Hi guys, a few might know of my interest in watches, wristwatches & pocket watches (mostly US railroad grade) and my preference has always been watches of the mechanical type, by which I mean they are hand wound or are automatic winders.
I have a few quartz watches but I much prefer mechanicals. However, last year I was reading about these new fangled HAQ (High Accuracy Quartz) watches which are deemed to be super accurate due to being thermo compensated.
Basically a regular quartz watch can vary its accuracy depending on temperature but not so these HAQ watches.
So, late in the year, about October/November time I purchased a Certina DS Podium Lap Timer watch (basically a chronograph) with an acclaimed accuracy of -10/+10 seconds per year! This I found amazing.
Then I spotted a Longines VHP (Very High Precision) three hander (just hours, minutes & seconds) with an acclaimed accuracy of -5/+5 seconds per year. This blew my mind......that is indeed some seriously accurate watch.
Anyway, on January 1st 2019 I set both of these amazing watches at 1pm using the atomic signal from Time Is.com and left them run for exactly a year to see if the claims were true.
Well I can say that on the 1st January this year the Certina was running 2 3/4 seconds fast and the Longines was running an amazing 1 second fast!!!
This really is 21st century technology at its best. Incidentally, the Longines VHP has a pretty smart feature. It can be put to sleep (thereby saving battery power) by simply pulling the crown out. After about 30 seconds all three hands spin around and settle at the 12 o'clock position and remain there until the crown is pushed back in. That could be in a week, a month, 3 years or even 5 years down the line.....and the best bit is when the crown is pushed back in all the hands spin around to the absolute correct time and the date corrects itself as it has a perpetual calendar built in.
Pretty amazing methinks.
Regards,
Jay.
I have a few quartz watches but I much prefer mechanicals. However, last year I was reading about these new fangled HAQ (High Accuracy Quartz) watches which are deemed to be super accurate due to being thermo compensated.
Basically a regular quartz watch can vary its accuracy depending on temperature but not so these HAQ watches.
So, late in the year, about October/November time I purchased a Certina DS Podium Lap Timer watch (basically a chronograph) with an acclaimed accuracy of -10/+10 seconds per year! This I found amazing.
Then I spotted a Longines VHP (Very High Precision) three hander (just hours, minutes & seconds) with an acclaimed accuracy of -5/+5 seconds per year. This blew my mind......that is indeed some seriously accurate watch.
Anyway, on January 1st 2019 I set both of these amazing watches at 1pm using the atomic signal from Time Is.com and left them run for exactly a year to see if the claims were true.
Well I can say that on the 1st January this year the Certina was running 2 3/4 seconds fast and the Longines was running an amazing 1 second fast!!!
This really is 21st century technology at its best. Incidentally, the Longines VHP has a pretty smart feature. It can be put to sleep (thereby saving battery power) by simply pulling the crown out. After about 30 seconds all three hands spin around and settle at the 12 o'clock position and remain there until the crown is pushed back in. That could be in a week, a month, 3 years or even 5 years down the line.....and the best bit is when the crown is pushed back in all the hands spin around to the absolute correct time and the date corrects itself as it has a perpetual calendar built in.
Pretty amazing methinks.
Regards,
Jay.
