[time-nuts] Line Frequency

Max Robinson max at maxsmusicplace.com
Mon Feb 10 21:55:13 EST 2014


I once dated a girl who's father was a jeweler and had one of those 
machines.  He knew I was a ham and showed me how it worked.  Its time base 
was a tuning fork that was in a housing that looked like a can capacitor but 
plugged in like a tube.  I think the frequency was 400 Hz, known as cycles 
in those days.

Regards.

Max.  K 4 O DS.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Shoppa" <tshoppa at gmail.com>
To: "Tom Van Baak" <tvb at leapsecond.com>; "Discussion of precise time and 
frequency measurement" <time-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Line Frequency


>>  IIRC some watch or clock company had a patent on calibrating a
> wristwatch crystal against AC hum. I read it once but can't find it now.
> Can you hunt for it?
>
> Tom - when I was a kid in the 1970's, before digital watches, the local
> jeweler had device with a table on which a watch or clock could be placed,
> the table must've been a microphone, and it had a pen recorder. It 
> produced
> a chart that looks like the "phase data" charts on yours and other
> websites; the jeweler adjusted the clock so the recorded line had no 
> slope.
> It had a selector for several common watch/clock gear ratios (don't think
> it did the tuning fork watches like the Accutron; I think there was a
> similar but different device for checking the tuning fork Accutrons, my 
> dad
> was enough of a clock nut that he actually had a tuning fork Accutron, and
> he is a NAWCC member still!). Over the course of an hour the adjustment
> could be fine trimmed to the point where we knew the movement was good to 
> a
> few minutes a month. Don't know if it was locked to mains frequency or had
> a crystal. Do you know what this was called?
>
> Tim N3QE
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