ComandStar Lite: External Clock Format?

[kc7gr]

Fellow techies,

I'm working on integrating a CommandStar Lite for my ham station. I've had no problems figuring out the programming, but I keep running across references to how the console is capable of sync'ing to an external clock source (through setting the serial port to CLOCK mode from the front panel).

Unfortunately, in the documentation I have, there's no mention of what format the clock data needs to be. I suspect it would be unmodulated (DC level) IRIG-B, as that's what Zetron used in some of their units, but I'm not sure.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks and 73...

[kc7gr]

UPDATE: I think I found my answer. It seems Moto designed the console to hook straight up to a Spectracom NetClock II. All of Spectracom's NetClock series output IRIG-B timecode over one of their RS232 ports by default.

Going with this... I'll update again if it doesn't work.

[kc7gr]

Final update, 15-Jun-24.

OK -- First, Spectracom clocks do NOT (normally) put out IRIG-B over their serial ports. Spectracom (now Safran Timing) has their own ASCII-based format which, apparently, has become a NENA-standard.

In this case, the solution was two-fold. First, set the Spectracom clock to spit out 'Spectracom-1' format through the serial port. Next, set the CSLite console to take its time reference from an external source (and, of course, the only choice is hard-coded as Spectracom).

Once I had everything corrected, the clock display sync'd right up.

Excelsior!