[time-nuts] Visiting Greenwich

[Morris Odell]

This is a terrific thread. I have been to Greenwich too and also some of the 
clock exhibits in London. There's a beautiful pendulum master and slave 
clock set up in the British Museum, and there's an original huge Caesium 
(British spelling!)  frequency standard in the Kensington Science Museum. 
The last time I was there in 2013 there was also a special feature 
exhibition about Alan Turing and the Bletchley code breakers.  I did pass 
through Bletchley station on the train about 20 years ago when I was in the 
UK but regrettably didn't have the time to stop there. I can recommend the 
climb up the hill at Greenwich to anyone - it's definitely worth the effort. 
They didn't allow photography of the Harrison clocks but I did manage to 
sneak one or two before the minder got to me :-)

I'd love to have a genuine electro-optical speaking clock. There's one in 
the Australian Telecom museum not far from where I live. There's also a 
terrific display of a complete electromechanical telephone exchange 
including a speaking clock in the telecommunications museum in Stockholm but 
as I don't speak Swedish I couldn't understand what it was saying.  I've 
just finished making a speaking clock using more modern technology, it uses 
a 30 year old speech synthesizer chip and sounds just like Stephen Hawking.

Morris
Melbourne, Australia
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:42:19 +1000
From: Jim Palfreyman <jim77742 at gmail.com>
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
<time-nuts at febo.com>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Visiting Greenwich

Speaking of "speaking clocks" - here's two photos of the ones that used to
be used in Australia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_clock#Australia

The top photo with rotating optical disks is a gorgeous piece of machinery.

The one below - I have one, and I keep it running.

:-)