Speaking Clock - Australia

Australia

In Australia, the number 1194 gives the speaking clock in all areas and from all providers. It is always the current time from where the call originates. A male voice says "At the third stroke, it will be (hours) (minutes) and (seconds) seconds/precisely. (three beeps)" e.g. "At the third stroke, it will be three thirty three and forty seconds ... beep beep beep". These are done in 10 second increments and the beep is 1 kHz.

Prior to automatic systems, the subscriber rang an operator who would quote the time from a central clock in the exchange with a phrase such as "The time by the exchange clock is...". This was not precise and the operator could not always answer when the subscriber wanted. In 1954, British made systems were installed in Melbourne and Sydney. The mechanical speaking clock used rotating glass discs where different parts of the time were recorded on the disc. A synchronous motor drove the disc with the driving source derived from a 5 MHz Quartz Oscillator via a multi stage valve divider. This was amplified to give sufficient impetus to drive the motor. Because of the low torque available, a hand wheel was used to spin the motor on start up. The voice was provided by Gordon Gow. The units were designed for continuous operation. Both units in Melbourne and Sydney were run in tandem (primary and backup). For daylight saving time changes, one would be on line while the second was advanced or delayed by one hour and at the 02:00:00 Australian Eastern Standard time, would be switched over to the standby unit.

As well as the speaking clocks, there was ancillary equipment to provide timing signals, 1 pulse per second, 8 pulses per minute and 8 pulses per hour. The Time and Frequency Standards Section in the PMG Research Laboratories at 59 Little Collins Street, Melbourne maintained the frequency checks to ensure that the system was "on time". From a maintenance point of view, the most important part of the mechanical clocks was to ensure that they were well oiled to minimise wear on the cams and to replace blown bulbs in the optical pickups from the glass disk recordings. When Time & Frequency Standards moved from 59 Collins Street to Clayton, the control signals were duplicated and a second bank of Caesium Beam Primary standards installed so the cutover was transparent with no loss of service.

This mechanical system was replaced with a digital system in 1990. Each speaking clock ensemble consisted of two announcing units (Zag 500), a supervisory unit (CCU 500), two phase-locked oscillators, two pulse distribution units, a Civil Time Receiver (plus a spare), and two or four Computime 1200 baud modems. The voice was provided by Richard Peach, a former ABC broadcaster. The various components were sent for commercial production after a working prototype was built in the Telstra Research Laboratory (TRL). Assmann Australia used a German announcing unit and built a supervisory unit to TRL specifications. Design 2000 incorporated TRL oscillators in the phase locked oscillator units designed at TRL and controlled by two tone from the Telstra Caesium beam frequency standards. Ged Company built civil time receivers. The civil time code generators and two tone generators were designed and built within TRL. The changeover occurred at midday, September 12, 1990.

Each state capital had a digital speaking clock for the local time of day with one access number Australia wide, 1194. In 2002 the Telstra 1194 service was migrated to Informatel (who use their own digital technology, in conjunction with the National Measurement Institute — but kept the original voice of Richard Peach), whilst the other time services (e.g. hourly pips to radio stations) was retained as a service by Telstra. In May 2006 the remaining Telstra services were withdrawn and the digital hardware was decommissioned. The 1194 service, though no longer provided by Telstra, is still operated by Informatel in partnership with Telstra as of January, 2010.