RIP: Canadian Broadcast Corporation's time signal announcement, just shy of its 84th anniversary

[thewayne]

The CBC began broadcasting a time signal on its shortwave station CHU on November 5th, 1939, the same year that it joined World War 1 and six years before the USA began broadcasting its time signal on their shortwave station WWV. The CBC Radio One time broadcast was discontinued unexpectedly earlier this month on October 9th. The reasons stated was that the Radio One broadcast is received through a number of means, including satellite reception, that can induce lag of several seconds, and in critical applications this cannot be relied upon.

You can still listen to CHU if you have a shortwave receiver and can pick up its signal, it broadcasts on 3.33, 7.85 and 14.67 MHz, and are heard through central/eastern Canada and the eastern United States. More info on the station at https://www.radioworld.com/global/chu-canadas-time-station. One thing that I find interesting is they regularly send out QSL cards! (something that only ham radio geeks would be interested in)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/canadas-84-year-radio-time-check-has-stopped-because-of-accuracy-concerns/


For the science fiction geeks amongst us, the sound of CHU's time signal's Morse code broadcast was used for the sound of the Rebel's radar signal in The Empire Strike's Back! It's embedded in the Battle of Hoth scene.

https://swling.com/blog/tag/the-empire-strikes-back/

Comments

[thewayne]

QSL cards are cool things!  I might set up a shortwave shack, or even go for my full Extra class later.  I've been a licensed ham for over 25 years now but haven't done much with it for a while.