NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David C
Date: 2024 Feb 17, 13:23 -0800
I can confirm that the pips broadcast in N Z on AM radio are accurate to within a second.. The "second" on my PC (with ntp turned on) rolled over to 01 just as the long pip ended. I believe that time is the start of the long pip. The long pip was introduced in 1972 to avoid confusion.
I note that Canada has done away with the pips and a little googling revealed the same with the ABC in Australia. Is NZ the only country outside the UK to still broadcast them? I can boast that every hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week I can listen to the pips and rate my chonometer (if I had one). I do not know when NZ introduced the pips but in the UK they date back to 1924. They were designed by Lord Reith (Head of the BBC) and Frank Watson Dyson the Astonomer Royal. A one hundred year tradition.
Forty minutes to the next hour. Maybe I will try and record the pips for posterity?
