Maurice Lacroix Miros Diver Chronograph (COSC)

The Maurice Lacroix Miros Diver Chronograph is a thermo-compensated (TC) quartz watch.

It has four main hands and three sub-dials. The main hands are for hours and minutes, and for chronograph minutes and seconds. The subdial at 10:00 is for chronograph hours, the one at 2:00 is for chronograph 1/10 ths seconds, and the one at 6:00 is for watch seconds.

The 1/10 ths second hand only moves upon pressing “stop” (pusher at 2:00, also used for starting the chronograph) or taking “split times” (pusher at 4:00, also used for resetting a stopped chronograph). When the chronograph is running it sits at the zero position.

The case is brushed stainless steel and comes in four dial/bezel colours, white, black, brown and blue. The crown and pushers are screwdown to enhance water resistance of this 300 metre dive watch.

This model has been discontinued but several new ones have been available on-line through several vendors.

Citizen Attesa ATD53-3081

Another atomic time, Eco-Drive model from Citizen is the Japanese market only Attesa ATD53-3081. It is an analog watch with Chronograph, and also has the ability to quickly select time zones from several world cities (26 + UTC), and also includes an alarm.

It uses the same H610 caliber as the North American Chrono-Time AT model, which has a much busier looking display. This watch is a very light titanium model complete with sapphire crystal. The titanium is protected with a diamond like coating (DLC) that makes the watch and band less susceptible to scratching.

There are three subdials. The one at 10 o’clock is for Chronograph minutes (to a maximum of 60), and also doubles as the charge indicator when the atomic time is being synched or when checking to see if the last sync was successful. The subdial at 2 o’clock is the 24 hour dial. And the dial at 6 o’clock is the seconds hand and also doubles as the radio station indicator for atomic synching.

The large central seconds hand is for the Chronograph and registers 1/5th. of a second. This hand also is used to indicate DST/no DST when in time setting mode, alarm on/off when in alarm setting mode, radio reception status (NO/RX, and then H/M/L quality signal if RX) during synching and NO/H/M/L when checking the success of the last sync attempt.

The dial opening at 4 o’clock displays date (perpetual calendar), and time zone city.

The pusher at 2 o’clock is used to start and stop the Chronograph, and the one at 4 o’clock resets the Chronograph, and also is used to check/initiate radio sync.

The crown is used to select world city time zones, set the alarm and set the time (if radio reception is not possible).

One minor flaw is that there is no time split feature for the Chronograph. Otherwise a very capable and attractive watch.

Sinn UX Chronometer

Sinn Watches from Germany makes a thermocompensated quartz watch, the UX.

This watch is a silicon oil filled diver’s watch that is pressure resistant to 5000m (for mechanism, 12000m for the case).

The case is made from German submarine steel, and the crystal is of course made from sapphire.

Due to the oil fill (which improves visibility at depth), even minor repairs, such as battery replacement requires that the watch be returned to Sinn in Germany.

The UX is the only quartz model within a vast range mechanical models, but as a TC COSC chronometer is a worthy one.

Wenger Nomad Compass

The Wenger Nomad Compass is a quartz watch with a built-in compass feature.

The central digital display that displays time, day and date information can also show compass bearing.

The watch comes in several models, including a green LED display with black bezel and green bezel script and black silicon strap with green stitching, a green LED with yellow text and stitching on black and a red LED with red text and stitching on black. There is also a red LED / script with stainless steel bracelet.

Check out the entire Wenger watch collection.

Accuracy of Watches

Not all watches are created equal. Some low grade mechanical watches can have quite large daily variations in the order of tens of seconds.

Chronometer grade mechanical watches (COSC certified) have to fall within -4/+6 seconds per day. Performance can vary due to adjustment, temperature and physical position (due to gravity effects).

Seiko’s Spring Drive, hybrid quartz/mechanical calibre falls into the +/- 1 second per day region.

Basic quartz watches generally fall within the +/- 10 to 20 seconds per month region (0.33 to 0.67 seconds per day).

Quartz watch calibres are affected by temperature variation, hence the development of thermally compensated calibres. These TC watches tend to run in the +/- 5 to 10 seconds per year region (0.014 to 0.027 seconds per day). COSC requirements for quartz chronometers are +/- 0.07 seconds per day, so TC watches easily meet the requirements for quartz chronometers.

Although atomic time (AT) watch calibres are just standard quartz, the daily atomic time synchronization via radio signal from transmitters in the US, Europe, Japan and China renders them effectively the most accurate watches. Unfortunately most of the southern hemisphere is not currently served by atomic clock transmitters.

Recently Bulova has introduced their Precisionist series of watches that use a three fork quartz crystal calibre that produces accuracy in the region of +/- 10 seconds per year. They aren’t TC, and sell for considerably less than TC watches, so seem to have set a new standard for accuracy.

Rotary Aquaspeed CATKIL1

The Rotary Aquaspeed CATKIL1 is a quartz chronograph that looks similar to the Breitling Navitimer, but is a slightly smaller diameter than that watch.

In addition to the central hour, minute and second hands, there are three subdials for 24 hour time and chronograph seconds and minutes. There is a non-perpetual calendar date at 4:30 on the dial.

The dial is black with an outer white slide-rule scale that is turned by a crown style wheel at the 10:00 o’clock position on the outer case. There is a tachometer scale on the dial just inside of the fixed slide-rule scale, and lume on the hour and minute hands.

There is one slight flaw with this watch, the shininess of the second hand and small dial hands which can under certain light conditions, make them tend to disappear momentarily. This is especially true of the smaller dials.

The stop watch buttons are on the right hand side, with stop/start at the conventional 2:00 o’clock position (with a red ring around the button) and the split/reset button at the conventional 4:00 o’clock position with a black ring around the button. The crown is a screw-down style, with three positions, closed, date setting and time setting modes.

The strap is black leather with a traditional buckle arrangement.

The Swiss quartz watch has a 100m water resistance, and watch feels quite light, but never-the-less looks and feels well built. At around $200 this watch is a great buy if you want a look like the Navitimer, but it runs on quartz and at a price that mere mortals can afford.

Campanola Grande Complication AH4000-01X

Campanola is a high end brand under the Citizen group and is currently available in Japan (28 models) and a smaller subset in the US (11 models). Six of the Japanese models are Eco-Drive. The rest are standard battery quartz. None are atomic time models, or thermocompensated so accuracy is in the +/- 15 sec/month range.

The Grand Complication model is a (non Eco-Drive) quartz watch with several interesting features, including a sapphire crystal, a chronograph, a perpetual calendar, a moon phase dial and a minute repeater feature.

The minute repeater is a set of chimes that when triggered by pressing one of the buttons will chime off hours, quarter hours and minutes; for example the current time is 12:32, so we would get 12 hour chimes, 2 quarter hour chimes and 2 minute chimes. There is no lume on the US version so the only way to tell the time in the dark is with the minute repeater.

Pictured below is the Japanese version (CTR57-1001). the main differences are the Roman numerals for the hour marks versus Arabic on the US model, the addition of a tachymeter scale and solid hour/minute hands with lume.

The top sub-dial shows moon phase. The calendar is virtually perpetual as can been seen on the various dials showing year (leap year or +1, +2 or +3), month, day and date. The left sub-dial shows date and day-of-the-week. The bottom dial shows year and month. This dial also serves as the minutes and hours register when in chronograph mode.

The right sub-dial shows 24 hour clock and seconds (the large central second hand is for stopwatch mode only).

Campanolas are not cheap, with this model listing at around $3400, but overall a very classy looking watch (more so with the Japanese model), with some less frequently seen complications (moon phase and minute repeater).

Certina DS Master TC Quartz Chronometer

Certina has a thermocompensated quartz chronometer watch, the DS Master. It is a seven hand chronograph watch that uses ETA’s 251.233 TC calibre.

Photo courtesy of Certina

It has a stainless steel and PVD case, sapphire crystal and is water resistant to 100 meters.

Unfortunately the calendar is not perpetual, meaning that you will have to manually adjust it at the end of short months.

Overall an interesting looking watch. Check out the whole quartz collection at Certina.

Zodiac Quartz Chronograph Watches

Swiss brand Zodiac has three racing inspired chronograph quartz watches, priced between $695 and $795:

• Z08522

• Z08503

• Z08516

Check out the entire Zodiac range.

Useful Web Site

If you have an interest in watches, there is a fascinating web site called Watcheroo.

It has information on, as of this writing, 1214 watch brands, including links to official brand web sites and dealers, ownership (many watch brands are owned by conglomerates like Swatch, Seiko and Citizen), and nationality of brand.

You can locate brands by country, for example Switzerland (289 brands), or by name via a long list on the left edge of the site.