[radar72]

Why don't commercial radio use time pips like the bbc ,I find the pips very useful.

[DemonLemon]

Expect that with the compression delay in digital media, and also with satelite delay, the pips aren't really as accurate as they are supposed to be. I suppose the BBC carry the pips mainly for historic reasons. With RDS and stuff, maybe the pips are now less necessary. It's nice to hear them though.

[sausages]

Originally Posted by radar72

Why don't commercial radio use time pips like the bbc ,I find the pips very useful.

Firstly, the pips are copyright the BBC. Secondly, it means being accurate with the times of your bulletins - something most ILRs aren't. Finally, they're a very formal antiquated method of time=keeping. If you're trying to give the image of a young, funky station, they won't fit in with your style.

sausages

[Inkblot]

Originally Posted by sausages

If you're trying to give the image of a young, funky station, they won't fit in with your style.

Xfm use some "remixed" pips at the start of their news.

[Was]

Originally Posted by sausages

Secondly, it means being accurate with the times of your bulletins - something most ILRs aren't. Finally, they're a very formal antiquated method of time=keeping. If you're trying to give the image of a young, funky station, they won't fit in with your style.

sausages

These day's you'll probably find most ILRs are better at time keeping with there news than the BBC is.

BBC radio 2 Is hopeless at actually having the news at the right time, where a lot of comercial stations share news services, (especaiily out of hours) they have to opt in at the correct time, no option of having the news at 1 min past the hour.

[pjb007]

BBC Radio 3 scrapped the pips, don't know why, local commercial stations may not want to have the pips.

[tin]

Originally Posted by sausages

Finally, they're a very formal antiquated method of time=keeping. If you're trying to give the image of a young, funky station, they won't fit in with your style

Kiss 102 used to have the pips and they were quite cool!

[fife]

What about satsumas?






No Pips

[AngusMast]

The stations can't afford the royalties they have to pay to Gladys Knight.

PS If you want to know the exact time get a radio-controlled clock. And here's an idea, someone should manufacture a radio with a self-generated pips option.

[bigmelon]

all this talk about pips is giving me the.........









pip

[vinnielo]

Originally Posted by bigmelon

all this talk about pips is giving me the.........
pip

Deary me.. that was truly awful! You ARE the weakest link..
Toodle..

[tedjrr]

Originally Posted by sausages

Firstly, the pips are copyright the BBC.

The "pips" are just a modulated form of the final five, and first pulse on the hour of an internationally recognise time signal. If anyone's going to claim copyright it would be the ITU, or possibly the standards bodies, in the case of the UK, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). Don't know if the BBC could claim intellectual ownership of the word "pips", or even the use of the modulation frequency.

As for accuracy - I don't think that GTS (as was) was ever that accurate via the BBC. The signal was derived from an atomic clock at the Royal Greenwich Observatory's site near Hastings, and sent to BH over the old BT carrier network (copper pairs). Prorogation used to vary with the temperature of the wires. At one stage there will even have been thermionic repeaters!

Now the source into the BBC may be more accurate, all that processing in the transmission chain will take its toll on the timing. When on 200khz the Droitwich transmitter was regarded as a standard frequency transmission as far as the (NPL/ BT Rugby) derived carrier were concerned, but the time signals broadcast by it were not recognised in any way.

Originally Posted by sausages

If you're trying to give the image of a young, funky station, they won't fit in with your style.

That's more like it. Mind you, I rather liked the use of the fog horn as the hour marker on Pirate BBC Essex - great one!

Rgds

[Corin]

Tune into WWV, standard time and frequency station, Fort Collins, CO, on the frequencies of 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz and you will be able to hear the "pips" or rather tones for each second, 24 hours a day (reception conditions permitting).

[tedjrr]

Originally Posted by Corin

Tune into WWV, standard time and frequency station, Fort Collins, CO, on the frequencies of 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz and you will be able to hear the "pips" or rather tones for each second, 24 hours a day (reception conditions permitting).

Or the ones from BT Rugby on 60 khz. (MSF). http://www.npl.co.uk/time/msf.html

This is a good page : -
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/lf-clocks.html

The NPL keep the UK legal physical standards for most aspects of measurement, including time. Their atomic clocks, located at NPL Teddington and at BT Rugby are the nation's official timekeepers, and form the UK's contribution to the average of official atomic time resources around the globe :- http://www.bipm.org/en/scientific/tai/time_server.html

The UK used to have 2 official contributors to UTC, the NLP and the Royal Greenwhich Observatory (RGO). The RGO used to keep and disseminate astronomical time, measuring the motion of the earth relative to astronomical observation. In order to calibrate this they required the most accurate form of time measurement available, which is of course, and atomic clock. Hence the RGO also kept atomic time, corrected to Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). It was this that was the source of the BBC's "pips", then known as the Greenwich Time Signal (GTS), rather than the "legal" NPL time.

When the RGO ceased to be a timekeeper the BBC had to make other arrangements. The time signal is based on NPL time, but the BBC do use some form of local clock rather than just keying a tone based on reception of the 60khz pulses from BT Rugby. Originally (1990) this could have been the BBC's own rubidium standard, although they've probably got a caesium clock of their own by now.

Having read the posts in this thread had set me wondering. Was the 1990s the peak of accuracy in publicly disseminated time in the UK? Consider this, based on the assumption that the purpose would be to manually set a clock or watch :-

Time distribution

Speeking Clock/TIM

Still going strong, more accurate than the days of the carrier network. Sponsorship rather crass though.

British Rail
IT systems used to display time are less accurate at point of display than the electro-mechanical systems introduced by BR in the late 1980s. Slaved in MSF 60khz these gave a welcome auidiable click on the second marker.

BBC/GTS
Broadcast radio time-signals are now less accurate due to audio processing, and compressed digital distribution systems. The BBC engineers are fully aware, and would love to engineer a remedy if the opportunity arose.

Teletet/Ceefax
Mch more accurate in the 90s than when the service started. The original ITV Oracle clock was said to be slaved off the mains, so only "nominally" accurate at 0800! The drift to DTT will remove this source of time.

VCR display
Now very accurate due to PDC VITS derived time. Ditto comments above, on its way out.

TV on screen clock
All gone due to fashion, and the onset of MPEG processing delay

Ask a policeman
If too many people wanted to ask a "British bobby" the time, the Police Authorities would probably want to start charging for the service.

Rgds/

[AcerBen]

Is Freeview a couple seconds late like Sky Digital is compared to analogue?

[Sven945]

Yes. Apart from channel 4, which I believe delays its analogue broadcasts by a couple of seconds in order for Digital and Analogue to by syncronised

jack

[JG1970]

For those who feel deprived of the pips

http://www.infosearchpoint.com/upload/0/08/Pips.mp3?

[jcx]

They should use the bells, much better.

If you want to know the time buy a watch. More practical advice next time.

[radar72]

I like the sound of the pips before the news and as for time keeping its useful to even if it not right to the second its close for what i need

[dslrocks]

BBC radio 2 Is hopeless at actually having the news at the right time...

Indeed. I have always noticed that Steve Wright is absolutely hopeless at handing over to the news bang on the hour - he always had to do his yak about what's coming up in the next hour which takes a good minute or so.

Is the rest of Radio 2 really that bad?

[Was]

Originally Posted by dslrocks

Is the rest of Radio 2 really that bad?

Well yes! in short

A few years ago the Hospital Radio Station I work for used to take radio 2 as the sustaining service. we used to opt in with the news at 10. it was hopeless trying to do cleanly, the news could be anytime from 1 min to the hour, to 2 mins after!

Another one which is still a problem, is pick of the pops quite often the news is 1 min after 3! it's easyer with a recorded programme to make sure that it's recorded to the correct length!! agh

thankfully now we've gone to 24 hour broadcasting and get our news from IRN so we have to be spot on with our timing, or we'll miss it!

I have'nt got my radio controlled watch with me today, otherwise I would have done a quick test to see how the news during the day pans out. maybe a job for monday!

[Dan 8t1]

Originally Posted by dslrocks

Indeed. I have always noticed that Steve Wright is absolutely hopeless at handing over to the news bang on the hour - he always had to do his yak about what's coming up in the next hour which takes a good minute or so.

You would think they'd time it better, seeing as most of his show is pre-recorded!

Dan

[jcx]

Originally Posted by dslrocks

Indeed. I have always noticed that Steve Wright is absolutely hopeless at handing over to the news bang on the hour - he always had to do his yak about what's coming up in the next hour which takes a good minute or so.

Is the rest of Radio 2 really that bad?

He always seem to need to get his little ego jingles in which he has played since the 80's. The rest of the station is also often out. They wouldn't want to cut a song or anything for the news.

[Corin]

Originally Posted by Ted JRR

Or the ones from BT Rugby on 60 khz. (MSF).

Very few people have VLF receivers, apart from ones built into clocks and watches for the purpose of synchronisation with the signal.

Furthermore, I was led to believe that the signal on MSF is not actually a modulated tone, so even if you receive it, you cannot hear it. Or is my understanding in error?

The advantage of WWV is that it is broadcasts on frequencies that can be received by many radios, and that there is a voice announcement each minute, so that one actually knows which minute is being marked.

Furthermore, at certain times of the day there are announcements about solar weather and propagation conditions.

<http://www.boulder.nist.GOV/timefreq/stations/wwv.html>

[Spot]

Does anyone remember when Tony Blackburn used to do the Radio 1 breakfast show and they took the 8 o'clock pips (no news on the hour) and wherever he was in a record he just faded it down and said 'Radio 1 time is now 8 o'clock' - then the pips came in, and he faded the record back up afterwards- no attempt at back-timing whatsoever!