After last month’s rant I did not expect to much feedback. However I got very positively surprised. First my DCF77 library got a contribution to its github repository. I liked this a lot.

But then something really unexpected happened. Erik de Ruiter from Holland discovered my library for his DCF77 projects and got very excited about it. He liked it so much that he asked why I do not have a “Donate” Button on my site. Well – it just never occured to me that someone might be willing to pay or doante for my open source code. Then I added this button and asked him to test it. He donated € 40 for my blog / library project. I was completely speechless. Seems Erik is doing something for his open source Karma.

If anyone else wants to buy good karm – the button is in the upper left corner of the page. Of course everything will go into funding my blog and further experiments. I will happily take anything from 1 Euro to whatever amount you want to donate 🙂

With regard to the clock library I did not introduce a lot of interesting changes. However I have a very interesting test tool that I release to the public this month. It is my DCF77 generator. This tool allows to emit any valid time code (and some invalid ones as well). If you already have an Arduino this generator requires almost no external components. Obviously it is very handy for testing DCF77 clocks in general and my library in particular.

I have kept this code in private for over a year because I was unsure about the legal implications of it. Finally I found the following document Allgemeinzuteilung von Frequenzen im Frequenzbereich 9 – 30000 kHz für induktive Funkanwendungen published by the German “Bundesnetzagentur.

With this document I am pretty much sure that my DCF77 generator setup is legal in Germany. Thus I assume it is also legal to publish it. Please notice that its output is so low on purpose. Before you even consider to go for more output read about the legal penalties of messing with DCF77 and others. I am pretty sure you will then soon find out why I do not push the output through a filter, an amplifier and a matched antenna.
In the name of good karma you have been warned.