Horology is the formal term for the science of timekeeping. Both clock and watchmaking have seen many significant technological advancements in modern times as they progressed from the early days of the spring powered clock up to IBM’s Linux Wrist Watch project. Most advancements in horology in the modern era have focused on three areas: 1) accuracy 2) miniaturization and 3) source of power.

It’s a good recap… Check out the 12 major technological innovations in modern history article.

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The craft of clock making is said to have started in Black Forest, Germany. The abundance of both time and woods have fashioned the idea of creating clocks, which was followed after an imported clock from a nearby area.

The first clocks that were produced in this region were rather primitive but are great alternatives for the sundials hourglasses that were ordinarily use during those times. Wooden toothed wheels were the first parts and the weights are normally made of stones. The pendulum was created from the wood named as Waag that runs back and forth on top of the dial to keep the cuckoo clock in time.

In due time, the inhabitants of the Black Forest became artisans in their own fields. Some specialized in wood carving, others on clock making. Still others became clock painters while some make the toothed wheels and the chains.

And from this peaceful countryside of Black Forest town of Schönwald, Germany did the cuckoo clocks originated. Later, cuckoo clocks have gain worldwide popularity due to their uniqueness. What was originally the Dutch clock was reinvented to capture a nature’s sound-the cuckoo’s call. Franz Ketterer outlined the system of a clock that imitates the whistles and billows of the cuckoos. Refinements on the original design of the cuckoo clocks had led to the familiar set of a chalet or a birdhouse.

Since 1738, the production of the cuckoo clocks is still centralized at the Black Forest area in Germany, specifically in Neustadt and Triberg. However, cuckoo clocks are often thought of having its origin from Switzerland.

This confusion may have been due to the fact that there are other versions of the cuckoo clocks from neighboring regions, which had been around for quite some time even before the making of the cuckoo clocks. One good example is the rooster clock.

A cuckoo clock typically has a pendulum built into it. Conceptualized after the striking of a gong, the cuckoo clocks are characterized by whistles and billows that are imitated after the calls of the cuckoo birds. The designs of ordinary cuckoo clocks are often conventional with birds popping up from the openings and rustic designs all over with occasional nature designs like animals and leaves. Cuckoo clocks are hanged on the walls and are frequently enclosed in wooden boxes.

As the clock strikes, the bird that is hidden within the cuckoo clock appears through the trap door and vanishes immediately after the striking is done.

The typical cuckoo clocks have birds that move everytime the clock strikes. This is done through an arm that is being lifted from behind the carving. Most cuckoo clocks are programmed to play musical tunes from a musical box before the hour strikes. This type of cuckoo clocks has other automata that creates the musical tunes. Most clocks are driven by weight, they are seldom made with spring drives.

With modernity comes the change in the cuckoo clocks. There had been created clocks that imitate the billows and whistles of the cuckoos, only electronically. Mostly of these are fake quartz that runs through battery.

With the clocks’ fame, many of them have moved their ways into the homes worldwide. Many are still fashioned after the traditional cuckoo clocks but many were created with the touch of modernity. A display of these clocks is a genuine mark of Germany.

Robert Thatcher is a freelance publisher based in Cupertino, California. He publishes articles and reports in various ezines and provides cuckoo clock resources on http://www.about-cuckoo-clocks.info.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_Thatcher

If a standard watch repair bench is not available, have one made approximately 38 inches high, 22 inches deep, 40 inches long. Each side should contain several drawers for holding tools.

Source: Modern Watch and Clock Repairing

Since 1923, NIST radio station WWV has provided round-the-clock shortwave broadcasts of time and frequency signals. WWV’s audio signal is also offered by telephone: dial (303) 499-7111 (not toll-free). A sister station, WWVH, was established in 1948 in Hawaii, and its signal can be heard by dialing (808) 335-4363 in Hawaii.

Broadcast frequencies are 2.5 MHz (megahertz), 5 MHz, 10 MHz, and 15 MHz for both stations, plus 20 MHz on WWV. The signal includes UTC time in both voice and coded form; standard carrier frequencies, time intervals and audio tones; information about Atlantic or Pacific storms; geophysical alert data related to radio propagation conditions; and other public service announcements. Accuracies of one millisecond (one thousandth of a second) can be obtained from these broadcasts if one corrects for the distance from the stations (near Ft. Collins, Colorado, and Kauai, Hawaii) to the receiver. The telephone services provide time signals accurate to 30 milliseconds or better, which is the maximum delay in cross-country telephone lines.

In 1956, low-frequency station WWVB, which offers greater accuracy than WWV or WWVH, began broadcasting at 60 kilohertz. The broadcast power for WWVB was increased in 1999 from about 10 kilowatts to 50 kilowatts, providing much improved signal strength and coverage to most of the North American continent. This has stimulated commercial development of a wide range of inexpensive radio-controlled clocks and watches for general consumer use.

Time signals are an important byproduct of the Global Positioning System (GPS), and indeed this has become the premier satellite source for time signals. The time scale operated by the USNO serves as reference for GPS, but it is important to note that the time scales of NIST and USNO are highly coordinated (that is, synchronized to well within 100 nanoseconds, or 100 billionths of a second). Thus, signals provided by either NIST or USNO can be considered as traceable to both institutions. The agreements and coordination of time between these two institutions are important to the country, since they simplify the process of achieving legal traceability when regulations require it.

Official U.S. Government time, as provided by NIST and USNO, is available on the Internet at http://www.time.gov. NIST also offers an Internet Time Service (ITS) and an Automated Computer Time Service (ACTS) that allow setting of computer and other clocks through the Internet or over standard commercial telephone lines. Free software for using these services on several types of popular computers can be downloaded there. Information about these services can be found on the Time and Frequency Division Web site.

More information about NIST time and frequency standards and research can be obtained by contacting:

Time and Frequency Division
NIST – MC 847.00
325 Broadway
Boulder CO 80305-3328
(303) 497-3276

http://tf.nist.gov

In the 1840s a railway standard time for all of England, Scotland, and Wales evolved, replacing several “local time” systems. The Royal Observatory in Greenwich began transmitting time telegraphically in 1852 and by 1855 most of Britain used Greenwich time. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) subsequently evolved as an important and well-recognized time reference for the world.

In 1830, the U.S. Navy established a depot, later to become the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO), with the initial responsibility to serve as a storage site for marine chronometers and other navigation instruments and to “rate” (calibrate) the chronometers to assure accuracy for their use in celestial navigation. For accurate “rating,” the depot had to make regular astronomical observations. It was not until December of 1854 that the Secretary of the Navy officially designated this growing institution as the “United States Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office.” Through all of the ensuing years, the USNO has retained timekeeping as one of its key functions.

With the advent of highly accurate atomic clocks, scientists and technologists recognized the inadequacy of timekeeping based on the motion of the Earth, which fluctuates in rate by a few thousandths of a second a day. The redefinition of the second in 1967 had provided an excellent reference for more accurate measurement of time intervals, but attempts to couple GMT (based on the Earth’s motion) and this new definition proved to be highly unsatisfactory. A compromise time scale was eventually devised, and on January 1, 1972, the new Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) became effective internationally.

UTC runs at the rate of the atomic clocks, but when the difference between this atomic time and one based on the Earth approaches one second, a one second adjustment (a “leap second”) is made in UTC. NIST’s clock systems and other atomic clocks located at the USNO and in more than 25 other countries now contribute data to the international UTC scale coordinated in Paris by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). As atomic timekeeping has grown in importance, the world’s standards laboratories have become more involved with the process, and in the United States today, NIST and USNO cooperate to provide official U.S. time for the nation. You can see a clock synchronized to the official U.S. government time provided by NIST and USNO at http://www.time.gov.

The World’s Time Zones

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, a variety of meridians were used for longitudinal reference by various countries. For a number of reasons, the Greenwich meridian was the most popular of these. At least one factor in this popularity was the reputation for reliability and correctness of the Greenwich Observatory’s publications of navigational data. It became clear that shipping would benefit substantially from the establishment of a single “prime” meridian, and the subject was finally resolved in 1884 at a conference held in Washington, where the meridian passing through Greenwich was adopted as the initial or prime meridian for longitude and timekeeping. Given a 24 hour day and 360 degrees of longitude around the earth, it is obvious that the world’s 24 time zones have to be 15 degrees wide, on average. The individual zone boundaries are not straight, however, because they have been adjusted for the convenience and desires of local populations.
Interestingly, the standard timekeeping system related to this arrangement of time zones was made official in the United States by an Act of Congress in March 1918, some 34 years following the agreement reached at the international conference. In an earlier decision prompted by their own interests and by pressures for a standard timekeeping system from the scientific community — meteorologists, geophysicists and astronomers — the U.S. railroad industry anticipated the international accord when they implemented a “Standard Railway Time System” on November 18, 1883. This Standard Railway Time, adopted by most cities, was the subject of much local controversy for nearly a decade following its inception.

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Source: A Walk Through Time