On February 5, 1924, the Royal Greenwich Observatory began broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the “BBC pips”. So, for 75 years, before the major news headlines of the day, the six Greenwich Time ‘pips’ could be heard. These ‘pips’ are a series of six short tones broadcast at one-second intervals. They have been used to mark the exact start of each hour. And on the 75th anniversary of the first broadcast of the six-pip Greenwich Time Signal by the BBC, the Royal Observatory put on public display for the first time, the time pieces which produced the six pips for their broadcast in 1924.
The pips were controlled by two mechanical clocks located in the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Both these had electrical contacts attached to their pendula. They used two mechanical clocks so that they had a backup in case of a breakdown. These clocks sent a signal each second to the BBC, which converted them to the audible oscillatory tone broadcast.
In 1924, the new year was ushered in to the chimes of the Big Ben. This was a huge success. Following this, it was decided to introduce the six-pip Time Signal.
How it started
In 1923, Frank Dyson, the ninth Astronomer Royal, visited John Reith, Director General of the BBC, to discuss the idea of public time signals being broadcast. (Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal and the second is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland.)
The six-pip Time Signal (pips for seconds 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 00) was Dyson’s brainchild, which was born after a discussion he had with Frank Hope-Jones, inventor of the free pendulum clock. Hope-Jones had originally advocated a five-pip signal. The sixth pip signals the start of the next minute.
Whether it was Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, President John F. Kennedy’s assassination or the destruction of the Berlin Wall, all news announcements followed the sound of the Greenwich pips.
The BBC discouraged the use of any other sound when the pips were being broadcast. If that did happen, it was known as “crashing the pips”. In 2008, the main presenter of the Today show was surprised when the pips went adrift by six seconds, and broadcast seven pips instead of six. The problem was later traced to the pip’s generator. On May 31, 2011, there was a total failure in the generation of the audio pulses that constitute the pips. The silence was unexpected and was broadcast in place of the 17:00 signal.
In 1939, the six pip signal and the Time Service moved from Greenwich to the magnetic observatory at Abinger in Surrey, but they did not last long. They were then shifted to Herstmonceux, Sussex in 1957. After running for almost 66 years, in 1990, the Greenwich Time Service transmitted its last pips. BBC later shifted to its own pips based on signals from the GPS satellite network
To celebrate the 90th birthday of the pips on February 5, 2014, the programme broadcast a sequence that included a re-working of the Happy Birthday melody using the Greenwich Time Signal.
Game: Word search
Check out the slideshow and try your hand at the game we have for you.
