[BC] Western Union Clocks

[rfoxwor1 at tampabay.rr.com]

I  was a vacation relief engineer at ABC in NYC in the 1960's and we had
WU clocks in every studio. The maint people ran an audio pair to a switch
built into the side of the console so we could listen to the audio from a
WWV receiver and get an idea of how much correction was needed, because
the newscast took air at xx.55 when the hourly clock drift was greatest.

Our WWV monitor was tuned to the 2500 kc signal from Beltsville MD (before
Fort Collins was built) and we had a good signal day and night. I think the
rcvr was atop the 6 story building we used then at 39 W 66th in NYC.  Not too
far from where many ABC radio people would go to lunch at the Cafe des Artistes.

WABC 770 'local radio' was on the 5th floor, the rest of it was network.

Good memories...

Bob k2euh

 
> The small towns didn't get real good service from the Western Union clock
> maintenance crew, so our clock was only accurate once an hour, when the
> reset tone came down the wire, and it would drift quite a bit in the next
> hour. We carried Mutual News on the top of each hour, so it was considered
> professional by us kids to backtime music so that it ended just in time for
> a quick legal ID and then the news, but with the WU clock this was sometimes
> difficult 
> 
> It was considered a rite at announcer shift change to inform the incoming
> announcer "Mutual is 3 seconds late today" or "Mutual is 4 seconds early
> today." Of course the problem wasn't with Mutual!  There was usually also a
> discussion on which cart machines (early Collins) weren't working, and if
> the Gates SpotTape head was tracking correctly.