MoD spent £40,000 on calling speaking clock

[Sun Who]

BBC News - MoD spent £40,000 on calling speaking clock (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23814934)

Genuine question - why were people in the RAF calling the Speaking Clock?
What was the need?


Sun.

[barnstormer1968]

Two reasons spring to mind:

To find out the correct time
And
To waste government money by ringing and then leaving the phone off the hook.

[smujsmith]

Sun Who,

As I read it, it's not people "serving" in the RAF. It's people at MOD, probably CS types, and pollies. Someone has to ensure that the talking clock continues to be a profitable enterprise.

Smudge

[Wrathmonk]

Well it can't have been the fighter squadrons - they tended to get their "time-hacks" from the newspaper. And not always that days!:E

[Pontius Navigator]

To check the time for time synch perhaps?

With accurate digital watches your ability to tell the time accurately for civilian work is good enough.

If you take a 4-ship, with 8 accurate digitals between them, you can expect to have at least 8 different times.

While a TOT may be specified as +/- 3 minutes it is necessary that all elements of a formation are on the same time. At 480 kts you are talking of 300 yards per second. If your watch differs from another in the formation by only 7 seconds you are talking a one mile difference in position error.

Then every ATC will be checking its chronometers daily. Flight planning in wing ops and squadrons will also be checking daily. Some chronometers may need checking more than once per day.

That is a lot of checking.

[kintyred]

I understand the need for time checks. Call 01352 838081 to hear it free (assuming MoD is savvy enough to have 01 calling plan(!)). The point here is that MoD personnel must know that it costs money to call "Tim" but can't be bothered to find an alternative. "It's not my money". That attitude must pervade the entire department and will be costing the taxpayer a fortune.

[langleybaston]

so when my smartphone clicks to the next minute it is/ may be wrong? Never known it disagree with Rugby signal clock in my breakfast room.
Puzzled by this one.

[Capetonian]

Those numbers don't work from outside the UK. Perhaps it's because they're in Wales.

[Sun Who]

Pontious,

Yep, timehack was my first thought, but surely these days, time for that sort of thing comes from GPS?

Sun.

[PhilipG]

These days what is the reference for time? If you have an FM Radio, a DAB Radio, a computer, a Freeview TV tuned to the radio, a Freesat TV tuned to the radio, and I am sure other devices tuned say to Radio 4 there are a number of seconds between the start of the pips, so checking your watch by the radio is no use.

[Top Bunk Tester]

I always use

Current time (http://www.atomic-clock.org.uk/atomic-clock.php)

Like the WRAF block, there's something fishy here.

[smujsmith]

My wristwatch is kept accurate by signals from Rugby. My IPad, phone and laptop are updated via Internet to the atomic clock. Even my blinking TV can update itself through the Internet for time. Why would anyone need to pay a penny for a time check. Of course, once you get into the subject of "it's only taxpayers money" you're in to a whole different ball game. This story mystifies me, I can't believe that MOD has so many stupid people working for it in this "enlightened" technical age.

Smudge

TBT, nice link there thanks.:ok:

[NutLoose]

They were probably calling the Speaking clock in the USA :E

[Dominator2]

Two things spring to mind. I have recently finished flying at RAFC Cranwell. I tried for 2 years to get ATC to LPO a clock that synched to the radio time signal. I got tired of the Local Assistant setting something within 2-3 minutes of the correct time. The last Sqn that operated jet ac at Cranwell had 5 such clocks.
Since just about every ac in the RAF now has GPS and other GPS time synched system, why not all use GPS time.
The reason that people use BT is because it is easy and the RAF fails to provide even the simplest thing, an accurate clock!!

[gr4techie]

I can nether confirm nor deny a legend that on one UK unit I was posted to... there was a random unassuming store room tucked in a corner of nowhere. Where for some reason I would see the same small group of guys walk into, use the phone and then walkout.
Turns out it was an outside line tucked under a table that maybe someone forgot to disconnect after it was used as someones office several sqns and maybe many a/c types ago. And since then gathered dust as a store room.
Apparently one guy phoned a bar in South Africa to find out what entertainment they had on and what the beer prices were?

[TomJoad]

This type of negligence deserves to get exposed nothing short of criminal. I think your right barnstormer Two reasons spring to mind:

To find out the correct time
And
To waste government money by ringing and then leaving the phone off the hook.

I bet a fair chunk of this is deliberately malicious. Get the number blocked MoD and get it done now.

[Avtur]

Remember UTC is currently 16 seconds behind GPS time:8

[Jimlad1]

I looked at this story and my heart sank as I knew it would be another case of 'the military are wonderful and nothing to do with the civvy scum who make up the CS, and who are to blame for all our woes'. Nice to see some posts confirmed this. More seriously, I read this not as a bunch of random staff ringing the speaking clock, but actually a technical fault -

" "A ban was introduced to our newest telephone network, but due to a technical error with some IT servers there has been some inadvertent spending on the speaking clock which has now been stopped."

Now, to my simple brain that implies a problem with something to do with DII or some other element which made the phones dial it - the phrase about IT servers and spending seems a typically clunky way of saying 'technical problem not human fault'.

[tailchase]

Have you stood in a room full of aircrew/ops/eng various when one of them insists on calling a hack and then spend the morning not only getting the clock put right but deciding whose time is accurate? If DII could do it let alone via the internet with inherent delay then it would work but don't rely on watches of about 30 people of various makes/types/expense who is right or not.

Doesn't account for £40K in one go though!

[Pontius Navigator]

Try a time check on analogue and digital.

Try listening to the same programme on Freeview and Sky - they are out of synch.

GPS time may be a 'universal' time but the wrist watch is what you have in the briefing room unless someone drives an aircraft in to it.

[Lima Juliet]

Have a look at GPS, UTC, and TAI Clocks (http://leapsecond.com/java/gpsclock.htm)

You will see that a variety of different time signals around the world are massively inaccurate - including GPS and LORAN. Some GPS have software to correct by applying a correction of leap seconds - but do you know which GPS has this?

I've always used TIM in my 25 years of aviation as it is reliable, if I synchronise to it and others do as well I know we all have the same time reference - and as PN says, when thrashing through the sky at up to 20 miles a minute, then good timing is everything!

LJ

[smujsmith]

PN,

Absolutely spot on, no one could argue against you. So why do our services bother with "earth time"? Seriously, generate an op time, set watches and work on that. If the brief does a hack of 0000 time, everything after that can be easily compensated for. Want your op 4 minutes late, transmit " all ops "hack" plus four". Who cares what time the rest of the world use.

Smudge

[Dominator2]

Pontius, What time do all operational systems (Link 16, Havequick, Secure, GPS etc) all work on. Is that not the time that is relevant to aviators in the 21st C.
LJ, I tried to get the UFAF and USN to use TIM but they didn't seen to understand.
Smudge, Not great for the guy on the ground who doesn't get the Rolex.

[TomJoad]

I looked at this story and my heart sank as I knew it would be another case of 'the military are wonderful and nothing to do with the civvy scum who make up the CS, and who are to blame for all our woes'. Nice to see some posts confirmed this. More seriously, I read this not as a bunch of random staff ringing the speaking clock, but actually a technical fault -

" "A ban was introduced to our newest telephone network, but due to a technical error with some IT servers there has been some inadvertent spending on the speaking clock which has now been stopped."

Now, to my simple brain that implies a problem with something to do with DII or some other element which made the phones dial it - the phrase about IT servers and spending seems a typically clunky way of saying 'technical problem not human fault'.


Jim certainly not having a go at CS vice mil please accept that - I know better my good lady is MoD CS. This is an MoD failure and that includes mil. It's a corporate failure that can't get its act together to block a telephone number - something that you or I or any other organisation in the UK finds, well rather easy to do. If it (MoD) is not competent to project manage blocking a telephone number then how can we expect it to manage the big projects. Please do not turn this into a mil v cs argument - that is just a scapegoat. We had enough of those goats on the RAF Club thread.:}

[Top Bunk Tester]

I may be being a little naive here and have only set foot in MB once, but how many briefings within MB are required to start with a time hack?

Just a thought :confused:

[taxydual]

And (grammer again), sod it. It's close enough for government work.

[Lima Juliet]

TBT

I think when the media says "MOD" they mean all departments across all services in all stations, bases and ships?

Dom2

What time do all operational systems (Link 16, Havequick, Secure, GPS etc) all work on.

For Link16 it depends on who the Network Time Reference (NTR) is. I can remember we used to have to put a time synch bracket of up to 3 minutes because the Ftr Controller Asst didn't have a watch and it was a 2 minute walk to the NTR cabin from their boss' watch! Havequick can be synched via a TOD from an aircraft/ship/tank or automatically through GPS. As for GPS, each satellite has its own atomic clock, but the master time reference comes from a time signal in Colorado (I believe) - as you can see it is about 15 seconds late at the moment. All can be very inaccurate from the real UTC time.

I've never been let down by TIM and it used to be normal to have the speaking clock on a speakerphone running for 2 minutes at the start of a Fast Jet Sqn's Morning Met Brief - that way the whole Sqn is on the same time.

LJ

[ex-fast-jets]

The only accurate time is the one that happens to be on my wife's watch - at the time!

(Please forgive the pun!) :bored:

[BEagle]

I bought a neat little radio-controlled alarm clock from the Lufthansa World Shop many years ago; it's not much bigger than a credit card and can receive any world time broadcast.

As you would expect from something German, it keeps time very precisely.

One of the great drawbacks of digital TV is that it cannot keep accurate time. Hence you no longer see countdown clocks before the 18:00 TV news. FM radio still broadcasts the Greenwich pips, but if the government gets its way and we're forced down the DAB :yuk: road, even that option will disappear. Neither can DAB provide RDS information.....:rolleyes: But it can provide lots of channels of utter junk......

[Lima Juliet]

I always enjoyed my Air Defender's watch...annoyed the crap out of Mud-Movers...looked like this one:

http://www.themeparkshopper.com/catalog/mickey_watch_lg02.JPG

I still set it to TIM though! ;)

LJ

[Easy Street]

To the posters who blamed civil servants and desk jockeys for the speaking clock bill, you couldn't possibly be any further from the truth!

In the business of ground attack, timing is vital. Whether you are coordinating with army units or other members of your formation, you need to know the time precisely; with some kinds of attack profiles you might to fly to a timing tolerance of +/- 5 seconds to avoid collecting fragments of bomb or colliding with a buddy over the target (witness the Harriers at Otterburn many years ago). On every ground attack squadron I've served on, the working day has begun with a 'hack' delivered from the speaking clock, immediately followed by met brief. Shortly before the final set of 'pips' a hush descends upon the room and the working day is underway. The theatrical aspect of it reinforces the underlying message behind it being the first briefing item of the day - timing matters! Most squadrons will have 2 or 3 met briefs per day. The cost of the speaking clock? At 31p per call, 93p per squadron per day. Peanuts.

Those of a mathematical bent will also recognise the concept of compounding errors. If all aircrew everywhere in the UK synchronise their watches directly from the speaking clock, they will all be +/- 1 second of each other. However if Ops Clerk Bloggs has synchronised the wall clock and got it 1 second out, and then the aircrew all hack from that, they will be between 0 and 2 seconds out. If Blogg's mate at the squadron across the airfield has synchronised their clock one second out the other way, then aircrew from the 2 squadrons might have the time as much as 4 seconds apart. If you're flying a mixed-sqn push including an attack profile with +/- 5 seconds tolerance, a big chunk of that has disappeared before you've even heard the met brief...

To those that cry "GPS", well, yes, GPS is the master time reference. So, what do you do if an error has been made with the crypto loading, and there's no time to rectify it, and you have to go in unprotected C/A mode? Some aircraft will not accept unprotected GPS time into the aircraft computer, as a defence against GPS jamming. Speaking purely for the Tornado, there are still times when the aircraft clock must be set purely by reference to the wristwatch. Rare, but it happens. For something as important as the time, there has to be a fall-back system.

RF-synchronised clocks don't work inside hardened buildings like squadron ops rooms, and aerial cables are typically not allowed near classified computer networks. Plus I have seen similar items in use when on detachment and have, on occasion, found them to be wrong. And the trouble with systems that are correct 90% of the time is that on the 10% of the time that they're not, you don't notice until it's too late.

[Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there is still no officially-issued aircrew watch, following the debacle with Pulsar crowns being pulled all the way out. Obviously in the world of officialdom it's better for aircrew to make do with their own personal items; at least when they fall apart it'll be the aircrew's fault for wearing non-approved equipment into the cockpit :hmm:]

[Genuine question to any current mud-movers out there - is there really a "ban" and is anyone sticking up for your requirements against clueless bandwagon-jumping politicians?]

[Courtney Mil]

PN, exactly. I was about to say the same thing.

If you have an FM Radio, a DAB Radio, a computer, a Freeview TV tuned to the radio

Try it at home, kids. Hear the lag between analogue on FM and digital. Nothing wrong with choosing a datum and sticking with it. This is just another bandwagon on which to jump. Personally, I'm currently off the wagon. :cool:

Leon, quite right. Most of the nets can, and often do, take their reference time from wheresoever the operators choose. Often the flight lead giving a Mickey.

£16,000 a year? Grow up. How much did HS2 just go up by? How much has F-35 gone up by? So far.

[CoffmanStarter]

Forgive my ignorance ... but what's wrong in using the 60Hz MSF signal to sync a standard spec clock issued throughout the UK Mil ? Everyone required to then sync to that reference ?

The signal, also known as the MSF signal (and formerly the Rugby clock) is broadcast at a highly-accurate frequency of 60 kHz and can be received throughout the UK, and in much of northern and western Europe. The signal’s carrier frequency is maintained at 60 kHz to within 2 parts in 10x12, controlled by caesium atomic clocks at the radio station.

We could even bring back the good old Sector Clock ... R/C'd :ok:

[Lima Juliet]

Easy

Good post me-old. So let's say that each Sqn on a FJ station does 3 time checks a day (morning/afternoon/night waves) and there are 3 Sqns then that is £2.79 per day. Add Ops and ATC into the mix on the same station then that is another £1.86 and it totals £4.65. Let's round it up to a round £5 per day on station because others may need it (like OC Regt or the SWO who is doing a a parade in the local High Street). So that is £5 per day per Station, so for a year that is ~£1,830 per year. Add together the 10 flying stations and that is now £18,300 per year and then we, the RAF, have spent nearly half the disputed £40,000.

What a storm in a bloomin' teacup!!! :ugh:

LJ

[Courtney Mil]

Always fogiven, Coff! :ok:

Just think how much money the MoD has saved over the years because the flight lead called the Speaking Clock and then gvae the rest of the four-ship a verbal hack at the start of the formation breif. Wonderful. Should have been £320,000.

[CoffmanStarter]

Cheers Courtney ...

Mind you ... I understand the Navy have started introducing some very sophisticated kit :E

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af162/CoffmanStarter/sundial_wristwatch_by_astalo-d467tbv_zps400e189c.jpg

[Lima Juliet]

Coff

The MSF was off from 1-16 July this year, so not much good (unless on block leave!). As stated before, it doesn't work in PBFs and HASs.

Finally, I like the Sector Clock idea - can I have a Mickey Mouse one please? :ok:

LJ

[Lima Juliet]

Coff

Is that some kind of wrist mounted Golden Rivet Detctor?

LJ

[CoffmanStarter]

LJ ... There's an Accountants job waiting for you on the outside mate :}

[CoffmanStarter]

Thanks LJ ... Missed the concrete shield thing ... Friday night beers !

I understand that Mickey Mouse has a Hammond watch though :E

[Pontius Navigator]

Pontius, What time do all operational systems (Link 16, Havequick, Secure, GPS etc) all work on. Is that not the time that is relevant to aviators in the 21st C.
LJ, I tried to get the UFAF and USN to use TIM but they didn't seen to understand.
Smudge, Not great for the guy on the ground who doesn't get the Rolex.

Dom, I think you have answered the question.

If the USAF and USN don't use Tim, the Link 16 etc may be different, the guy on the ground may not even have a telephone, and finally, remember who owns Universal Coordinate Time since we no longer afford GMT.

And then there is Newfie time. I still remember the Ops Clerk at Goose Bay who brought the time check written out on a piece of paper.

As Easy Street points out eloquently, Tim is at least a standard check in UK. Just hope that other forces use it too.

[Easy Street]

Multi-national aerial operations use UTC, and from what I can recall of the last set of operational SPINS I saw, they dictate something like "UTC as delivered by the Navstar GPS, modified by the GPS-UTC correction factor available at www.. "

Tim delivers GMT or BST depending on the time of year. Therefore, since to all intents and purposes GMT = UTC, Tim accurately delivers the global operational standard time (providing you remember to subtract an hour during BST!).

[smujsmith]

PN,

Like you, I've experienced the 4.75 hour Newfie time lapse. My method to cope was to run on Zulu, from my watch, around the routes I did. It ensured I always felt knackered, but got home on time. I doubt that contributed anything intelligent to this conversation, but it strikes me, that's what we did.

Smudge :ok:

[Sevarg]

GPS is used by all, if everybody uses GPS time your all singing from the same sheet. Doesn't matter if your watch stops, phones down, or you are briefed at different bases, it works. 40k saved.
While we are at it can someone tell me why MOD London needs to know thw time to the second? As they still seem to be in 1900's????:zzz:

[Lima Juliet]

Sevarg

So what happens when half of us are on Gallileo and the others on GPS? We will be 15 seconds adrift! :confused:

What happens when you are out of GPS coverage? Setting clocks by hand and voice commanded synchronisation stops us, to quote Blackadder, using TIM "saves from being at home to Mr Cockup..."

By the way, I don't believe it is the "MOD" that resides in Main Building, but the "MOD" that is all 3 Services.

LJ

[TomJoad]

To the posters who blamed civil servants and desk jockeys for the speaking clock bill, you couldn't possibly be any further from the truth!

[Genuine question to any current mud-movers out there - is there really a "ban" and is anyone sticking up for your requirements against clueless bandwagon-jumping politicians?]

Steady on princess, first nobody is berating cs; criticism is against MoD. Secondly, if there is an operational need for time reference against the speaking clock or otherwise then get it articulated in your Sqn's financial plan of requirement (or whatever current jargon we are using) same way as you do for fuel, kim wipe, postit notes, and anything else used to provide support. Better still get the MoD to budget for it centrally. That way, funny old thing, it will be properly costed and funded and won't appear in the papers as a story making the' MoD, by association cs and mil, look like a bunch of muppets spending money we ain't got. Simples.:ugh:

Oh, and another thing - as the old Chinese proverb says "by the time you see the bandwaggon, it's too late to jump on":ok: Now, what time is it, I'm off to bed.

[Roadster280]

So we're saying that the RAF (or indeed, UK Mil as a whole), has no central plan for timekeeping? Despite the 10s of billions spent on all manner of kit that requires accurate timekeeping to function, there is no standard reference that all can use?

In the absence of such a thing, units use a well known "accurate" reference. Yet (speaking as a telecom engineer), it won't be any more accurate than a second or even two by the time it gets to the end user. Even then, a "pip" is hardly accurate. Do you set your watch running at the start or end of the pip? Presumably, aircraft systems also have time references. How are they synced?

In the meantime, my phone gets its time (and timezone) from the network. My computer gets its time from the USN's time.gov. My watch gets its time from WWVB at Ft Collins. So does my alarm clock. They all keep time synchronously.

This isn't a difficult problem to crack.

[TomJoad]

Roadster,

Even though I have never performed a time "hack" I do not believe it is "accuracy" that matters to the users of Tim. Anyway, don't get me on to the meaning of "accuracy" with my Physics teacher's head - I will bore myself.

I believe why use of Tim appears so widespread lies in its utility - it is so readily accessible. If all who need be are sync'd to it - its accuracy is irrelevant - as someone more qualified than me once said "time is relative". I see nothing inherently wrong in its use - quite elegant in fact - but it is a service that the MoD should perhaps in hindsight fund.

Tom

[Roadster280]

Tom,

Understood, but I can't help thinking there's a couple of problems at play here.

If everyone's watch is on the same time, plus or minus a second, I suppose that's fine, so long as everyone's on the same reference. But it's not much good if everyone on a specific air force mission is on one time reference, and the Navy & Army are on another (assuming there's interaction). The Navy won't have access to TIM, and even if they did, they'd use a satellite to get there, and that will throw it off. GPS would seem to be the right system for the Navy.

Then there's the problem of machine timekeeping. If one system lags or leads another, then messages arrive out of sequence, or before "now". If their internal clocks run at different rates, then even though they may be set at the same initial start point, one may race compared with another. This is the purpose of "leap seconds", although in telecom systems, it is much finer granularity.

I just find it hard to believe that if there's two Typhoons on QRA, in the absence of anything else, the crews set their watches by an antiquated, inherently poorly granular audio system (i.e. TIM), and the aircraft themselves are on separate clocks. Perhaps this isn't the case, and it's an OPSEC issue. I do hope so.

[Lantern10]

This is the one I use.

TimeTicker and the time tickers... (http://www.timeticker.com/)

You can mute the annoying "Tick"

[Boy_From_Brazil]

Very slightly off-topic....

In a former life, I lived in Zambia when they brought out the first Speaking Clock. It was literally a bloke on the end of the line. He took ages to answer the phone, you could then hear his footsteps padding across the floor to the next room and back, before he said 'It is almost ten to eleven'.

Not sure if it was used by the ZAF!

[Pontius Navigator]

If everyone's watch is on the same time, plus or minus a second, I suppose that's fine, so long as everyone's on the same reference. But it's not much good if everyone on a specific air force mission is on one time reference, and the Navy & Army are on another (assuming there's interaction). The Navy won't have access to TIM, and even if they did, they'd use a satellite to get there, and that will throw it off. GPS would seem to be the right system for the Navy.

Then there's the problem of machine timekeeping. If one system lags or leads another, then messages arrive out of sequence, or before "now". If their internal clocks run at different rates, then even though they may be set at the same initial start point, one may race compared with another. This is the purpose of "leap seconds", although in telecom systems, it is much finer granularity.

I just find it hard to believe that if there's two Typhoons on QRA, in the absence of anything else, the crews set their watches by an antiquated, inherently poorly granular audio system (i.e. TIM), and the aircraft themselves are on separate clocks. Perhaps this isn't the case, and it's an OPSEC issue. I do hope so.

And of course those Typhoons intercept an aircraft from half a world away and . . .

In an ideal world . . .

Then the ultimate question, have you ever tried to set up a STANAG? Have you read all the exceptions and opt outs at the front of an ATP?

Finally, to state everyone has xyz is an error. Some aircraft or systems somewhere can be guaranteed to be on a different time standard with different equipment.

[ShyTorque]

Those still referring to the Rugby time signal need to move their clocks on about six and a half years!

It's been transmitted from Cumbria since 2007 :p

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

GPS would seem to be the right system for the Navy.


Of course, there's always the good old Noon shot with the sun-gun; but that does need the complicated sum of subtracting or adding the Long. against zero to get the Z time. :ok:

[maxaoa]

At Linton in 2009 I bought each SQN (3 at the time ) and Ops and ATC a cheap wall clock that would sync with the Rugby time signal. They cost £10 each from Argos. Saved the Stn £400 in the first year. suggested this RAF wide but left for NZ soon after. The saving is small fry really but saves headlines like this. Surprised that such a simple cheap solution was not taken up. Some units world wide would need something different though.

[Pontius Navigator]

Had a magic RC wall clock in my last office. Sometimes it would motor backwards (bad) other times it would advance quite happily (good) and I would take the hint and go home early.

PS

Just compared my RC watch with my computer and they are the same. However last time I looked at the Dii clock you were lucky if it was the same day and it was not GMT either.

[TomJoad]

Tom,

I just find it hard to believe that if there's two Typhoons on QRA, in the absence of anything else, the crews set their watches by an antiquated, inherently poorly granular audio system (i.e. TIM), and the aircraft themselves are on separate clocks. Perhaps this isn't the case, and it's an OPSEC issue. I do hope so.

Roadster, I agree, I think there is something else at play here. I can't speak with any authority on this, but I suspect if Ops types are using the speaking clock then it is perhaps being done out of convenience and habit. It does appear rather antiquated given the alternatives.

[langleybaston]

I recall that ACM Sandy "Curtains" Wilson solved the problem in RAFG HQ Rheindahlen the day after he arrived.

It was said that a red memo was issued demanding that all public clocks IN THE RAF half should be synchronised, this after he arrived at one end of Leystrasse 5 minutes before he left the other end.

Knowing JHQ the task was probably a full time one for a dependant, free of UK tax.

[Courtney Mil]

Actually, never understood the need to know the time. Air Defence: run to the jet when told to. Blast off into the wild blue yonder when told to. Shoot down imaginary enemy when told to. Go to tanker when told to. Go home and land when told to. Sleep when told to. Go to bar when none of the above apply. Who even needs a watch? So easy.

[glad rag]

[Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there is still no officially-issued aircrew watch, following the debacle with Pulsar crowns being pulled all the way out. Obviously in the world of officialdom it's better for aircrew to make do with their own personal items; at least when they fall apart it'll be the aircrew's fault for wearing non-approved equipment into the cockpit :hmm:]



worth a group buy from Whitehall???

Casio Wave Ceptor radio controlled watch 4238 WVA-105HDE-2AVER only 86.913 £ (http://www.atomic-clock.org.uk/watches/Casio/Radio-controlled-watches/Wave-Ceptor-radio-controlled-watch-WVA-105HDE-2AVER.php)

:ok:

[Aynayda Pizaqvick]

Emerald Time is a cracking app for those with iThingys; free on the itunes app store, takes readings from a number of Internet time signals, discards the least accurate, averages the rest and then tells you by how much this differs from your internal clock (Apple wont let the app update your device time and you will be surprised by how far out it can get before it automatically updates).
Haven't found a similar app for android yet.
Personally I just rely on the time on my Breitling as it takes months to lose even a second :ok:

[Bill Macgillivray]

I remember my "time" in MOD PE in the '70's. A mix of Civil Servants and military personnel who, by and large, got on fairly well. I also remember being told, shortly after arrival, that I should always appear to be busy at my desk. It took me a while to realise that my futile attempts at "paper-pushing" were as nothing compared to my more experienced "desk-masters" who were able to (apparently) converse with contractors and other departments for extended periods by telephone!!! Is it still the same? The clock was pretty good even then! :ok::ok::ok::ok:

[JFZ90]

While I can see the logic of its simple utility in the UK, I'm a bit surprised that calling the speaking clock is, it seems, in normal use.

Given the mantra is typically 'train as you fight', how does using a time reference that will not be available (accurately) when deployed (when you might actually be on real ops) provide realistic training?

[tucumseh]

Bill

I remember my "time" in MOD PE in the '70's. A mix of Civil Servants and military personnel who, by and large, got on fairly well. I also remember being told, shortly after arrival, that I should always appear to be busy at my desk. It took me a while to realise that my futile attempts at "paper-pushing" were as nothing compared to my more experienced "desk-masters" who were able to (apparently) converse with contractors and other departments for extended periods by telephone!!! Is it still the same? The clock was pretty good even then!


I'm not quite of your (very fine) vintage but this rings bells. Particularly the relationship between CS and Services. In bygone days there was a better understanding, primarily because many CS were ex-Service, and those still serving were not so frequently the square pegs in round holes that is common place today, parachuted into posts to the exclusion of CS who have been trained for the job, but who are no longer replaced.

But, the answer to your question, today, is no, but for a very odd reason. When the move from London to AbbeyWood took place, we turned up in Bristol only to be told that no arrangements whatsoever had been made to deal with contractors. No external e-mails, out or in, were permitted and, at first, we didn't have "level 9" phones. In fact, I didn't have a phone as all my personal possessions had been "lost in transit" from London. Never did get them back. Nor were meeting rooms provided, except one 4-man room per floor plate; which in our case catered for at least 6 major projects and scores of lesser (under £100M) ones. Nor were there clocks, except on the obsolescent PCs, which seldom worked. I acquired one by getting a workshop to demand one through RN stores. For a while we were the only floor plate to have one. Which may explain this thread subject. A clock? A phone? What novelties! How do they work? What, you can kill two birds with one stone? By the way, knowing the time was very important, because the much vaunted rail infrastructure arranged by MoD (British Rail Filton-AbbeyWood) consisted on one train at 1715. If you missed it, tough. And they wondered why the car park was full by 0730.

The welcoming team, a mix of non-PE civil servants and contractors, inexplicably called "Eagle Teams", were completely gobsmacked at the concept of an organisation which spent £8Bn a year on equipment actually wanting to speak to those they had contracts with. It wasn't in their contract, so they hadn't provided the capability. For similar reasons, our travel and subsistence budgets had been chopped to nothing. The basic premise of the whole move being; you are all together now, so why do you need to travel or speak to anyone outside AbbeyWood?

Over the years things didn't really improve and many of the most productive meetings/negotiations took place in the local hostelries. We were a laughing stock. Security was non-existent. For months our Top Secret documents "storage" was a 4-foot high pile in the middle of the floor next to the heads. The final straw was during negotiations for a major aircraft contract. The contractor's programme leader was given his own desk and MoD PC, with full access to all AbbeyWood networks. He was routinely sent communications from our commercial and finance people discussing their strategy.

And then it got worse when the consultants started pitching up! Most act as if they own the place. Be glad you are retired.

[Pom Pax]

TomJoad
- as someone more qualified than me once said "time is relative".
USS Saratoga exercising in the channel is short of avgas so their aircraft are refuelling at Thorney Island and tanking fuel back to mother at the end of the day.
"Thorney tower what time does your field close sir? Navy xyz"

"Navy xyz our station closes at 1600Z"

"What's this Zulu, is that local or what?" (It's August local is Alfa)

"Navy xyz our station closes at 1600Z"

"So I guess 4.00 o'clock is the time you Limies have your afternoon tea"

[Wensleydale]

The speaking clock is not cheap! While researching a good phone deal for my father's room in his nursing home, I came across the story of an old dear who ran up a phone bill of many thousands caused by listening to the speaking clock all day every day.

As an aside, Dad's nursing home recommended a receive only line to ensure that outside calls were controlled - the manageress recounted the tale of the old chap at the home who liked fire engines and so frequently called them out until his phone was confiscated!

[Wensleydale]

"What's this Zulu, is that local or what?"


Lord Chelmsford mixed up his locals and Zulus in 1879 and look what happened to him!

[Pete268]

I remember my "time" in MOD PE in the '70's. A mix of Civil Servants and military personnel who, by and large, got on fairly well. I also remember being told, shortly after arrival, that I should always appear to be busy at my desk. It took me a while to realise that my futile attempts at "paper-pushing" were as nothing compared to my more experienced "desk-masters" who were able to (apparently) converse with contractors and other departments for extended periods by telephone!!! Is it still the same? The clock was pretty good even then! :ok::ok::ok::ok:


Exactly. Just how do people 'look busy' when they hear the boss on route?. Of course dial 'TIM' and have a long involved conversation with him (or is it her nowadays?). Boss gets fed up of waiting and dumps the dross on someone else's desk. Easy.

Apparently ringing 'TIM' is very popular with call centre workers about 5 or 10 minutes before they clock off (how apt) to avoid receiving a long involved phone call from a customer which would make them late knocking off!! So never ring a call centre just before 5.00pm (or whatever other time they change shifts) unless you want to hear 'muzak' for an extended period.

[Aynayda Pizaqvick]

Given the mantra is typically 'train as you fight', how does using a time reference that will not be available (accurately) when deployed (when you might actually be on real ops) provide realistic training?

When I'm on Ops I fly almost every day thus get a regular opportunity to sync whatever timepiece I am wearing with an accurate source on a regular basis. Even my rubbish watch it's unlikely to lose much time in only 1 day, max 2.

In the UK I can go weeks without getting anywhere near an aircraft!

[NutLoose]

It took me a while to realise that my futile attempts at "paper-pushing" were as nothing compared to my more experienced "desk-masters" who were able to (apparently) converse with contractors and other departments for extended periods by telephone!!! Is it still the same? The clock was pretty good even then!

I knew a Connie at a major airline carried a piece of sheet metal all day and worked from one coffee machine to another in the hangar and never did a days work, they all assumed he was doing a repair.

[thing]

First piece of advice I received when I arrived at a major MU near Chester was to get myself a clipboard. I ran a small team servicing F4 CADC, all bar one were civvies, knew their job inside out and needed little supervising so as a result there were occassional 'quiet' times for me...clipboard and pen time. Walk around the squadron stopping occassionally to look interested with something and scribble somethng down.

My WO used to wander out of his office at certain times of day for a look around. This was signalled by two rings on my phone which meant I was clipboard and penning around the section staying far enough ahead of him to avoid 'Ah, if you're not busy could you take a couple of blokes and do this /insert **** job/?'

It was known as 'being on the clip'. Some of us, not me obviously, used to have a competition to see who could physically hide for the longest amount of time without it being noticed. Guys used to hide in cupboards, on racks in stores, one guy used to remove the ceiling tiles and climb up into the roof space.

All good initiative building stuff.

[thing]

Bit OT but I've just reminded myself of my school days. My 6th form tutor was a kindly old classics duffer (I didn't do classics by the way, he was just our year tutor). A favourite trick of my pal and I was to turn up for our daily class 'stay drug and women free' talk and sit next to the window.

When he was in full flow with fingers together looking at the ceiling we would roll out of the window and turn up breathless at the class door with a 'sorry we're late sir', he would wave us to our seat and carry on. Five minutes later we would do the same, the look of confusion on his face was priceless.

Anyway, carry on.

[Pontius Navigator]

thing, massive thread drift but on one sqn we 'lost' a guy for the week. He was actually on leave but his leave pass was missing and he wasn't on the board.

On keeping busy, one day we had a sqn bull day pre AOCs. On £20k a year I was *******d if I was going to do a cleaning job. I brought Mrs PNs long handled feather duster to work and drifted round the hangar all day looking busy :)

[smujsmith]

PN,

Respect, as a techie I would have loved to have seen your performance. I do hope that modern personnel are not doing the bull still.

Smudge