[phillyj]

I found what looked like a nice Paketa 24 hour World timezone watch. It came in today and is flawless as far as the case is concerned. I noticed the crown that controls the inner bezel is loose but that is normal according to other owners. I will post pictures later. It's a big watch, 40mm excluding the crown and approximately 42 or 43 mm lug to lug. I find the crown too small for the watch, making it a bit hard to wind up without losing grip. Looking at the second hand, it almost acts like the indirect movement in my chinese Alpha.

On my to do list:

[1] Figure out how to use the inner bezel. How do I set it, e.g., to reflect the time in India?
[2] Improve the accuracy, if necessary.
[3] Determine if the loose 2nd crown can be fixed by inserting a polypropylene washer as suggested by phd.

pics on the way, hold tight.

 

[phillyj]

Pics Below. Can anyone tell me how to use the bezel?

 

[Oilers Fan]

Nice looking watch. I too am interested in how to use that bezel.

 

[phillyj]

Outer Locations on Bezel are cities, Listed below. Please correct any mistakes I have made, especially with the time zones.

CITY	COUNTRY	UTC
HONOLULU	HI, USA	-10
ALASKA	USA	-9
S.FRANCISCO (San Francisco)	CA, USA	-8
CHICAGO	IL, USA	-6
NEW YORK	USA	-5
B.AIRES (Buenos Aires)	ARGENTINA	-3
REYKJAVIK	ICELAND	+0
LONDON	UK	+0
GENEVA	SWITZERLAND	+1
MOSCOW	RUSSIA	+4
EKATERINBURG (Yekaterinburg)	RUSSIA	+6
NOVOSIBIRSK	RUSSIA	+7
VLADIVOSTOK	RUSSIA	+11
WELLINGTON	NEW ZEALAND	+13

The locations in the inner part of the bezel are Antarctic Research Stations. I have some blanks and not sure about some of the locations. Help me with those, please.

STATION NAME	COUNTRY	UTC
BELLINGSHAUSEN	RU	-4
ORCADAS	AR	-3
SANAE*	ZA	??
NOVOLAZAREVSKAYA	RU	+0
SYOWA	JP	+3
MAWSON	AU	+5
VOSTOK	RU	+6
D' DURVILLE**	FR	+10
MC.MURDO***	US	+12
RUSSIAN	??	??
BYRD	US	??

​

*South African National Antarctic Expedition
​

**Dumont d'Urville
​

***McMurdo

​

HOW DOES THE BEZEL WORK?
This is how I think it works. Find the timezone of the place you want the second time. For example, I will use India which is UTC +5:30. I am currently in UTC -5:00. Therefore India is 10.5 hours ahead. Looking at the list of Cities (outer line of bezel), I find that EKATERINBURG is UTC +6:00 so the difference from my current location ( UTC -5:00 ) is 11 hours. I rotate the bezel and set the EKATERINBURG arrow on to 11. I mentally recall that India is UTC +5:30 so I must subtract a half hour from EKATERINBURG time.

Example Calculated:
Current location (UTC -5:00) has time 16:50 (4:50PM) 11/11/2011
Location of interest (UTC +5:30)
Closest Location on Paketa is EKATERINBURG (UTC +6:00)
Time difference is +11:00 hours
Time in EKATERINBURG is (16:50 + 11:00) = 27:50 OR 3:50 (AM) 11/12/2011
Remember to subtract the 30 minutes for India time so ==> 3:20 11/12/2011

Ta da. Time in India is 3:20 Tomorrow morning. Whew! Is there a simpler method? Please explain.

 

[DanC]

Pics Below. Can anyone tell me how to use the bezel?

View attachment 554786

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the 2609 a 12 hour movement? Shouldn't this watch have a 2623?

(reference: russian-codes)

 

[phillyj]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the 2609 a 12 hour movement? Shouldn't this watch have a 2623?

(reference: russian-codes)

I totally forgot about the movement until now. So I did forum searching and my guess is that it is a 24H movement but with the 2609 bridge swapped in. Please see the link below as one source:

https://www.watchuseek.com/f10/24h-raketa-can-caliber-other-than-2623-a-514800.html

Now to further support the claim, I have read that this particular bezel around the crystal is a post-Soviet embellishment. My guess is that this is a watch put together at the factory using whatever parts were around. I didn't get this watch from a Eastern European seller, so thats one possible franken source eliminated. I will contact the seller and see if they can give me more info on the source of the watch. I do feel this is a legit watch and I'm not really sure how you could turn a 12 hour into a 24 hour. It is keeping good time right now.

 

[DanC]

I totally forgot about the movement until now. So I did forum searching and my guess is that it is a 24H movement but with the 2609 bridge swapped in. Please see the link below as one source:

https://www.watchuseek.com/f10/24h-raketa-can-caliber-other-than-2623-a-514800.html

I was coming to that same conclusion too. Since it is keeping time then that makes the "just use a 2609 bridge, its the same shape" theory sound more like what happened.

 

[ritter]

Nice looking watch, and in great condition too.

My guess is that this is a watch put together at the factory using whatever parts were around.

It certainly looks like one possible explanation... I do get a bit suspicious however when different parts are in Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.

 

[ritter]

Example Calculated:
Current location (UTC -5:00) has time 16:50 (4:50PM) 11/11/2011
Location of interest (UTC +5:30)
Closest Location on Paketa is EKATERINBURG (UTC +6:00)
Time difference is +11:00 hours
Time in EKATERINBURG is (16:50 + 11:00) = 27:50 OR 3:50 (AM) 11/12/2011
Remember to subtract the 30 minutes for India time so ==> 3:20 11/12/2011

Ta da. Time in India is 3:20 Tomorrow morning. Whew! Is there a simpler method? Please explain.

Hmm... I thought it worked something like this:

(using my timezone as an example)

- My local time is 1600 (Wellington, NZ)
- Rotate the inner bezel so that you location and local time are aligned (Wellington @ 1600)
- Then read the hour marker at your location of interest (e.g. London)
- Time at location of interest is 0400

This _seems_ to make sense, as NZ is UTC+12 (currently UTC+13 because of DST)

What do you think??

 

[phillyj]

Hmm... I thought it worked something like this:

(using my timezone as an example)

- My local time is 1600 (Wellington, NZ)
- Rotate the inner bezel so that you location and local time are aligned (Wellington @ 1600)
- Then read the hour marker at your location of interest (e.g. London)
- Time at location of interest is 0400

This _seems_ to make sense, as NZ is UTC+12 (currently UTC+13 because of DST)

What do you think??

That would work if you live in the locations listed. I'm in the New York zone so thats fine but I have no idea where those places that correspond to India TZ are. The closest is EKATERINBURG. Now that I know where these places are I can do better calculation. I need someone to fix up my chart or verify that it's correct.

It's also interesting that the inner row are the Antarctic stations. Russian watches seem to have 3 common themes: Antarctica or Outer Space or Ocean.

Its much easier to have a GMT dial, IMO.

 

[phd]

I'm not convinced about these theories that anomalies in watches can be explained by the factory throwing together available parts. It might be true, but I don't have any evidence for it. Also, in the factory, they (a) have parts available from a big variety and (b) why would they feel "we need to make this type of watch, so we can use mismatched parts"? It's more likely that either:

a) They need to make a particular type of watch, and would produce the parts accordingly or
b) If they're "throwing something together", they'd at least have the opportunity to pick appropriate matching parts.

So, for those reasons, I am more inclined to believe that mismatched parts (latin/cyrillic, or 2623 movement with 2609 bridge) are due to the attentions of watch repairers or frankenmeisters. A watch has been through the factory once, but has gone through repairers and resellers many times.

Paul

 

[storyteller]

I'm not convinced about these theories that anomalies in watches can be explained by the factory throwing together available parts. It might be true, but I don't have any evidence for it. Also, in the factory, they (a) have parts available from a big variety and (b) why would they feel "we need to make this type of watch, so we can use mismatched parts"? It's more likely that either:

a) They need to make a particular type of watch, and would produce the parts accordingly or
b) If they're "throwing something together", they'd at least have the opportunity to pick appropriate matching parts.

So, for those reasons, I am more inclined to believe that mismatched parts (latin/cyrillic, or 2623 movement with 2609 bridge) are due to the attentions of watch repairers or frankenmeisters. A watch has been through the factory once, but has gone through repairers and resellers many times.

Paul

The watch is "Сделано в СССР", which means a different type of economy. The didn't feel an urge to make a particular type of device, the had to - under the plan. If they didn't have the appropriate spare parts (for example, due to a delay in supply of specific type of steel), they took whatever was available, if this didn't hinder the functuonality of the tool. Only GOST was sacred - most of the time - and GOST deals with functional characteristics.
At least this was the rule in most of the industries. Of course, I don't know how it was specifically for Raketa.

 

[phillyj]

I agree with storyteller. This was a post-Soviet watch. As pointed out in other threads, the patterned bezel around the crystal is a post-Soviet item. I really don't know the conditions and quality-controls during that time but maybe it was chaotic. The Communist system fell and there probably was a lot of corruption. Wasn't this the time when the ruble had very low value?

Paul, you say the mismatch is due to frankenmeisters/watch-repairers. May I ask why the bridge needs to be replaced? I don't know much about movements but it looks like the bridge holds some jewels. It doesn't seem like a weak or easily damaged part like the mainspring. As for frankens, do you mean someone got hold of a box of new Paketa parts and proceeded to build watches outside of the factory?

Sodiac sold one last year. Maybe he could shed some light on where he got his?

Also what is GOST?