BBC Time Pips

[AC/HL]

A lot of them now use DCF77 Frankfurt too.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

If I want a speaking clock, I normally use CNet.

The various speaking clocks that I have available on my local Asterisk are reasonably accurate when you dial, but soon drift off and get ahead of real time if you let them run.

https://youtu.be/eV9GZSDMq6g

(PuTTY console included just to look KooL)

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by MikeM100

Most interesting replies - thank you all. I might now ask what were they used for?

I was a Tech Op at London BH in the 1970s and clearly remember being told that the pips were important as amongst other things pigeon races were started on the last pip!

I have no idea how true that was but I did once wonder one morning about birds staining with eagerness to be released when at the end of a night shift I was too busy gossiping to a colleague and forgot to select the 0900 pips on R3 and radiated 5 seconds silence instead.........the boss wasn't best pleased!!

[Graham G3ZVT]

If you click on the 1970s machine thumbnail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Time_Signal

It opens in high definition.
There appears to be Decca Navigator and LORAN C reciever as well as a VLF receiver tuned to GBR on 16KHz. Presumably some part received the "inverted pips" from the NPL.

All before they installed their own atomic standard.

I'd love to ask what a cut-away Mini is doing in a technical area, but that's OT.

[Chris55000]

Hi!

I still use them regularly for resetting car dashboard clocks, nearly all of the ones I've had end up at least five seconds behind ("slow") after a month or two – naturally I always use FM pips – I can't afford a car with a built–in DAB radio!

Chris Williams

[AC/HL]

Originally Posted by rambo1152

I'd love to ask what a cut-away Mini is doing in a technical area

Along with a VTR, and other things. They appear to be museum exhibits.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by AC/HL

Along with a VTR, and other things. They appear to be museum exhibits.

There is an acknowledgment for Science Museum London.

The other mistake I made was saying there was Decca Navigator kit, what there is appears to be a Racal RA6217A + RA6337A.

[Radio Wrangler]

Could it be a plain old RA1217 with its cyclometer mechanical frequency display?

Looks like an HP caesium frequency standard at the right hand end of the cabinet above its power supplies, and a counter (5327A) over to the left.

The mini seems to be over a barrier and is likely to be a completely unrelated exhibit and several years earlier than that rackful of time equipment. Museum halls with an eclectic collection of exhibits are so much more interesting than the merely expected.

David

[arjoll]

Before Radio Rhema became Rhema Media, and when they were still based in Christchurch, they had a device based on decade counters in the rack intercepting the 28/29/30/58/59/00 minute pips that came in on a landline from whatever Government organisation (probably one of the CRIs) used to do time pips, blocking out all but the six "on the hour" ones and injecting them automatically into the network feed.

They dropped that when they moved from the old landline and radio link* distribution to satellite, as they were no longer accurate.

I am pretty sure they are no longer on RNZ National (not that I ever listen!) but not sure when they dropped them.

(*they were naughty - a network of mono 400 MHz STLs down the South Island to link everything together to save on landline costs; they are one of the reasons RSM brought in a requirement that STL licenses had to have at least one end that was eithre a studio or a transmitter)

[red16v]

To give you some related broadcast background. At LWT we had two mechanical master clocks in the basement of the building (stable temperature) to generate bipolar pulses to drive all the ‘technical’ clocks around the building. It was pretty accurate long term wise, but if you were in a control room or technical area and wanted to double check the clock in the room you would ring up TIM and check the clock against it. As postie went more and more ‘digital’ and doubts raised over the accuracy of TIM we arranged for a straightforward copper feed of it into the building. As the years went by the entire system was replaced by distributed timecode around the building and this was originated from a Leitch manufactured satellite based system. Two generators (main and standby) each with a simple mushroom shaped receiving aerial on the roof of the building. This system synchronised itself to an overhead satellite in the early hours of each morning - was very accurate and stable. This is the sort of thing:
https://videoeurope.co.uk/wp-content...ion-Manual.pdf

[Alvin]

During my tenure at the BBC the time signal was generated at the Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceux Castle and fed to Broadcasting House on two landlines (one main plus one reserve) which had constant 1k tone on them with the pips being sent as breaks in that tone and this was inverted by a box of tricks in the control room which gave no output if it saw the incoming tone and issued forth pips during the breaks.

[Alvin]

I remember one time when a colleague who had a 'good ear' felt that the final longer pip didn't sound right but the rest of us were unconvinced so he recorded the pips on 15ips tape then measured length of tape occupied by the last pip and from that calculated its duration.....and he was right, it was out of spec!!

[Alvin]

Who remembers Back-Room Boy, a 1942 Comedy Movie starring Arthur Askey as the man who's very important job is to put out the pips until he goes rogue? https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3p4ghh

[Andy Doz]

I built a "GPS master clock" to sync up various homebuilt clocks, and this westerstrand unit.

https://andydoz.blogspot.com/2018/05...lse-clock.html

https://andydoz.blogspot.com/2016/07...th-433315.html

It serves it's purpose as the DCF clocks seem useless here, probably down to the awful QRM at this location.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Alvin

I remember one time when a colleague who had a 'good ear' felt that the final longer pip didn't sound right but the rest of us were unconvinced so he recorded the pips on 15ips tape then measured length of tape occupied by the last pip and from that calculated its duration.....and he was right, it was out of spec!!

There was another case, maybe 30 years ago, that was reported on Radio 4 and the national press. Unfortunately, I cant find a reference to it on the Interweb.

A musician, who reportedly had "perfect pitch" had contacted the BBC to say the pips were slightly sharp (or was it flat) by less than a semitone (Basil Fawlty reference there!) when it was measured, it had indeed drifted in frequency. What surprised me was the pitch of the pips wasn't referenced to anything, not even divided down from a crystal osc. the problem was probably caused by vintage wax capacitor or similar.

The musician wasn't the only one to notice, I too felt there was something not quite right with the pips for a week or so. I couldn't put my finger on quite what was wrong, I felt it was the attack time, rather than the frequency.

Does anyone else remember this story?

[Amraduk]

Hello Graham,

Originally Posted by rambo1152

There was another case, maybe 30 years ago, that was reported on Radio 4 and the national press. Unfortunately, I cant find a reference to it on the Interweb.

A musician, who reportedly had "perfect pitch" had contacted the BBC to say the pips were slightly sharp (or was it flat) by less than a semitone (Basil Fawlty reference there!) when it was measured, it had indeed drifted in frequency. What surprised me was the pitch of the pips wasn't referenced to anything, not even divided down from a crystal osc. the problem was probably caused by vintage wax capacitor or similar.

There is a BBC video about this here: http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/201...me-signal.html

It was broadcast on Saturday, 18 December 1993, just over 26 years ago!

Regards,

Dave.

[Alvin]

Dave beat me to it but there's some other interesting reading here http://www.miketodd.net/other/gts.htm where this incident is mentioned under Pip Problems.

[Dai Corner]

If you listen carefully you can hear pips during the countdown sequence on the BBC News channel.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Dai Corner

If you listen carefully you can hear pips during the countdown sequence on the BBC News channel.

It's impossible not to hear them!
My apologies if I've misunderstood you.

Originally Posted by Amraduk

There is a BBC video about this here: http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/201...me-signal.html
It was broadcast on Saturday, 18 December 1993, just over 26 years ago!
Regards,
Dave.

Priceless! Thanks for that.

It's most unusual for the BBC , especially all those years ago, to allow the GTS to be broadcast "in vain" so-to speak.

I suppose flat pips were, on this occasion, deemed to be non-genuine.

[dsergeant]

The latest issue of E&T from the IET has an article about the BBC pips:
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/art...biter-of-time/

Dave