I remember looking around on this forum, and somewhere said that gbata can't be applied to Emerald because the RTC moves around in the ram or something, while in R/S the RTC stays in one place... I can barely guess at what that means, but I'm assuming you might know.
Also I do have MSN, but I haven't been on in over a year. Eh, I'm just not the type of person that would use MSN chat.
By the way, I'm using a slot-2 DS flashcart called EZFlash 3in1. It only works if you have a Slot 1 card in, and I'm using an AceKard 2 for that, and my GBA games are stored on my AceKard (well, technically a MicroSD card that plugs into the AceKard). EZFlash 3in1 lacks RTC. When I play GBC Pokemon games on my AceKard, I use an emulator called Lameboy, which makes the RTC in G/S/C work flawlessly by loading the DS clock. Well, you said you don't own a DS, so I don't know if this information can help. The thing used to load GBA games on a Slot-1 card is a nds file called, "GBAExploader", which you need to have a Slot-2 card (such as EZFlash 3in1), to play GBA roms.