Meinberg DCF77 PEX511 Manuale utente

Technical Information

Operating Instructions

DCF77 PEX511

Impressum

Meinberg Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG

Lange Wand 9

D-31812 Bad Pyrmont

Phone: ++49 52 81 - 9309-0

Fax: ++49 52 81 - 9309-30

Internet: http://www.meinberg.de

Email: [email protected]

September 02, 2009

Table of Contents

Impressum............................................................................................ 2

Content of the USB stick ..................................................................... 4

General information about DCF77 ...................................................... 5

Overview .............................................................................................. 6

Pulse outputs .............................................................................. 6

PCI Express (PCIe) .................................................................... 7

Block diagram PEX511 .............................................................. 8

Connectors and LEDs in the rear panel ..................................... 9

Pin assignments of the 9 pin connector ................................... 10

Installing the PEX511 in your computer ........................................... 10

Aligning the antenna .......................................................................... 11

Technical specifications .................................................................... 13

Firmware updates ..................................................................... 15

Replacing the lithium battery .................................................. 15

CE label .................................................................................... 15

Format of the Meinberg Standard time string ......................... 16

Content of the USB stick

The USB stick contains a driver program that keeps the computer´s system time

synchronous to the board time. If the present delivered stick doesn’t include a driver

program for the operating system used, it can be downloaded from:

http://www.meinberg.de/english/sw/

On the USB stick there is a file called „readme.txt“, which helps installing the driver

correctly.

General information about DCF77

The radio clocks made by Meinberg receive the signal from the long wave transmit-

ter DCF77. This long wave transmitter installed in Mainflingen near Frankfurt/

Germany transmits the reference time of the Federal Republic of Germany. This time

reference is either the Central European Time (Mitteleuropäische Zeit, MEZ) or the

Central European Summer Time (Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit, MESZ). The trans-

mitter is controlled by the atomic clock plant at the Federal Physical Technical

Institute (PTB) in Braunschweig/Germany and transmits the current time of day, date

of month and day of week in coded second pulses. Once every minute the complete

time information is available.

At the beginning of every second the amplitude of the high precision 77.5 kHz

carrier frequency is lowered by 75% for a period of 0.1 or 0.2 sec. The length of these

time marks represent a binary coding scheme using the short time mark for logical

zeroes and the long time mark for logical ones. The information on the current date

and time as well as some parity and status bits can be decoded from the time marks of

the 15th up to the 58th second every minute. The absence of any time mark at the 59th

second of a minute signals that a new minute will begin with the next time mark.

Our radio clocks decode the highly accurate information on date and time within a

wide range around Germany. So some of our clocks are installed in Bilbao/Spain as

well as in the city of Umeå in northern Sweden - fully satisfying the requirements of

the users. The radio clocks automatically switch to summertime and back. The

reception of the time information is free of charge and does not need to be registered.

Generally it is important to position the antenna in an optimal way. It should be

mounted at least 30 centimeters away from the clock unit and from solid steel. The

antenna should be aligned at a right angle to the direction of the transmitter (Frank-

furt).

Figure: decoding scheme

Overview

The radio clock PEX511 is designed as a „low profile“ board for computers with PCI

Express interface. The data transfer to the computer is done by using a single PCI

Express Lane (x1 board). The radio clock is equipped with a standard height bracket.

For installation in a „low profile“ computer, an adequate bracket can be mounted that

is included in delivery. The I/O signals provided by a D-Sub connector are not

available in this case.

An external ferrit antenna makes the signal from DCF77 available to the on-board

long wave receiver. The demodulated time marks are decoded by the clock´s micro-

processor. If no errors are detected in the current time message an additional plausi-

bility check against the previous time message is performed. If that plausibility

check passes, too, the buffered real time clock on the board is synchronized corre-

sponding to the decoded time and date. Optionally, the decoded date and time

information can be converted to another time zone. The time zone setting can be

modified using the monitor program. The current setting is saved permanently on the

radio clock board.

Software running on the computer can read out the date/time/status and some more

information. Access to the board is made via writing to/reading from I/O ports. It is

possible but not necessary to let the board generate periodic hardware interrupts on

the computer bus.

Pulse outputs

The radio clock PEX511 generates pulses whenever a new second (P_SEC) or a new

minute (P_MIN) begins. The P_SEC pulse is available with TTL level (0/+5V) and

RS-232 level (-3..12V/+3..12V), the P_MIN signal with TTL level only. If required,

DIL switches can be set up to direct each of the pulses to a corresponding pin of the 9

pin connector in the rear panel.

PCI Express (PCIe)

The main technical inovation of PCI Express is a serial data transmission compared

to the parallel interfaces of other computer bus systems like ISA, PCI and PCI-X.

PCI Express defines a serial point-to-point connection, the so-called Link:

The data transfer within a Link is done via Lanes, representing one wire pair for

sending and one wire pair for receiving data:

This design leads to a full duplex connection clocked with 2.5 GHz capable of

transfering a data volume of 250 MB/s per lane in each direction. Higher bandwith is

implemented by using multiple lanes silmutaneously. A PCI Express x16 slot for

example uses sixteen lanes providing a data volume of 4 GB/s. For comparison: when

using conventional PCI the maximum data transfer rate is 133 MB/s, PCI-X allows 1

GB/s but only in one direction respectively. A PCIe expansion board (x1 like

PEX511 for example) can always be used in slots with a higher lane width (x4, x8,

x16):

ytilibareporetnIytilibareporetnI ytilibareporetnI ytilibareporetnIytilibareporetnI

tolStolS tolS tolStolS1x1x1x1

x1x4x4x4x4x4x8x8x8x8x8x61x61x 61x 61x61x

draCdraC draC draCdraC

1x1x1x1x1xseYseY seY seYseYseYseY seY seYseYseYseY seY seYseYseYseY seY seYse

4x4x4x4x4xoNoNoNoNoNseYseY seY seYseYseYseY seY seYseYseYseY seY seYseY

8x8x8x8x8xoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNseYseY seY seYseYseYseY seY seYseY

61x6

1x 61x 61x61xoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNseYseY seY seYseY

One of the strong points of PCI Express is the 100% software compatibility to the

well known PCI bus, leading to a fast spreading. The computer and the operating

system are „seeing“ the more powerfull PCIe bus just as the convetional PCI bus

without any software update.

Block diagram PEX511

Connectors and LEDs in the rear panel

The rear panel includes the antenna connec-

tor, three status LEDs, the BSL button, and a

9 pin sub D connector (see figure below).

The LEDs let the user check for proper recei-

ver operation. The red LED (holdover) is on

if the clock is not synchronous to DCF77.

This LED can only change when the minute

changes (seconds increment from 59 to 0).

The brightness of the upper, green LED

(field strength) depends on the strength of

the RF signal. The lower, green LED (modu-

lation) should be blinking exactly once per

second corresponding to the time marks

from DCF77. If this LED flickers there is

some electrical noise around which prevents

the receiver from decoding the time marks

and synchronizing. All information given by

these LEDs is also available via the monitor

program.

The BSL button behind the hole in the slot

cover activates the clock's boot strap loader.

This mode of operation is needed if the

clock's firmware shall be updated.

The 9 pin sub D connector is wired to the radio clock's serial port. Pin assignment

can be seen from the figure beside. This port can not be used as serial port for the

computer. Instead, the clock uses the port to send out Meinberg's standard time string

in order to control an external display or some other external device. The string is

sent out once per second, once per minute or if requested by an incoming ASCII „?“.

It is also possible to change the radio clock's board time by sending such a string

towards the clock.

Transmission speed, framing, and mode of operation can be modified using the

monitor program. The string format is described in the section „Technical Specifica-

tions“ at the end of this manual.

antenna

field strength

modulation

holdover

BSL key

RxD

TxD

GND

Pin assignments of the 9 pin connector

When the clock is being shipped, only the signals needed for the serial port are gated

to their pins at the 9 pin connector. If another signal shall be available outside the

computer, the corresponding lever of the DIL switch on the board must be set to the

ON position to connect that signal to its associated pin.

Whenever an additional signal is connected through to the rear panel, special

care must be taken to the configuration of the cable used with the connector. If

pins with TTL level and RS-232 levels are connected to each other, the circuits on

the board may be damaged.

The table below shows the assignments of the 9 pin connector and the correspon-

ding levers of the DIL switch:

Pin Signal SWITCH

1 +5V 1

2RxD in (RS-232) --

3TxD out (RS-232) --

4P_MIN out (TTL) 5

5 GND --

6 (reserved) --

7P_SEC out (RS-232) 3

8P_SEC out (TTL) 4

9 (reserved) --

The signals which have no lever of the DIL switch assigned are hard wired to the pins

of the connector. All levers of the DIL switch which are not listed in the table are

reserved and should remain in the OFF position.

Installing the PEX511 in your computer

Every PCI Express board is a plug&play board. After power-up, the computer's BIOS

assigns resources like I/O ports and interrupt numbers to the board, the user does not

need to take care of the assignments. The programs shipped with the board retrieve

the settings from the BIOS.

The computer has to be turned off and its case must be opened. The radio clock can

be installed in any PCI Express slot not used yet. The rear plane must be removed

before the board can be plugged in carefully. The computer´s case should be closed

again and the antenna connected to the PEX511´s coaxial plug at its rear.

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