A time keeping and display system, device, and method are shown and illustrated including radio signal broadcast of a time of day reference signal. Remote time keeping devices intermittently collect the time of day reference. Each remote device automatically captures a current state of a time keeping counter when capturing the time of day reference. The captured state of the time keeping counter is later compared to the received time of day reference to calculate an update relative to the time of day counter. The calculated update may be a calculated error later applied as an offset to the counter, or may be a sum of the received time of day and an elapsed time, later loaded into the counter. When the remote device has no pending higher priority tasks, a brief fixed execution time procedure modifies the time keeping counter as a function of the calculated update. Because the process of modifying the time keeping counter is brief, no perceivable discontinuity in device operation, i.e., time display updates or response to user interface activity, occurs while the processing element of the device is dedicated entirely, i.e., interrupts disabled, to the task of modifying the content of the time keeping counter.