---
name: "mbg"
section: "4"
platform: "openbsd"
package: "man"
version: "8.0-current-20261101"
release: "OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01)"
platforms: ["openbsd"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mbg"
---

# mbg(4)

Meinberg Funkuhren timedelta sensor

## NAME

**mbg** – Meinberg Funkuhren timedelta sensor

## SYNOPSIS

**mbg\* at pci?**

## DESCRIPTION

The **mbg** driver provides support for Meinberg Funkuhren radio clocks (time signal station and GPS receivers). **mbg** implements a timedelta sensor and the delta (in nanoseconds) between the received time information and the local time can be accessed through the [sysctl(8)](/sysctl/8.md) interface.

The card type is indicated in the sensor description. Currently, the following cards are supported by **mbg**:

- GPS170PCI

  3\.3V/5V 6-channel GPS receiver card

- PCI32

  5V DCF77 time signal station receiver card

- PCI509

  5V DCF77 time signal station receiver card

- PCI510

  3\.3V/5V DCF77 time signal station receiver card

- PCI511

  3\.3V/5V DCF77 time signal station receiver card

- PEX511

  PCI Express DCF77 time signal station receiver card

- PZF180PEX

  PCI Express DCF77 time signal station receiver card

The quality of the timedelta is reported as the sensor status:

- UNKNOWN

  No valid time information has been received yet.

- OK

  The time information is valid and the timedelta is safe to use for applications like [ntpd(8)](/ntpd/8.md).

- WARN

  The time information is still valid, but no new time information has been decoded for twelve hours (four days in the case of a GPS170PCI card) due to a reception or parity error. The timedelta should be used with care.

- CRITICAL

  No valid time information has been received for more than twelve hours (or four days in the case of a GPS170PCI card) since the sensor state degraded from OK to WARN. This is an indication that hardware should be checked to see if it is still functional.

A second sensor provides the relative signal quality as a percentage. The status of this sensor is used to report the status of the device itself:

- OK

  The clock is synchronized.

- WARN

  The device's clock is free running on the local oscillator. For DCF77 receiver cards this is not an error and can happen due to the nature of the signal transmission using longwave radio.

- CRITICAL

  Hardware failure, e.g. communication with the device failed.

## SEE ALSO

[intro(4)](/intro/4.md), [pci(4)](/pci/4.md), [ntpd(8)](/ntpd/8.md), [sysctl(8)](/sysctl/8.md)

## HISTORY

The **mbg** driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.1.

## AUTHORS

The **mbg** driver was written by Marc Balmer ⟨*mbalmer@openbsd.org*⟩.