In front of National Research Council Canada Laboratories

The ''National Research Council Time Signal'' was Canada's longest running radio program, begun 5 November 1939 until its final broadcast on 9 October 2023. Broadcast daily shortly before 13:00

Eastern Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico. * Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five hours behi ...

across the

CBC Radio One CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information radio network of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial-free and offers local and national programming. It is available on AM and FM to 98 percent o ...

network, it lasted between 15 and 60 seconds, ending exactly at 13:00. During standard time, the signal was at 13:00 Eastern Standard Time and during

Daylight Saving Time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time, daylight time (Daylight saving time in the United States, United States and Daylight saving time in Canada, Canada), or summer time (British Summer Time, United Kingdom, ...

, the signal was at 13:00 Eastern Daylight Saving Time. The signal was also heard on some stations of the

Ici Radio-Canada Première Ici Radio-Canada Première (formerly Première Chaîne) is a Canadian French-language radio network, the news and information service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (known as Société Radio-Canada in French), the public broadcaster of ...

network at 12:00 ET daily, particularly in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces. The signal consisted of a series of 300 ms "pips" of an 800 Hz

sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or sinusoid (symbol: ∿) is a periodic function, periodic wave whose waveform (shape) is the trigonometric function, trigonometric sine, sine function. In mechanics, as a linear motion over time, this is ''simple ...

tone, each one starting at the top of each

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

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 was typically delayed by about 300 ms with respect to the CHU time signal, because each CBC radio station received the actual time signal from

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

by satellite. One of the first announcers of what was then the Dominion Observatory Time Signal on CBC was

Lorne Greene Lorne Hyman Greene (born Lyon Himan Green; February 12, 1915 – September 11, 1987) was a Canadian actor, singer, and radio personality. His notable television roles include Ben Cartwright on the Western ''Bonanza'' and Commander Adama in ...

, while he was a staff announcer at CBO. The most recent spoken header, as announced by one of CBC Radio's promotional voices, was as follows: In different time zones, the local time and time zone was used instead. This header was usually spoken over the initial pips. As of May 2011, the length of the silence had been reduced to six seconds, with a soft click at the beginning of each second during the silence. At the top of many other hours, and at the discretion of each station, a one-second tone was sounded, but the hour itself was not necessarily announced. The segment was discontinued in part due to concerns about accuracy as the CBC's feed is distributed over the internet and satellite as well as conventional radio. An NRC spokesperson noted that the CBC's installation of

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...

transmitters led to a delay of up to 9 seconds in transmission. The CBC itself noted that with different distribution methods for CBC radio, it could no longer ensure the time signal's accuracy.

NRC Telephone Talking Clock

NRC runs two telephone numbers that announce the time of day. Voice announcements of

are made every 10 seconds, followed by a tone indicating the exact time. This service is available to the general public by dialing +1 (613) 745-1576 for English service and +1 (613) 745-9426 for French service. The call is automatically cut off after 30 seconds or three announcements. Long-distance charges may apply for those calling from outside the Ottawa/Gatineau area, depending on provider. The English message, voiced by late CBC Radio announcer

Harry Mannis Harry Mannis (April 11, 1920 - January 2, 2003) was a Canadian broadcaster who worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.https://www.ogs.on.ca/ogspi_pages/2003/o2003cbh.htm Harry Mannis, retrieved February 4, 2018 He joined the CBC in 1946 ...

, is in the following format, repeated every ten seconds: The French service uses the voice of

Radio-Canada Radio-Canada may refer to: * CBC/Radio-Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation *Ici Radio-Canada Télé, the CBC's main French-language television network *Ici Radio-Canada Première Ici Radio-Canada Première (formerly Première Chaîne) i ...

news anchor Simon Durivage, with the following message format: This is followed by a single 800 Hz beep lasting 0.3 seconds. The word "exactly" (in French, ) replaces "and ''s'' seconds"/"" at the top of the minute. Additionally, there is an 800 Hz "tick" every second in the background. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, a modified version of the NRC Telephone Talking Clock was transmitted over television channel CPAC while the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

was not sitting. The announcements alternated between English and French, and cycled through all six of Canada's

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

s, as well as

NRC NTP service

The NRC offers time synchronization over the Internet using

Network Time Protocol The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-Network latency, latency data networks. In operation since before 1985, NTP is one of the oldest Intern ...

. Computers, routers, and other devices with NTP clients (including Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows) can use these servers to ensure that they have the correct time. The NTP stratum-2 servers are at these addresses: * time.nrc.ca * time.chu.nrc.ca The NRC NTP service was subject to multiple

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host co ...

s in 2014, which led to minor disruptions.

References

External links

NRC Telephone Talking Clock

NRC NTP service

See also

References

External links