"Sergeant Preston" was a character in a radio (and perhaps early TV) show. He weas a Mountie, as in RCMP, the Canadian Federal police. You know, red coats, campaign hats, lots of leather belting, horses, and they always get their man.
Also as in Dudley DoRight. -John ============== > Hi Brooke, > > Still having fun with this. > > Looked up Yukon Energy, expecting to find something in Alaska. Wrong. > The company is in Yukon Territory, Canada (On, you huskies ...). It > has three hydro plants that generate 75 megawatts for 1700 customers. > It sells some of that power to Yukon Electric, which implies tie lines > but may be DC. > > They have 39 megawatts of diesel generators on standby, perhaps for > when the river freezes up, or a log gets into a turbine. > > Although the picture in the article shows computer monitors, the story > says that their reference clock is not digital: > > "Morgan said staff at the control centre synchronize the time between > a sophisticated but regular electric wall clock fed by a dead-accurate > satellite signal as a means of keeping power generation in check." > > I guess "dead-accurate" is close enough for power company work, surely > better than "dead wrong." > > "Regular wall clock" implies a synchronous clock, possibly a twin to > the clock connected to the local generator bus. But maybe it just looks > like a regular clock, and runs on 100 Hz. I can tell you that the 1 KHz > clock in the HP-113 sang so loudly it would drive you from the room. > > In my youth, I took electric clocks apart to see what made them hum. > There was always a gear train between the motor and the hands, with > no possibility of anything slipping. Unless, that is, the thing is so > old that the holes in the brass plates that hold the gear shafts have > worn enough to let gear teeth slip. > > The other thing that can slow a synchronous clock is that the oil in > the gear case attached to the motor has turned to tar. Old clocks could > sometimes be saved by carefully drilling a small hole (don't get chips > inside) and injecting a bit of solvent. The motor is so heavily loaded > that it slips out of synch and runs as a shaded pole induction motor, > at less than synchronous speed. > > Seeking precision time can indeed take some strange directions. > > Bill Hawkins > > Don't understand the reference to huskies? Google "Challenge of the > Yukon" or "Sergeant Preston" > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Brooke Clarke > Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:58 PM > To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement > Subject: [time-nuts] Yukon Energy causes time sync problems > > Hi: > > http://whitehorsestar.com/archive/story/time-passed-more-slowly-over-the-eas > ter-holiday/ > > -- > Have Fun, > > Brooke Clarke > http://www.PRC68.com > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
