[time-nuts] VNG

Neville Michie namichie at gmail.com
Mon Sep 8 00:12:05 EDT 2008


There was a VNG users group that maintained the broadcast for some  
years before the
transmitter broke down. The same group developed a battery powered  
GPS receiver that
delivered a time service of pips and a display of current time. See
http://tufi.alphalink.com.au/vnguc/
The email address is not current.
I think the receiver lacked a disciplined oscillator to give standard  
frequency output.
This device is very interesting as it is easy to provide a UPS for it  
and so maintain
an accurate time standard that is not subject to drop out. This  
should be useful
to a time-nut like me who monitors pendulum timekeepers and is  
interested in earth tides
and similar phenomena.

Does any one know of a similar device or was any of our time-nuts  
involved with this receiver?
cheers,
Neville Michie



On 08/09/2008, at 11:52 AM, Jim Palfreyman wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For those of you mainly in Australia and New Zealand you may  
> remember VNG -
> the now long departed short wave Australian Time Signal service.  
> These words
> will be familiar:
>
> "This is VNG, Lyndhurst, Victoria, Australia on 4.5, 7.5 or 12 MHz.  
> VNG is a
> standard frequency and time signal service of the Australian
> Telecommunications Commission."
>
> and in fact if it were going now would be saying:
>
> "This is VNG, Lyndhurst, Victoria, Australia on 4.5, 7.5 or 12 MHz. A
> standard frequency and time signal service of the Australian
> Telecommunications Commission. Your attention please. In accordance  
> with
> international agreement the VNG time signals will be retarded by  
> precisely 1
> second on the 1st of January at zero hours Coordinated Universal  
> Time."
>
> Now to the good bit.
>
> I have acquired a cassette tape of original recordings of these  
> words that
> was used at VNG. The quality is surprisingly good. It includes 8  
> items:
>
> 1) 13-Dec-1966 VNG maintenance announcement
> 2) VNG station identification announcement by Len Grice (above)  
> that was
> broadcast every 15 minutes
> 3) January leap second announcement (above)
> 4) July leap second announcement
> 5) 1987 closure announcement by an unknown female voice
> 6) Final shortwave transmission at 30-Sep-1987 of VNG ending in static
> 7) Full studio take of all Len Grice's announcements - including  
> stuff ups
> 8) Radio Australia broadcast article on the closure of VNG dated 4- 
> Oct-1987.
> (Poor quality due to poor SW reception)
>
> For safe keeping I have digitised all these using a BOSS Micro BR  
> digital
> recorder and they are stored safely off site.
>
> For those of you who would like to listen to a bit of Australia's  
> history,
> send me an email and I'll send you a 721KB MP3 of number 2.
>
> I'm sure it will generate a few fond memories. It sure did for me.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jim Palfreyman
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ 
> time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.




More information about the time-nuts mailing list