Setting the time on electronic and mechanical watches. It seems to be a simple matter - turn your head or press the buttons ... But in fact, there are problems, and you will not figure it out right away. Especially if your watch is rich in functionality.
Let's consider a couple of examples and give step-by-step algorithms.
Mechanical watches
Let's start with the classics - mechanical watches, and, as we have already said, functionally not the most simple ones. Namely, from the Seiko 5 Sports models, which have three central hands (hours, minutes, seconds) and calendar indicators in the windows (date, day of the week). For example, one of the new products: a limited edition (circulation of 9000 copies) Seiko 5 Sports Brian May Special Edition, dedicated to the legendary guitarist of Queen Brian May and his favorite guitar Red Special. The watch runs on an automatic Seiko 4R36 caliber, its crown, located at 4 o'clock, has three positions. Here we will deal with it, the head.
First of all, we wait for the moment when the second hand comes to the zero position - this will be more convenient, in the future, less actions will be required. Now we extend the head to the first click. The stop-second mechanism is triggered - the second hand freezes. We rotate the crown away from ourselves: the date is “flipping”. We set the date to the previous one in relation to the one we need. We rotate the head in the opposite direction. Let's go "scrolling" of the day of the week. We act in the same way: we want to eventually establish, say, Wednesday - we scroll until Tuesday.
We extend the head to the second click. We rotate it (and the hands, hour and minute), translate the date and time to the actual values; continuing to rotate to set the required time. It makes sense to do all this in advance of the exact time signal. An evening news release, for example, will do. We are getting ready, and with the start of the signal, we set these same 21 hours.
At the signal of the exact time, we push the head in. Time has gone! The calendar also started counting down.
Quartz watch
For example, take a model from the same brand, but with a much more extensive feature set than the mechanics just reviewed: the Seiko Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time. A magnificent watch, incredibly accurate and durable. The exact time is set automatically in them, according to a signal from the GPS satellite system, and the battery that powers the Seiko 8X53 quartz movement is charged from sunlight or other sources (if only they were bright enough).
Since everything happens automatically, it may seem that the owner of this watch does not need to do anything at all. In fact, this is not entirely true: the installation modes still need to be activated manually.
First of all, we look at the indicator, which is located between "9" and "11 o'clock". It is multifunctional, but if you do nothing, the arrow shows the battery level. At a low level, reception of a signal from the satellite is impossible - you should recharge the watch by holding it in the light with the dial up. By the way, the nature of the movement of the second hand testifies to the same: if it jumps at 2-second or even 5-second intervals - charge, the Sun will help you!
Is the charge normal? Take care of the open sky, because the watch will not "hear" the GPS signal underground, in tunnels, etc., and in the presence of obstacles such as solid high-rise buildings and powerful interference such as airport radars, etc., the reception may be unstable.
If all is well, let's go. We hold the clock with the dial to the sky and try to stay in place - the movement confuses the system, makes it difficult to receive the signal correctly. Press and hold the top button for 6 seconds. Signal reception begins, while the indicator hand freezes in the "4+" position, and the second hand shows how many satellites are in communication - 2, 3, 4 or more. If, in spite of everything, the reception is bad, then press the lower button - this will cancel the setting, look for a better position or wait for better times ...
If all is well, then the procedure will last about two minutes. At the end, the second hand will jump to the letter Y (yes, that is, everything is in order), which is in the "8 seconds" position, will stay there for 5 seconds, and then all three hands will be set to the exact time position and go further, like the window date and day of the week arrow. This will take into account the time zone in which the watch is located. If, instead of Y, the arrow shows N (no) at "22 seconds", then a failure has occurred.
Note also that these watches, like smartphones, have an "Airplane" mode, the indicator arrow shows on it (the airliner icon). GPS reception is not possible in this mode. To turn on the air mode, you need to press the same top button and hold it for 3 seconds. To turn off - exactly the same.
Finally, summer time. You can go to it by pulling the crown out to the first click. The indicator arrow will jump down to the DST abbreviation and will show whether daylight saving time is active or not. Then you need to hold the top button for 3 seconds.
The model provides a number of other customization options. Among them: manual setting of the time zone on the subdial, setting the time without choosing a time zone. The so-called leap second is also received, the automatic addition or subtraction of which compensates for deviations from the astronomically determined universal time and International Atomic Time.
