Two of Junghans? most celebrated watches, the mid-century Max Bill and the Meister, are now available with a radio controlled, battery powered movement called the J101.65. This movement provides astounding accuracy at +/- .02 seconds per year, as well as unique features like jumping hands, independent hour-hand setting (excellent for time-zone leaping), and a perpetual calendar that won?t require user input until the year 2,400. Unlike most quartz movements, the J101.65 is visually striking; its gold-on-black printed circuit board and exposed copper-wire coils shine like the jewels and gear trains in mechanical units; even the battery cover is handsomely signed. There are 146 individual components inside the J101.65.Movements that follow atomic clock radio signals have been around for a few decades, and they now inhabit even the cheapest, most flimsy of products?like the crappy-but-accurate $7 clock in my garage. Unlike those junky radio-controlled units, however, the J101.65?s own technological precision is able to fully capitalize on the accuracy of atomic timing signals, which themselves deviate just 6/1000ths of a second every million years. To appreciate how the J101.65 makes use of that seemingly impossible accuracy, we have to wend our way through some acronyms.
Advanced Moving Function (AMF)?This bit of tech controls the jumping of the hands and the date wheel, all which stay put until just a fraction of a second before jumping to their next position. To us...