Sorted. Added the hotspot with nmcli as tsmith wrote, priorities 20/10. Saturday it joined the phone within about 40 s of boot. Readings went into a JSONL file while the phone had no signal at the far beds, then went up in batches of 50 when it came back. First week the times were off by an hour on the first few readings, the NTP thing exactly, so I’ve ordered a DS3231 like Michael. Until it comes the script checks NTPSynchronized before stamping.