[GreenKeys] Fwd: Re: Frequency deviations in Continental Europe including impact on electric clocks steered by frequency

Tue Mar 6 16:38:19 EST 2018

I had plenty adventures with wild frequency in Taiwan in 1970. It could 
sag as low as 57 cycles in the late afternoon and evening, and go as 
high as 64 after midnight to keep clocks on time for 6:00 hrs. Many of 
us had sound systems, and some of the turntables were electronically  
instead of line governed. If you were transcribing discs to tape, that 
could cause serious problems unless both the turntable and tape machine 
were equipped with synchronous motors or both were electronically 
governed.  I know all of the Klienschmidt  teletype gear had AC/DC 
governed motors, and I  think the model 28s did too.  The main clock in 
the Armed Forces radio station had a   battery powered pendulum movement 
and was regulated to be about three to five seconds fast every hour. The 
network sent a time tone at the top of each hour, when we pushed a 
button to reset the clock. I am fairly certain the Western Union "Naval 
Observatory Time" clocks were corrected the same way. As for master 
clock systems, they were neat and surprisingly sophisticated for their 
time.  All the ones I saw were made by IBM, which later became Simplex. 
Lights and bells were controlled and clocks synchronized by sending high 
frequency audio tones  on the building's power system.  A few of us 
techie nerds found the motor generator and control panel, and learned 
how to sound the bells by pushing in a couple relays. We would manage to 
ring the last bells about two minutes early on Friday afternoons every 
couple months. NOBODY could contain that stampede!

    Bruce Gentry, KA2IVY

On 3/6/18 10:55 AM, Nick wrote:
> I have one of these WU self-winding clocks from the 40's or 50's in my 
> shack. It's a very big clock in an oak case. Because a pendulum clock 
> will never run accurat, I am thinking about to place a Raspberry Pi 
> inside the case (somewhat hidden) and pull the accurate time about 
> once a day or so from the Internet and the clocks mechanism will be 
> set to 99.9% accuracy. Would be a fun project.
>
> Nick  -  N0NCQ
> i-Telex  212503
>
>
>
> Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Richard Knoppow <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>
> Date: 3/6/18 10:38 AM (GMT-05:00)
> To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Frequency deviations in Continental Europe 
> including impact on electric clocks steered by frequency
>
>     In the past the generators were slightly speeded up or slowed
> down but I am not sure if they can do that now because of the
> "grid". Power from different sources must match in phase
> requiring rather close control of frequency. In the old days when
> a generator was brought on line its output had to be brought into
> phase with the other machines. Speed is not the only method of
> controlling load variations, all these machines have separate
> exciters so the amount of excitation can be varied to change the
> output.
>      I also don't know how school or factory master clocks work
> now but at one time they were pulse operated with the pulses
> generated from a central source. I also have seen these catch up
> or slow down by a little but I don't know how they handle
> daylight saving time. I was an election clerk recently were we
> were set up in a school. We had just come off daylight saving
> time. The clocks were off by an hour when we arrived to set up in
> the early morning but by about mid day they were back on. I think
> they may just have shut them down for a hour.
>      I wonder how many remember the old Western Union clocks,
> once in every radio station? These ran on a governed DC motor
> with a local battery. Once an hour a pulse was delivered over a
> wire line which would set the clock exactly on the hour. The
> service from Western Union cost something like a dollar a month
> or maybe it was a dollar per week. The clocks were made for WU by
> the Self-Winding Clock Company. In radio stations they were
> usually in square wooden cases to muffle any noise they made. I
> think the railroads also used these. There were also Postal
> Telegraph clocks but these were just regular synchronous clocks
> referenced to the power line.
>     In the Los Angeles area until about 1950 some suburban areas
> had 50Hz power while the city was 60Hz so one could find electric
> clocks for both for sale. Burbank had 50Hz power so Warner
> Brothers had rotary converters for frequency changing to operate
> the synchronous motors in their RCA sound equipment. At some
> point around 1950 Southern California Edison and the smaller
> companies like Burbank Light and Power got on the grid with the
> LADWP and changed to 60Hz. Everyone with electric clocks had to
> change them.
>
> On 3/6/2018 7:09 AM, Bob kb8tq wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > Most schools / factories / train systems, even back in the 1950’s
> > ran on a “master clock”
> > system rather than a bunch of independent clocks. The issue was
> > not so much line
> > frequency as a power outage. Going around to a bazillion clocks
> > to re-set them all to the
> > correct time cost a lot of money.
> >
> > Back when I was in school (yes school had been invented that far
> > back) the ham radio club
> > guys noticed that WWV and the wall clock had an interesting
> > relationship. The wall clock
> > drifted during the day and between 4 and 5 pm went faster (or I
> > suppose slower) to eventually
> > match up with WWV by 5 pm. The largest deviation that I recall
> > seeing was around 30 seconds.
> >
> > Bob
>
>
> -- 
> Richard Knoppow
> 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
> WB6KBL
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