The Greenwich Time Signal (GTS), popularly known as the pips, is a series of six short tones broadcast at one-second intervals by many BBC Radio stations. The pips were introduced in 1924 and have been generated by the BBC since 1990. to mark the precise start of each hour. Their utility in calibration is diminishing as digital broadcasting entails time lags.
Read more about Greenwich Time Signal: Structure, Usage, Accuracy, History, Crashing The Pips, Technical Problems, Similar Time Signals Elsewhere
Famous quotes containing the words greenwich, time and/or signal:
“Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets and eyes while I
walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“Dear, why should you command me to my rest,
When now the night doth summon all to sleep?
Methinks this time becometh lovers best;
Night was ordained together friends to keep.
How happy are all other living things,
Which though the day disjoin by several flight,
The quiet evening yet together brings,
And each returns unto his love at night.”
—Michael Drayton (1563–1631)
“Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance would seem to be the signal for instant confusion.... The mine which Time has slowly dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)