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Universidade do Algarve

Sistemas de Redes e Telecomunicaes


2 Semestre | 2014/1015
Homework 1:
Simplex 1 (DCF77)
by James Foot n 40650 | Valrio Mihai n 41635

1. What is DCF77?


DCF77 is the call sign for a station in Mainflingen,
Germany that transmits a time signal and standard-frequency.
Its run by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and
its used to set the time and date information automatically on to
watches and clock all around Europe. DCF77 stands for
D-Deutschland, C- for long wave signal, F-Frankfurt due to
its proximity to Mainflingen, and 77- for the frequency it uses
77,5 kHz.

The DCF77 is simplex communication, because its a
one way communication,i.e., the station in Germany can
transmit information to a users watch or a clock at a railway
station but the watch or the clock can not send information Figure 1: Origin and range of the
DCF77 time signal. The ring that is
back.
furthest from the origin has a radius
of about 2000 km.

1.1 A Brief History

- In 1959, was when the transmission of time and standard frequencies began with DCF77 low
frequency transmitter, during this time, the station was only operated in a 3 hour day and night
scheduled.
- In 1970, the station started a 24 hours a day continuous broadcast of a simplified version of the
signal, and only in 1973 they added the coded time to the continuous signal transmission.
- In 1987 the Time Act was approved and they started to use atomic clocks instead of mean solar
time.
- In 2003, 14 bits of the time code started being used as civil defence emergency signals.
- Since 2006, the first 14 bits of the time code provide warning messages and weather information.
- In 2008, the Time act was combined with other regulations to form the Units and Time Act.

2. How does it work?

2.1 Transmission


The time is measured by an atomic clock that has an accuracy of a 109 seconds per day.
The standard used to format and display the time and date is ISO 8601. Because DCF77 is German,
the time signal carries the time for Coordinated Universal Time UTC+1 and UTC+2, that corresponds
to Central European Time (CET) and Central European Summer Time (CEST). The information then
gets coded using the Time Code (explained below) which is represented in Binary Coded Decimal
(BCD).

Date: 19/03/2015

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Universidade do Algarve

Sistemas de Redes e Telecomunicaes


2 Semestre | 2014/1015

After coding the information, a carrier signal will be modulated with the information, the
modulation can be Amplitude Modulation (AM) or Phase Modulation (PM). In AM the amplitude of
carrier gets reduced to 15% of its original amplitude for 0.1 seconds or
0.2 seconds at the beginning of a second to represent a binary 0 or a
1. In addition to AM, the carrier signal is PM with a pseudo-random
noise sequence (PRN), which contains a 512 bits that get transmitted
the AM time marks. The complete PRN sequence is transmitted once
every second, starting 200 ms after the beginning of a new second
and ending just before the next one. Due to the pseudo-random
Figure 2: T-antenna
characteristic of the sequence the mean deviation of the carrier phase
is zero. The phase modulated carrier can be received with a larger
bandwidth receiver.

After the modulation it gets transmitted with a power of 50 kW radiated by a T-antenna (Figure
2). The high power of the signal makes it so that the signal can be received almost anywhere in
Europe, it can reach up to 2000 km, so it can be received in Portugal, Russia and even Turkey. This is
done by reflection in the ionospheric D-layer. The carrier frequency of 77.5 presents a highly stable
normal frequency, this frequency derived from the PTB atomic clocks.

2.2 Time Code


As mention before, the time signal
transmits a time code 24 hour a day, on a
repeat cycle every minute, with time, date
and weather information. In one minute,
every second (in total 60 seconds)
represents a bit of information. The first 20
seconds contains a load of announcements
and warnings, from seconds 21 to 35
contains the time (hours, minutes), from 36
to 58 date information (day, day of the week,
month and year). The information that gets
transmitted corresponds to the following
minute and not the present.

Figure 3: Coding scheme of the information transmitted


with DCF77.

Date: 19/03/2015

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Universidade do Algarve

Sistemas de Redes e Telecomunicaes


2 Semestre | 2014/1015

minute mark

call bit *

A1

announcement of a change
between CET and CEST

Z1

CET

Z2

CEST

A2

leap second announcement

start bit

P1, P2, P3

parity bits

* This bit was used to announce if the backup antenna was


in service, now its just to announce abnormal activity.

Figure 4: Example of the coding for the time: 2015-03-19 10:10 CET

2.3 Reception


In order to receive the time signal, the devices (watch, clock, etc) only needed a relatively
simple and cheap long wave receiver to catch the signal, and then using the coding scheme, retrieve
the time information. For a device in a different time zone, you just needed to add a gain or a delay to
the time received.

3. Observations


In our research we found that the DCF77 was very popular in the in Europe during the late
80s, mainly because of the automatic time setting feature, but also because of the simplicity and the
accuracy of the system. Nowadays the these kind of systems are becoming more obsolete, every day
more devices get connected to the internet or to the global positioning system (GPS) in search of new
features and uses, and from these services they can also retrieve very accurate time information and

Date: 19/03/2015

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Universidade do Algarve

Sistemas de Redes e Telecomunicaes


2 Semestre | 2014/1015
all of this gets put into one microchip. But behind this relatively simple system lies an ingenious feat of
engineering that kept and still keeps the clocks and watches of Europe on time.

We also found that this isn't the only system like this in the world, the MSF or NPL in Cumbria,
UK or the WWVB in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA apply a similar system to the German one.

4. References

1. Andreas Bauch, Peter Hetzel and Dirk Piester, Time and Frequency Dissemination with DCF77:
From 1959 to 2009 and beyond, 2009;
2. wikpedia.org/wiki/DCF77, 16/03/2015;
3. wikpedia.org/wiki/Longwave, 18/03/2015;
4. http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/dcf77.html, 16/03/2015;
5. http://www.ptb.de/cms/en/fachabteilungen/abt4/fb-44/ag-442/dissemination-of-legal-time/
dcf77.html, 16/03/2015;

Date: 19/03/2015

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