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Time Pips on the Hour

As I understand it, Armed Forces Radio in Europe no longer uses the six "pips' (like BBC) going up to the hour, but they did more than just alert you that it was top of the hour. I believe they also were used to make sure all network clocks were in-sync. Clocks that were just a tiny bit off would stop just before the top of the hour and follow the five pips and then the longer top of the hour pip would give the command and everyone was in-sync again, at least for the next hour or so.
 
WLS used to have a TOH beep, but dropped it in the late 90's. Anyone know if this dated back to the Musicradio days or even farther, or did it come after WLS changed to talk?
 
If you listen to the 1967 Boston Red Sox highlight record ("The Impossible Dream"), you can actually hear the old TOH time pip in a couple of game highlights from their flagship radio station at the time, AM 850, WHDH.
 
Then there is the BBC with GTS, Greenwich Time Signal, Six pips in all, 5 short, 1 long signifying the top of hour. They still make use of them along with the BBC World Service. On rare occasions you would hear 7 pips, that was when the extra second (leap second) was being applied to compensate the earths rotation. (This in itself was newsworthy so you knew it was happening).

The "pips" can be heard in the ELO song "Here is the news".

When I worked for the Beeb, I discovered that the pips were in fact generated every 15 mins, we just used the TOH ones. Apparently started in 1924. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Time_Signal

The things you learn!
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
IIRC, KSL-FM Midvale/KSL Salt Lake City does that exact thing
with the Temple Square gong--they use a recorded gong and
drop it in at :00, even though they hit the network x-number
of seconds late due to the delays.
Click to expand...

It is technically the Nauvoo Bell that rings each hour at KSL, which now resides at Temple Square. It is an artifact of significant cultural significance to those of the LDS faith.

Here's an article about KSL's rather unique use of this gong at the TOH: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600143553,00.html
 
Stations in the old days used the hourly signal sent on the Western Union line which synchronized the studio clocks. It would activate a relay which keyed a tone or chime at the TOH. Mutual and CBS had top of hour tones on the network. NBC played the NBC chimes at the station break but I don't know that is was exactly right on the hour.

I remember that the chirps or were used by Mutual news to alert board ops that a news cast was coming. You could listen for the cue tone on a little speaker or headphones bridged on the line. They were not really intended to be aired, but if you had the net channel already potted up it did.

You can also probably recall chirps at different frequencies that keyed the local insertion on TV and Cable TV systems through the 90's. Now most of this is done digitally and for TV is now in the vertical blanking area of video where it doesn't display.
 
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