[GreenKeys] Western-Union time service

[Sheldon Daitch]

I once worked at a radio station which had this same clock system, and 
yes, it would reset at the
top of the hour.  The only problem is using the clock for hitting the 
network news, at :55, since the
clock had run for nearly 55 minutes without a time pulse.  The same 
problem could be said for
hitting the network at the top of the hour.  By the time the correction 
pulse came through, it was
the beginning of the news.

73
Sheldon

Joe Stevens wrote:
> We had this circuit when I worked for telco.  It was just another 60 
> ma teletype loop to us.  It did run on physical (open) wires, not 
> carrier.  It didn't seem to matter if it got interrupted just as long 
> as it wasn't near the top of the hour.     ...j0e  WL7AML
>
> At 09:30 PM 1/7/2009, amourdutigre wrote:
>> Hi...
>>  
>> I recently saw a Western-Union clock on e-pay, and noticed that it 
>> had two terminal screws on the back. I mentioned this to an old 
>> friend of mine that thought that he had heard in his youth about 
>> Western Union offices all had a special "wire" that was connected to 
>> a central office that every hour on the hour would send a signal to 
>> those clocks and cause the minute hand to automatically set to the 
>> 12:00 position. Someone else said that major businesses and public 
>> entities could also subscribe to this service so that there would be 
>> a standardized time.
>>  
>> Has anyone heard of this? I would be interested in finding out. Now 
>> the idea...if a bunch of folk could find such clocks, wouldn't it be 
>> cool to have a web site that would send a signal every hour on the 
>> hour, and be able to hook your computer to some interface that would 
>> mimic that clock signal? Now that would be really neat for the QTH...
>>  
>> Best and 73,
>>  
>