First of all, the small pictures available online do not do this clock any justice. The workmanship is flawless. I expected it to be pretty nice becuase of other reviewer's comments, but I had no idea just how good-looking this clock was until I had it in my hands. It has a very contemporary look and feel to it with a traditional, retro-style. It is also surprisingly lightweight for its size, but that is probably because the entire center has been carved-out for the clock and the whole thing is not very thick. Everyone that sees it has nice comments about it.
As far as the clock itself: I put the battery in and, per the instructions, the hands advanced to 8:00 then stopped. I placed it on the shelf and about 1/2 hour later I looked and it had synchronized with the atomic clock's radio signal and was keeping time already (the last atomic clock I bought - different brand - took overnight to synchronize)! I had to press the time zone button on the back to get it to advance to central time and it has been working just fine since then.
One word of warning: this clock will only work in the US Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones and has a button to disable daylight saving time. This is not spelled-out very well in the item's description online.