Time information acquiring apparatus and radio controlled timepiece

A time information acquiring apparatus for acquiring time information from a time code signal included in a standard radio wave, comprising:

• a pulse measuring section which detects a matching level of an individual pulse signal constituting the time code signal to a predetermined code value;
• a grouping section which groups a plurality of pulse signals included in the time code signal into one group;
• a code string estimating section which estimates a code string having a possibility of emerging in a portion of the group in a frame of the time code signal;
• a code string determining section which determines a probability that the code string indicated by the grouped pulse signals corresponds to the estimated code string based on the matching level;
• and
• a time information generating section which generates the time information based on the code string for which the code string determining section determines that the probability is high,
• wherein the pulse measuring section detects the matching level of the individual pulse signal for a plurality of frames of the time code signal, and the code string estimating section estimates a code string having a possibility of emerging in the portion of the group in the frame of the time code signal over the plurality of frames;
• and
• wherein the code string determining section is configured to determine the probability that the code string indicated by the grouped pulse signals corresponds to the estimated code string by adding the matching level of the estimated code string to the matching level of a second estimated code string.