G'day!

Spotted Jeff Geerling's YouTube video on a Raspberry Pi Pico GPS clock during a casual scroll. Check his blog post and video for details.

Thought: "Why not turn it into a GPS-powered NTP server?". Pico 2W's WiFi + Waveshare's PPS = cheap network time server.

It's not production-grade—just works for fun.

Same as Jeff's setup, minus the 7-segment display:

• Raspberry Pi Pico 2W (built-in WiFi)
• Waveshare L76K GNSS module + antenna

PPS Hack: Solder a 0Ω resistor on pads marked R20 to expose PPS on GPIO 16. (Thanks, Jeff! See his GitHub.)

• Raspberry Pi Pico 2W
• Waveshare L76K GNSS module
• Antenna with sky view
• Computer with Thonny IDE
• MicroPython firmware on Pico: Follow Raspberry Pi's guide

1. Flash MicroPython to Pico 2W.
2. In Thonny, copy these files to Pico:
   • micropyGPS.py (GPS driver)
   • main.py (vibe-coded by Google Gemini 😉)
3. Edit main.py: Update WiFi SSID/password.
4. Run main.py in Thonny.

Pico connects to WiFi first, then hunts GPS fix. Console shows IP. Built-in LED blinks when serving NTP. Logs client IPs on requests.

Pro Tip: GPS needs clear sky—initial 3D fix takes time. WiFi punches through walls like a champ.

# macOS/Linux
sntp -s <pico-ip>

# Windows
w32tm /stripchart /computer:<pico-ip> /samples:5 /dataonly

nice!