Following the June 2025 lecture where the NTP Clock and the Pi-PicoRX were introduced as “Projects for the Shack”, an obvious appetite for the projects motivated Richard ARH and Simon VK2YU to organise for the acquisition of the components and organise for buildathons so that members can get together to build and configure the devices. As the building of the NTP (Network Time Protocol) clock takes around 1-2 hours, it was decided to conduct the buildathon on a “freebee” Wednesday evening – the 23-Jul-2025. The session was well attended with successful clocks delivered. The time on the clocks shows when the clocks were successfully built and running, 3 of them showing the exact same time.

John VK2JOS, Sean VK2THT, and Brian VK2AXC enjoying the build event 

Since Yves VK2AUJ’s clock was going to be located in the living room and Yves didn’t want to explain the dual clock and the Solar Flux Capacitor to visitors, Yves decided to amend the code to have a dual boot configuration:

  • Turn on the clock during an odd minute and you get the standard NTP clock as designed by W8BH and modified by Simon VK2YU.
  • Turn on the clock during an even minute and you get a vintage time only display.
  • If you didn’t get the clock you wanted, just recycle the power after a minute.

To reduce screen burn, the display goes down by 1 pixel every minute during odd hours, and climbs back by 1 pixel every minute during even hours.

Yves’ cabinet made at the Strathfield Menshed, yet to be finished.
Port under the clock for configuration updates without having to dismantle the cabinet.

Update, 31 July: NTP Clock Dimmer Control