[GreenKeys] Off topic you say? Here's your off topic!

[Larry Tighe]

Been there done that...............

I have about 12 of those clocks in my house.  I use Rado Shack D cell 
combiners to get the 3 volts for the winders and double stick them on the 
base.

I use 4 volts from a relay that keys the clocks on the hour to "zero" out 
any error.  Most are within a second or two when the pulse comes thru.

The correction pulse comes from an ESE master clock.  I seet it every few 
months from WWV.  The master is good for about a second every 4 months.

At my radio station, WRNJ, whe have a bunch of them too with the sweep 
second hands.  Same set up but using a 2N3055 to key the 4 volts to the 
corrector solenoid.  That pulse comes from the GPS clock that keeps the 
computers happy.

ESE clocks all have a solid state "relay closure" when the hour comes up. 
It's one second of closure.

We combine the WU clocks with the AP Model 15 that uses HeavyMetal to get 
the AP headlines on the hour.

lar
K2JIA


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frank Carraro" <kf9nz at sbcglobal.net>
To: <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2013 7:27 PM
Subject: [GreenKeys] Off topic you say? Here's your off topic!


> Since our dear moderator enjoys them from time-to-time, here's one from a
> greenkeyer who's been here since before the internet and windoze.  RE:
> WESTERN UNION TIME SERVICE and related stuff.
> I have contact with an entity (how's that for keeping it undercover) who
> has a collection of Western Union and Self-Winding clocks going back
> beaucoup years.   I have information on how they work, and have restored a
> Self-Winding (made by the Co. of that name) that quit self winding to
> operation.   What I want to do is to install several of these clocks in
> different places on the - shall we say - "campus"  or  group of buildings,
> and build a circuit (there's plenty of twisted pair around) linking these
> clocks - the easy part - with a system that receives time signals off of 
> the
> internet and translates it into every-even-hour pulses to maintain these
> clocks on time.  The latter is the hard part.
>
> Some of the info I have about the WU service is interesting.  Even into 
> the
> '40's and '50's the service cost like $2.50 a month, and installation was
> around $20.00.    WU  had a catalog of over a dozen different clocks - 
> even
> desk clocks.  In the early days you could buy your own clock from The
> Self-Winding Clock Co (N.Y. and Chi.) and have WU supply the service. 
> They
> were powered by two No. 6  dry cells which ran the motor that wound the
> clock every hour.
>
> Let's have a good O-T scramble now.
>
> Frank
>
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