Three subjects.
A leap second project that I was working on ended this morning, too early to
be useful. A while back there were comments regarding the handling of leap
seconds by the electric power frequency and if electric clocks would take the
change into effect.
On December 1, I started making a daily recording (by eye, ear, and ink on
paper) of what seconds an electronic digital clock displayed at 08:00:00
Eastern Standard Time from WWV or CHU. I missed only one morning since then.
This morning the electricity went off for several seconds and that clock now
shows 88 88 88. Lots of heavy snow on trees and wires here today. The clock is
a Heathkit I made in 1973 and counts power line frequency. Of the data I got
the latest was 08:00:13, and the earliest was 07:59:57. Even if the power had
stayed on through the end of January, I think the variation would be too
random to pick out a leap second. Wait until next time!
My Ultralink 333 did not update until 17 hours after the event, and still has
not come up with a value for the DUT1 correction, although shows a "+" where
it had been "-6" before.
I was looking at some old calendars last night and noticed that I did a watch
calibration during July of 1972 (Yes I am a Time Nut from way back.) by
writing each day how many seconds my watch was off compared to WWV at the end
of the day. One interesting thing is that the 0-error start of the month-long
series is just a few hours after the first leap second.
I don't know if this is a coincidence or not. By 1972 my 1968 Accutron was
already not new and I had access to and knew about WWV several years earlier,
so I don't recall why I would have chosen that month to do it. I think I was
not aware of leap seconds then.
The Accutron was advertised to be accurate to a minute a month. Mine was +47
1/2 seconds at the end of the month. I no longer have that watch.
Dennis O'Keefe
New Paltz, New York USA
Speaking of Accutrons, I still have the one I got for Christmas, 1967 (first
Christmas present after getting married a couple of months before). I still
have mine, but it needs at least a good cleaning and perhaps repair. I'm
wondering if anybody knows a decent place to have one of these worked on
anymore.
Daun
-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On Behalf
Of Dennis O'Keefe
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 3:32 PM
To: Time Nuts.
Subject: [time-nuts] Three subjects.
A leap second project that I was working on ended this morning, too early to be
useful. A while back there were comments regarding the handling of leap seconds
by the electric power frequency and if electric clocks would take the change
into effect.
On December 1, I started making a daily recording (by eye, ear, and ink on
paper) of what seconds an electronic digital clock displayed at 08:00:00 Eastern
Standard Time from WWV or CHU. I missed only one morning since then.
This morning the electricity went off for several seconds and that clock now
shows 88 88 88. Lots of heavy snow on trees and wires here today. The clock is a
Heathkit I made in 1973 and counts power line frequency. Of the data I got the
latest was 08:00:13, and the earliest was 07:59:57. Even if the power had stayed
on through the end of January, I think the variation would be too random to pick
out a leap second. Wait until next time!
My Ultralink 333 did not update until 17 hours after the event, and still has
not come up with a value for the DUT1 correction, although shows a "+" where it
had been "-6" before.
I was looking at some old calendars last night and noticed that I did a watch
calibration during July of 1972 (Yes I am a Time Nut from way back.) by writing
each day how many seconds my watch was off compared to WWV at the end of the
day. One interesting thing is that the 0-error start of the month-long series is
just a few hours after the first leap second.
I don't know if this is a coincidence or not. By 1972 my 1968 Accutron was
already not new and I had access to and knew about WWV several years earlier, so
I don't recall why I would have chosen that month to do it. I think I was not
aware of leap seconds then.
The Accutron was advertised to be accurate to a minute a month. Mine was +47
1/2 seconds at the end of the month. I no longer have that watch.
Dennis O'Keefe
New Paltz, New York USA
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On Jan 3, 2006, at 3:32 PM, Dennis O'Keefe wrote:
The Accutron was advertised to be accurate to a minute a month.
Mine was +47
1/2 seconds at the end of the month. I no longer have that watch.
My father used to work at a small (200 MW) municipal power plant and
when I was young (1970s) I would occasionally go along with him to
work. They had a Telechron clock and an Accutron right next to each
other in the control room next to the synchroscope meter for each
boiler/generator unit. The Telechron with its synchronous AC motor
was hooked to the generator main output and the Accutron was
naturally a "standalone" device. When off the grid they would trim
the steam throttles to adjust the frequency of their generators to
make the Telechron stay in agreement with the Accutron. Once it was
time to go back on the grid they would use the synchroscope to assure
that they were in phase with the grid. As you can imagine it would
be a very, very bad day if they were to close the tie breaker to the
grid while out of phase. The accutron / telechron arrangement was to
keep the clocks in the town accurate during the off-grid interval.
Jim
On Jan 3, 2006, at 3:32 PM, Dennis O'Keefe wrote:
The Accutron was advertised to be accurate to a minute a month.
Mine was +47
1/2 seconds at the end of the month. I no longer have that watch.
My father used to work at a small (200 MW) municipal power plant and
when I was young (1970s) I would occasionally go along with him to
work. They had a Telechron clock and an Accutron right next to each
other in the control room next to the synchroscope meter for each
boiler/generator unit. The Telechron with its synchronous AC motor
was hooked to the generator main output and the Accutron was
naturally a "standalone" device. When off the grid they would trim
the steam throttles to adjust the frequency of their generators to
make the Telechron stay in agreement with the Accutron. Once it was
time to go back on the grid they would use the synchroscope to assure
that they were in phase with the grid. As you can imagine it would
be a very, very bad day if they were to close the tie breaker to the
grid while out of phase. The accutron / telechron arrangement was to
keep the clocks in the town accurate during the off-grid interval.
Jim
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