The National Research Council Time Signal is Canada's longest running but shortest radio programme. Heard every day since November 5, 1939 (three years and three days after the CBC's establishment), shortly before 13:00 Eastern Time across the CBC Radio One network, it lasts between 15 and 45 seconds, ending exactly at 13:00. During standard time, the signal is at 13:00 Eastern Standard Time and during Daylight Saving Time, the signal is at 13:00 Eastern Daylight Saving Time.
The signal is also heard on some stations of the Première Chaîne radio network at 12:00 ET daily.
The signal consists of a series of 300 ms "pips" of an 800 Hz sine wave tone, each one starting at the top of each UTC second, up to ten seconds before the hour, followed by silence, and then a one second-long 800 Hz tone to mark the top of the hour. The CBC time signal is typically delayed by about 300 ms with respect to the CHU time signal, because each CBC radio station receives the actual time signal from Ottawa by satellite.
The spoken header, as announced by a local on-air talent at each station, is typically of the style,
| “ | Now, the National Research Council time signal. The beginning of the long dash following ten seconds of silence indicates exactly one o'clock, Eastern Standard Time, January 15th, 2010. | ” |
In different time zones, the local time and time zone is used instead. This header is usually spoken over the initial pips. As of May 2011, the length of the silence has been reduced to six seconds.
At the top of many other hours, and at the discretion of each station, a one-second tone is sounded, but the hour itself is not necessarily announced.
Read more about National Research Council Time Signal: NRC Telephone Talking Clock, NRC NTP Service
Famous quotes containing the words national, research, council, time and/or signal:
“...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the “tough guy;” today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“The great question that has never been answered and which I have not get been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a women want?””
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree
With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild
Twelve ragged men, the council of charity
Wandering the face of the earth a fatherless child....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“It wasn’t the right time for us to meet. But there’ll be other nights, other stars for us to watch. They’ll be back.”
—Harry Essex (b. 1910)
“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)