread here, but they never replied.

[xevious]

^ Wow, that's extremely disappointing Zimmer. I've been wanting to own one of those Seiko watches, the SDGA001 model. But they are very expensive. The SBPG001 is an affordable model of similar design, just without the e-Ink EPD display. I was thinking about one of those... but now that I'm hearing about this problem and Seiko's sorry customer service, I think I'll have to pass.

[antjoh]

This is too bad on an otherwise really nice watch.
I emailed the swedish seiko customer support yesterday and told them about the problem. I'll post back here if I hear anything from them.

[xevious]

^ Thanks, antjoh. Hopefully you'll get lucky and not only get a response, but find it a useful one.