TCR511PCI Meinberg IRIG Time Code Receiver

The Meinberg TCR511PCI board has been designed to receive different IRIG-A/B and AFNOR codes. The decoded date and time can be read via the PCI/PCI-X bus interface and is also transmitted via the board's RS-232 port.

The receiver's automatic gain control (AGC) allows the reception of modulated IRIG signals within an amplitude range from 600mVpp to 8Vpp. In addition, the TCR511PCI provides an optocoupler input for decoding unmodulated codes with TTL- or RS485-level for example. A buffered real time clock keeps time and date after power down.

If you are going to use the TCR511PCI in your own applications, please ask for our sample application which shows how to access the card from within your software.

The drivers package for Windows contains a time adjustment service which runs in the background and adjusts the Windows system time continuously and smoothly. A monitor program is also included which lets the user check the status of the device and the time adjustment service, and can be used to modify configurable parameters, if run with administrator rights.

The driver packages for Linux and FreeBSD contain a kernel driver which allows the board to be used as a reference time source for the NTP daemon which is shipped with most Unix-like operating systems. This also turns the computer into an NTP time server which can also provide accurate time to NTP clients on the network. Some command line tools can be used to setup configurable parameters and monitor the status of the board.

The device's serial port is not required for operation but can be used to update the card's firmware, or provide another computer with the current time via a serial time string.