# An old clock - Manufactured around 1948



## Kneth (Aug 7, 2010)

I found this pic on a FB page.
Never seen one before. How do you read the time? Seems it is well preseved.
The post said;
_Here’s an oldie... still works.... dated 1948 - note some of the cities and countries shown..._


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

Fantastic! Slight problem with Summer Time changes. One of these can be found on EBAY.. for a mere $1,250.


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## djringjr (Feb 11, 2008)

04 hours 42 minutes 11 seconds. The clock has a 24 hour movement, rare but not extremely unusual in communications environments.

I have a modern 24 hour clock which is on my wall. One in white or black dial is available from Amazon. The clock in the picture which I attach is the one from Amazon and it's reading 20:10:14 or 2010 hours and 14 seconds.


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

17 hours 12 minutes 11 seconds. ???? 

Not on the clock above. It is NOW showing 20 hours 10 minutes 14 seconds. Zulu.

Stephen


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## Mad Landsman (Dec 1, 2005)

The world time card is rotated by the user so that the time zone in which you are located aligns with the top of the dial.
You can then read off the time for other parts of the world by the hour corresponding the their sector.
If it was properly lined up then the 'local' time would be 17:12, but Zulu time 11:12. 
They were made by a company called Timing Devices Co, of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, from around 1948 to 1955.
As it is an electric clock it might need some 'adjustment' to work in other countries.


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## djringjr (Feb 11, 2008)

Stephen J. Card said:


> 17 hours 12 minutes 11 seconds. ????
> 
> Not on the clock above. It is NOW showing 20 hours 10 minutes 14 seconds. Zulu.
> 
> Stephen


The original poster asked "how do you read this clock" and I responded with the time that original clock reads. The clock in the picture that I attached is the one from Amazon and it's reading 20:10:14 or 2010 hours and 14 seconds. The brand of the clock is Trintec and isi available in black or white face. https://smile.amazon.com/Trintec-Hour-Military-Time-Clock/dp/B00PECGJWW


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

djringjr said:


> The original poster asked "how do you read this clock" and I responded with the time that original clock reads. The clock in the picture that I attached is the one from Amazon and it's reading 20:10:14 or 2010 hours and 14 seconds. The brand of the clock is Trintec and isi available in black or white face. https://smile.amazon.com/Trintec-Hour-Military-Time-Clock/dp/B00PECGJWW



Whew! If you made a mistake like that your sights would be practically worthless!

Stephen


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## wsrmb01 (May 24, 2020)

17 hours 12 minutes 11 seconds. ???? 
I can't see beyond 04:42:11.... Due to the positioning of the 'Short' Hand nearly at 05, and the 'Long' hand at 42, but then I have never seen one of these before, so perhaps off mark! Trying in my mind, to see how it lines up for GMT.....


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## Mad Landsman (Dec 1, 2005)

Is it not amazing when someone makes a mistake and others following fail to spot it but slavishly continue with the error?
Mea culpa!
Yes, of course the time shown is 04:42:11
If the world time card is moved a couple of degrees clockwise so that the red arrows line up with the hour marks then the time shown would be Standard Time in Nome, Alaska.
Zulu time, GMT, UTC would be 11:43:11.

PS - I have just checked a couple of the time zones shown and best advice is: Do not rely on it, 'times' have changed since that clock was made.


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

Bugger! You made me buy a new "Zulu" clock for the kitchen! The missus is going to be very confused.........
Rgds.
Dave


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## djringjr (Feb 11, 2008)

Stephen J. Card said:


> Whew! If you made a mistake like that your sights would be practically worthless!
> 
> Stephen


The Amazon clock was easy to read, but I didn't recognize which hand was longer in the original photo, maybe I was confused by the glare, and my eyesight is poor anyway which doesn't help. I've corrected my errors in the above posts. My posting a second 24 hour movement clock didn't help the confusion but added to it. Are we having fun yet? It's almost as fun as having the radio department advancing or retarding each of the three watches by 20 minutes throughout the night watches. Further confuse that by a trip to the bridge where they even divide that up in smaller bites to equalize the night shifts of the seamen there. Am I confused yet? I don't know but my brain has pieces that make noises when I shake my head now. Darn it why doesn't the world just use Zulu time?


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

LOL.


djringjr said:


> Darn it why doesn't the world just use Zulu time?


What is ZULU time? Is Zulu = UTC. Zulu is NOT GMT!!!! It is 'corrected' time... the difference is 0.9 seconds different. This stared in 1972 or 1973. I guess about time we were getting radio time signals so we were using the correction between UTC and Chronometer. I guess I just did not quite understand what it was all about. Why not just use GMT instead of the fancy work Zulu? I thought it was just some 'foreign' country in Denver wanted to change. :-(

Looking at the clock (first post) showing all of the time zone names. Great times. Went through Google to see how these names are using today. Interesting. Then I spied a whole list of zones as, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc etc and then at the bottom is Zulu. All of these names are listed as 'Military' zones. Zulu is + - Zero. All now becomes 'clear'. I guess I was only ever using GMT and Local Time for navigational time. The rest didn't matter.

Stephen


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

So, Stephen, after your research, am I right in believing that Zulu is current local time, irrespective of Greenwich?

When travelling, I always leave my analog timepiece at Local Mexico City (GMT -6) and use my phone for local time. My missus, however, was very confused when I was once in Auckland and said I would be home "tomorrow", Friday. She didn't realize that, flying out on Friday from Auckland, I would repeat Friday, arriving in Mexico City on the same day!

Looking forward to my Amazon delivery (next Friday).

Rgds.
Dave


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## Mad Landsman (Dec 1, 2005)

Universal Time Coordinated - internationally accepted time for navigation and communication etc.
Even NASA and others use it on the international space station.
Military use Z for Zulu and others have adopted the term. 
Based on GMT and for most practical purposes is the same but nowadays used mainly by astronomers.


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

"So, Stephen, after your research, am I right in believing that Zulu is current local time, irrespective of Greenwich?"
Dave, ZULU stays same as GMT.... nothing to do with 'time saving'.... that changes from Zulu or to Zulu Plus One. Or call it 'GMT Plus One' during 'time saving'.

Malcom, UTC or Zulu... is still the same. I think we are on the right track. 

Stephen


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

GMT/UTC surely are both the same and by practice 'kept' by atomic timekeepers. To tell the longitude by astronomical means it is necessary to know the solar time which is 'kept' by the imprecise timekeeper which is Mother Earth. Telling that time can only be done by the astronomers and, to humour those who keep UTC/GMT on atomic clocks, leap seconds are added or subtracted to ensure the difference is never more than 0.9 seconds. The prime meridian if calculated from UTC 'wanders' and can make it towards the boundaries of the Greenwich observatory grounds before being dragged back by a 'correction'. 

Why do we not use Zulu time everywhere? Excellent questioning. I do not know but I do (barring a few remaining user overfamiliar timepieces which are radio controlled). In Summer this can result in my guests being surprised by the lateness of the hour when reaching home.


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

The name ZULU is for GMT.... makes sense to me. There are 25 time zone. Each zone if given a name, one from letter of the alphabet. The letters are named after the phonetic alphabet. ALPHA BRAVE CHARLE DELTA ECHO etc

Zones A to M are those in EAST hemisphere have values Zone ALPHA + 1 hr. Zone BRAVO is +2 on to Zone M + 12 hrs, Zones N to Y are in WEST hemisphere etc... Zone NOVEMBER - 1 hrs. Zone .OSCAR - 2 hrs etc etc. 

The odd one is ZULU.... right on the middle of Greenwhich. at Zero time Zone. ZULU + or - Zero.

Hard not to forget it... Z... ZULU, ZONE, ZERO. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!! Sorry.

Stephen


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

Jeez! Let me explain all of this to the "missus"!!!! She is going to be very confused!
Clock arrives Friday.
Rgds.
Dave


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## John Hexham (May 16, 2021)

Kneth said:


> I found this pic on a FB page.
> Never seen one before. How do you read the time? Seems it is well preseved.
> The post said;
> _Here’s an oldie... still works.... dated 1948 - note some of the cities and countries shown..._


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## John Hexham (May 16, 2021)

What a magnificent specimen
My old mate Peter Rob Drake from Hexham has one similar. Which he bought off his old teacher


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## triumphguy (Jan 20, 2011)

Kneth said:


> I found this pic on a FB page.
> Never seen one before. How do you read the time? Seems it is well preseved.
> The post said;
> _Here’s an oldie... still works.... dated 1948 - note some of the cities and countries shown..._


When my ship (USS Joseph Strauss DDG16) deployed to WestPac in 1976, as we passed through each time zone the Quartermasters would dutifully adjust the clocks (all analog, of course) in the various navigation, bridge and radio spaces to comport with the correct local time. In Combat Information Center we had a bank of clocks showing the time in different locations around the world, as well as one (the 'Zulu' clock) that showed GMT (which was used for all radio communications). I was standing watch when I heard the chief shout 'Don't touch that #@&*^$ clock!' and looked up to see a junior seaman about to adjust the Zulu clock back (or forward?) one hour. It wouldn't have been catastrophic (unless nobody realized it had been changed) had it happened but simply as a matter of practice, you never touched the Zulu clock.
There were also three (I think) chronometers, extremely accurate mechanical movement clocks located in specific navigation spaces. These chronometers were never adjusted or reset. They were wound a specific number of turns at the same time every day, and one of the traditional reports delivered to the captain at noon (along with magazine temperatures, AWOL reports and other administrative details) was 'All chronometers have been wound and compared.' They were used for celestial, solar and dead reckoning navigation (Do they even do that in the Navy any more???) and for that you were interested in the rate of change (how fast it was slowing down or speeding up), not the absolute time. The shipyards were the only facilities authorized to adjust the chronometers. If your ship had been out of the yards for a few years, it wasn't unusual for the chronometers to be several hours off from the actual time. I see one pop up on eBay from time to time but they're usually more than I can afford.
Cheers,
Patrick Cherry
Ojai, California USA


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## John Hexham (May 16, 2021)

"Peter Drake"
Hexham
Teacher
Cracking article!


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## Peter Farrington (Jun 10, 2021)

In the 60's this was called 'flogging the clocks".
I do not know why.
Peter Farrington


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## Peter Farrington (Jun 10, 2021)

*flog* _vb_ to sell. A common colloquialism in Britain which would still be cosidered slang by some speakers. The word originally referred to selling off military stores illicitly and is said to derive from a 19th-century expression to 'flog the clock', meaning to put the clock forward to shorten the working day, later extended to other devious behaviour.


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## Kneth (Aug 7, 2010)

Seeing these old treasures, brings back the old pleasant memories... the good old days!


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## soccerover (Mar 30, 2009)

I have a shipboard chronometer made by Thos. Russell & Son, Slater St., Liverpool, Number 6043

Had it for more than 50 years and can't remember how much I paid for it or likely value today - any guesses ?


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## majoco (Oct 15, 2008)

Three chronometers? You lucky so-and-so's! How did you synchronise them if there was only one or two time siganls per day? The most often used time signal for British ships was the GBR Rugby signal sent on 16kHz (yes, 16kHz!) at 0900 and 2100Z which could be heard over most of the Atlantic from north to south and right across to the Gulf and Indian Ocean. It was usually my job to check the chrono every morning, note the deviation in the book and the required correction to get the true time and wind it. I recall sometimes a small indicator showing the state of 'wind'.Then at Noon the 2nd and 3rd mates would do their sights and ask me to jot down the time when they thought the sun was at it's zenith, often a few seconds between them. On my very first trip I heard someone call "When is noon today?". Fortunately I had the nous to keep my mouth shut! Most often the ship time was changed in one hour increments but I did sail with one old man who wanted to change times in 20 minute adjustments - nobody knew what the time was after a few days! In the end I put my wris****ch on to Zulu!


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## majoco (Oct 15, 2008)

Looking back at some earlier posts.....

I understood that GMT was based on the rotation of the earth and used the zenith of the sun at Greenwich. However, some astro-physicist found that the rotation of the earth using the stars as a reference showed up the deficiencies of GMT and was then used by astronomers to find the true location of stars. They called it "Sidereal Time" but some French bloke called it UTC - universal time co-ordinated. So now, based on UTC there is often a leap-second put on the GMT to bring it closer - you can sometimes hear that on WWV/WWVH as the double tick before the tone at the hour.


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## Peter Hewson (Mar 12, 2019)

I have seen one of these before, In a ship`s Radio Room., But which ship eludes me?.

Thinking about it, Might it be the the Jerimiah O` Brian, The "last" Libery Ship based in San Fransisco?. I went aboard in 2004. Got a shed load of photo`s somewhere?


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

I think it goes something like this:

Sideral time gains about 4 minutes on GMT/UTC (which are the same). Not much point in taking a noon sun sight and using it to determine longitude from a sideral clock without applying some form of offset. The leap second is used so that the super accurate atomic clocks which now 'keep' time can 'show' GMT (all clocks merely keep the time from one astronomical observation until the next).

(Might using sideral time make star sights simpler? - one chronometer for the mate running four minutes a solar day faster than for the noon sight. Navigators please.)


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## majoco (Oct 15, 2008)

Radio Room clocks looked like this:









but mine at home now looks like this:









the switch at the side changes from UTC (from GPS), local NZ standard time or summer time.


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