Time signal

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These automatic signal clocks were synchronized by telegraphy in 1905 before the widespread use of radio
These automatic signal clocks were synchronized by telegraphy in 1905 before the widespread use of radio

A time signal is a visible, audible, mechanical, or electronic signal used as a reference to determine the time of day.

Contents

[edit] Audible and visible time signals

One sort of public time signal is, of course, a striking clock. These clocks, however, are only as good as the clockwork that activates them; they have improved substantially since the first surviving clocks from the fourteenth century. For many members of the general public, a public clock such as Big Ben was the only time standard they needed.

When more accurate public time signals were desired for use in navigation, a number of traditional audible or visible time signals were established for the purpose of allowing navigators to check their marine chronometers. These public time signals were formerly established in many seaport cities.

As an example of such a signal, in Vancouver, British Columbia, a "9 O'Clock Gun" is still shot every night at 9 p.m.. This gun was brought to Stanley Park by the Department of Fisheries in 1894 to warn fishermen of the 6:00 p.m. Sunday closing of fishing. The 9:00 p.m. firing was later established as a time signal for the general population. The Brockton Point lighthouse keeper, William D. Jones, originally detonated a stick of dynamite until the Time Gun was installed. A similar "Noon Gun" is still shot every noon at Cape Town, South Africa. A cannon was shot at one o'clock every weekday at Liverpool, England, at the Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, and also at Perth in Australia to establish the time. The Edinburgh "One O'Clock Gun" is still in operation. A cannon located at the top of Santa Lucia Hill, in Santiago, Chile, is shot every noon. In places where a cannon is used for a time signal, locals often joke that they can spot tourists because they jump in surprise while locals check their watches. In many Midwestern US cities where tornados are a common hazard, the emergency sirens are tested regularly at a specified time (such as, say, noon each Saturday); while this is not primarily intended as a time signal, locals often do check their watches when they hear it.

The ceremony of "dropping the ball" at New Year's Eve in Times Square in New York City is a vestige of a visual indication of time. The first such time ball was installed in 1833 on the roof of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. The ball was set to drop at 1 P.M. to enable the astronomers to establish the correct moment it should drop by observing the sun at noon. Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Perth also had balls that were dropped concurrently with the firing of the time cannons. Because the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound, visible signals enabled greater precision than audible ones; however, the audible signals could operate under conditions of reduced visibility. In 1861 and 1862, the Post Office Directory had time gun maps published that related the number of seconds it took for the report of the time gun to reach various locations in Edinburgh.

In many non-seafaring communities, loud factory whistles served as public time signals before radio made them obsolete.

[edit] Electrical time signals

Sandford Fleming proposed a single 24-hour clock for the entire world. At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879 he linked it to the anti-meridian of Greenwich (now 180°). He suggested that standard time zones could be used locally, but they were subordinate to his single world time.

Standard time came into existence in the United States on November 18, 1883. Earlier, on October 11, 1883, the General Time Convention, forerunner to the American Railway Association, approved a plan that divided the United States into several time zones. On that November day, the United States Naval Observatory telegraphed a signal that coordinated noon at Eastern standard time with 11 a.m. Central, 10 a.m. Mountain, and 9 a.m. Pacific standard time.

A March, 1905 issue of The Technical World describes the role of the United States Naval Observatory as a source of time signals:

One of the most important functions of the Naval Observatory is found in the daily distribution of the correct time to every portion of the United States. This is effected by means of telegraphic signals, which are sent out from Washington at noon daily, except Sundays. The original object of this time service was to furnish mariners in the seaboard cities with the means of regulating their chronometers; but, like many another governmental activity, its scope has gradually broadened until it has become of general usefulness. The electrical impulse which goes forth from the Observatory at noon each day, now sets or regulates automatically more than 70,000 clocks located in all parts of the United States, and also serves, in each of the larger cities of the country, to release a time-ball located on some lofty building of central location. The dropping of the time-ball — accompanied, at some points, with the simultaneous firing of a cannon — is the signal for the regulation by hand of hundreds of other clocks and watches in the vicinity.

[edit] Radio time sources

A modern LF Radio clock
A modern LF Radio clock

The telegraphic distribution of time signals was made obsolete by the use of AM, FM, shortwave radio, Internet Network Time Protocol servers as well as atomic clocks in GPS satellites.

The following radio stations broadcast time in both audible and machine readable time code form that can be used as references for radio clocks and radio-controlled watches:

  • In the United States:
    • WWV (2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz),
    • WWVB (Frequency 60kHz, Radiated power 50kW), and
    • WWVH (2.5, 5, 10, 15 MHz)

The audio portions of the WWV and WWVH broadcasts can also be heard by telephone. The time announcements are normally delayed by less than 30 ms when using land lines from within the continental United States, and the stability (delay variation) is generally < 1 ms. When mobile phones are used, the delays are often more than 100 ms due to the multiple access methods used to share cell channels. In rare instances when the telephone connection is made by satellite, the time is delayed by 250 to 500 ms. To hear these broadcasts, dial (303) 499-7111 for WWV (Colorado), and (808) 335-4363 for WWVH (Hawaii). Callers are disconnected after 2 minutes. These are not toll-free numbers; callers outside the local calling area are charged for the call at regular long distance rates.

A low cost LF radio clock receiver, antenna left, receiver right.
A low cost LF radio clock receiver, antenna left, receiver right.

Loran-C time signals may also be used for radio clock synchronization, by augmenting their highly accurate frequency transmissions with external measurements of the offsets of LORAN navigation signals against time standards.

[edit] Commercial broadcasts

In the United States, many information-based radio stations (full-service, all-news and news/talk) also broadcast time signals at the top of the hour. In New York, WOR, WCBS and WINS have distinctive top-of-the-hour tones, though the WINS signal is only approximate (several seconds error). WINS also has a tone at 30 minutes past the hour for those setting their clocks. Vancouver radio station CKNW also broadcasts time signals, using a chime every half-hour.

WCBS and many other CBS Radio Network affiliates air a "bong" (sounding A=440Hz) that immediately precedes each top-of-the-hour network newscast. (The same bong could be heard on CBS Television Network affiliates in the 1970s.) An automated "chirp" at one second before the hour signals a switch to the network broadcast.

In Los Angeles, KFWB broadcasts a tone precisely on the hour and half-hour during regular news broadcasts (although not during special programming such as baseball games.) KNX also broadcasts a tone on the hour; however, this tone appears approximately 17 seconds late.

In Canada, the national non-commercial CBC Radio network broadcasts a daily NRC time signal at noon (Eastern Time, GMT-5) on French language Radio-Canada and one hour later on the English language CBC network.

Australia lacks an easily available source of accurate time. The VNG User's Consortium[1] is campaigning for the availability of accurate time in Australia, while developing ways around this problem. The Global Positioning System can also be used as a time reference for radio clocks, but require an accurate 1PPS output to be reliably used for time signals. A device is being developed by the VNG User's Consortium that will convert GPS signals into an accurate time signal, to replace the now-defunct VNG service.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Downing, Michael, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time (Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005) ISBN 1-59376-053-1

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Time signal stations
Longwave
DCF77 · HBG · JJY · Time from NPL · TDF · WWVB · RJH66
Shortwave
BPM · CHU · HD2IOA · RWM · WWV · WWVH · YVTO
GNSS time transfer
Beidou · Galileo · GLONASS · GPS · IRNSS
Defunct
OMA · VNG · OLB5 · Y3S
Languages