The beginning of the long dash indicates the end of an era

October 10, 2023 2:16 PM

After broadcasting it for over 80 years, the CBC has ended its broadcast of NRC Official Time Signal. Canadians have been brought together by the NRC official time signal for generations and now the longest running segment on CBC radio is no more and people are making their tributes.

Apparently, the reason for its demise is not the nearly universality of smart phones with their clocks set automatically, but in fact due to the gremlins of digital radio broadcasts making it highly unreliable.

[NRC] spokesperson Orian Labrèche said CBC installed HD radio transmitters in 2018, which caused a delay of up to nine seconds in broadcasting the time signal.

The council proposed several solutions and worked with CBC to solve the delay, but "ultimately, CBC/Radio-Canada made the decision to stop broadcasting the NRC's official time signal," he wrote.

While it's not on the radio any more, you can still call the NRC for the correct time, but it's really not the same, and may also be delayed by significant fractions of a second due to satellite routing.

posted by 3j0hn (36 comments total)

They could have just gone back to actual analog radio broadcast of the signal which used to work just fine, and travel farther than HD signals.

Also, there's a NINE SECOND BUFFER for HD radio? Holy crow! TIL, I guess.
posted by hippybear at 2:21 PM on October 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

Oh. This is one of those things I'm going to be sad about, even though I gave it almost no thought before isn't it?
posted by Popular Ethics at 2:22 PM on October 10, 2023 [22 favorites]

Don't it always seem to go...?
posted by hippybear at 2:23 PM on October 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

I am indescribably sad about this. I always used to listen to CBC radio on Saturday mornings while cleaning our one screen movie theatre in my small town in Saskatchewan. I would always pause in my work to beep along with the time signal between The Royal Canadian Air Farce and Quirks and Quarks . I have even been known to use it to actually set the clock in my car.
posted by 3j0hn at 2:29 PM on October 10, 2023 [30 favorites]

When I drive to work I usually get in just after 1 and have CBC radio playing. I never relied on the beeps for anything and didn't realize it was only done at 1pm but I'll be a bit sad that they're gone even if I understand and accept the reasons for their removal.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:03 PM on October 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Good news, though, you can get a network delay corrected accurate time from the NRC right in your web browser.

(My partner works for the NRC, though not in metrology.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:05 PM on October 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

There is also the NRC's NTP service at time.nrc.ca and time.chu.nrc.ca
posted by swr at 3:30 PM on October 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

This is one of those things we always knew was pointless but hung on to nevertheless because it was a small connection to the past when the future is coming too fast.

"Orange and lemons say the bells of St. Clement's..."
posted by klanawa at 3:37 PM on October 10, 2023 [8 favorites]

As someone who is totally time blind and absolutely resents the imposition of others expectations around time I can tell you that I have strong strong feelings about the NRC announcement.

The radio growing up was always on the CBC, we only had two channels. When my parents moved to a community that had more options they opted to listen to the usual rubbish, and now my radio is tuned to only one station - the local NPR. But the house stereo regularly plays CBC podcasts and the evening music shows.
posted by zenon at 4:07 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

At least you fine folks had time that much longer.

RIP
853-1212
Sept 19, 2007
posted by m@f at 4:10 PM on October 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Many of you feel bad for this beep. That is because you’re crazy. It has no feelings and the new one is much better.
posted by saturday_morning at 4:30 PM on October 10, 2023 [15 favorites]

Let us all pet this familiar old crouton (don’t eat it tho! Too chewy…)

All at once now…wait for the beep…
posted by omegajuice at 4:53 PM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Bad? All things change. That beep beep, (spooky pause) booooooop is such a specific pattern, and simply something that I expected to always exist, HD lag be dammed.

But mainly I just have strong memories associated with it, the double sink looking out at into the Kootenays, washing the Corelle Butterfly Gold dishes listening to a distant voice with a Toronto accent on the tinny kitchen radio.
posted by zenon at 5:02 PM on October 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

→ They could have just gone back to actual analog radio broadcast of the signal which used to work just fine

Except, in the detail of the fine article, they can't. There are numerous digital transports used and each one has uncertain delay. Some route via satellites, others by RF links. Canada, being very very very large, couldn't easily go to to an analogue solution that would cover the whole country. You'd have to go to longwave, which requires a huge, power-hungry and expensive transmitter, which sounds like absolute crap, and most people's radios couldn't pick it up anyway.

When I complained about this to the CBC in March 2022, CBC was broadcasting the NRC 13:00:00 signal at 13:00:10. This was against WWVH (the 10 MHz shortwave one, not the 60 kHz longwave one). I can't reliably pick up CHU (Canada's time signal, broadcast from just outside Ottawa) in Toronto.
posted by scruss at 5:05 PM on October 10, 2023 [8 favorites]

Also, there's a NINE SECOND BUFFER for HD radio? Holy crow! TIL, I guess.

I will flip back and forth between listening to CBC radio 1 on an FM radio or on the internet as I walk around the house. There is a notable delay on the internet - which is great if you just miss something from when you're listening to the FM.
posted by jb at 5:17 PM on October 10, 2023

Many of you feel bad for this beep.

Come on, that's being uncharitable. We're feeling sorry for ourselves.
posted by klanawa at 5:19 PM on October 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

I would always pause in my work to beep along with the time signal between The Royal Canadian Air Farce and Quirks and Quarks

Maybe this was a replay on Sunday or something, but I have a memory of the time signal coming before Air Farce when I was a kid in the 80s. It had such excitement because it meant Air Farce was coming up.
posted by jb at 5:21 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dang it. I use the time signal to set my 1920’s Telechron 336 mantle clock to the exact time whenever the power goes out. It is synchronized to the electrical system, so otherwise it stays on time.

Guess I can always still call the NRC talking clock phone line.
posted by fimbulvetr at 6:13 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Maybe this was a replay on Sunday or something, but I have a memory of the time signal coming before Air Farce when I was a kid in the 80s. It had such excitement because it meant Air Farce was coming up.

I am pretty sure it was Saturday, but in fact the program was Double Exposure and not Air Farce.
posted by 3j0hn at 6:30 PM on October 10, 2023

God that little pre-news jingle - the sound of my youth
posted by signsofrain at 6:31 PM on October 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

.
posted by Canageek at 6:41 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is kind of the same issue that ruined "ringing in the new year" for me. How can you get into a countdown of time (already a difficult thing to get into) when you know it's probably buffering and hopefully within a minute of being correct? /me shakes feeble fist at sky
posted by nixxon at 7:05 PM on October 10, 2023

I will flip back and forth between listening to CBC radio 1 on an FM radio or on the internet as I walk around the house. There is a notable delay on the internet - which is great if you just miss something from when you're listening to the FM.

My wife listens to the CBC on her phone speakers while she is getting ready in the morning in the bathroom. I am often in the bedroom next to it, and more than once I have partially heard something that caught my attention so I have been able to switch on the radio and get there before the point of interest is spoken.

Gonna show you why they call me lightning.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:11 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Some time ago I heard a podcast by the founder of the Galaxie 500 band on how media changes with time. He mentioned growing up in Boston he could drive through the city (maybe in a convertible 500?) and hear the ball game coming out of countless apartment windows, all synched up. But now that doesn't happen -- not that more people in Boston have AC, but that everyone's reception is delayed by even a fraction of a second, but he no longer hears a continuous stream.

So yeah, if you're listening on digital radio, the NRC time signal doesn't make sense at all.

And it was 25 years ago, we were trying to design a time library better than JavaScript's, so we made a local call, actually across the street, to an expert on time who worked at the NRC in Ottawa. A great conversation, and the guy was happy to talk about other people who were actually interested in the intricacies of modelling time, as well as where JavaScript had gone completely wrong. But fighting JavaScript in 1998 was an uphill battle.
posted by morspin at 8:14 PM on October 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

TIL that Anglo Canadians heard the precise time at 1pm. Over at Radio-Canada, it was always at noon [Le Devoir link].
posted by third word on a random page at 9:27 PM on October 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm going to miss the ritual of resetting my car's clock to the top of the hour when it comes on.
. . . _
baa BUM BUM
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 10:22 PM on October 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

10 AM on the West Coast. I'll miss it too even though it's been wrong for ages now as we usually listen to CBC over the internet.
posted by snoboy at 10:51 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
posted by srboisvert at 5:21 AM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Some time ago I heard a podcast by the founder of the Galaxie 500 band on how media changes with time. He mentioned growing up in Boston he could drive through the city (maybe in a convertible 500?) and hear the ball game coming out of countless apartment windows, all synched up. But now that doesn't happen -- not that more people in Boston have AC, but that everyone's reception is delayed by even a fraction of a second, but he no longer hears a continuous stream.

When I watch broadcast TV for local sports here in Chicago, I know when a local team has scored about 5 seconds before the neighboring sports bar that's watching on cable. I have yet to figure out how to arbitrage this advantage though.
posted by srboisvert at 5:23 AM on October 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

The WWVB radio time signal is still available in US/Canada, but even that has been threatened by budget cuts recently.
posted by Lanark at 5:25 AM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

when I was in gradeschool in the late 70s this was my signal that lunch was over and it was time to run back to school. I'd stand at the door with my mom and we'd go "beep, beep, beep, beep, BOOOP" together, sometimes clappign pattycake style, and then I'd run off down the street.
posted by hearthpig at 5:26 AM on October 11, 2023 [6 favorites]

.

. It is synchronized to the electrical system, so otherwise it stays on time.

FYI they stopped locking the electrical grid to 60Hz a few years ago, at least on the west grid and I believe US/Canada wide to help manage loads so plug in electric mechanical clocks aren't as accurate they once were.
posted by Mitheral at 5:40 AM on October 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

> FYI they stopped locking the electrical grid to 60Hz a few years ago, at least on the west grid and I believe US/Canada wide to help manage loads so plug in electric mechanical clocks aren't as accurate they once were.
No AC system maintains exactly 60 Hz; as load changes, it changes the frequency, faster than the grid (and generators) can adapt.

But you can maintain it within a small window, and you can maintain 5184000 cycles/day, without much extra work.

Maybe they have stopped caring about the 5184000 cycles/day?
posted by NotAYakk at 7:11 AM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

FYI they stopped locking the electrical grid to 60Hz a few years ago, at least on the west grid and I believe US/Canada wide to help manage loads so plug in electric mechanical clocks aren't as accurate they once were.

All I know is that clock maintains accurate time within a second or two from where I set it unless the power goes out.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:28 AM on October 11, 2023

Maybe they have stopped caring about the 5184000 cycles/day?

Europe still does. When the Kosovo/Serbia power shitshow was going on back in 2018 the clocks lost 6 minutes because the grid slowed down to 49.996Hz because of unmet demand. They got the 6 minutes back by deliberately running 50.01Hz for a month.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:19 AM on October 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

They finally ran out of time.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:11 AM on October 11, 2023