Power grid change may disrupt clocks

[k4kyv]

But in my experience, the accuracy of those quartz crystals apparently varies with the competence of the manufacturer. Some are very accurate, and some might as well have balance wheels or pendulums. :-)

Like the Mo' Fo' Junk digital desk clock I bought new in the box at a hamfest several years ago.

[W1ATR]

THIS IS GREAT NEWS!!!!

This might just be the boost I need to get my "Clock Setting" business up and running.

For a modest monthly fee of $29.99, one of our highly skilled "Time Master" technicians will come to your home every month and synchronize your clocks. This economy plan includes, but is not limited to: Wall clocks, alarm clocks, tv's, most vcr's, dvd players, coffee pots, dishwashers, and other appliances. You may opt for our Gold plan for $49.99 per month which includes all of the above plus vcr's older than 20 years as they require the services of a specially trained teenager for proper chronological alignment. Also included in the Gold plan are sundials, all manner of analog clocks (The really old one's with the hands), programmable thermostats, pacemakers, ovulatory cycles and other biological clocks. The clock on the stereo in your car is also included in this plan.

Investors, get in now on the ground floor of this exciting new venture. You can't loose!!

We're in between banks right now, so just make those checks out to cash.       

[flintstone mop]

Hammond tone-wheel generators have no built-in means to change pitch, so imagine our puzzlement when, as players, we heard a pitch change in the Boston song "Smokin'" illustrated about 3:20 into the recording below.  The riff sets up, and when the bridge is finished it pitches UPWARD like magic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Be3wjAsi8

We always thought someone put a thumb on an open reel sub-master recording machine, slowing the tape speed down, so that when it was re-played in production the apparent speed increased.

Paul, I remember my cousin doing something  with his B3 to change the pitch. When you first turn on the organ, you hold two spring loaded switches up and then let go. Now while the organ is operating, if you pull both switches up again whilst playing the pitch will change. Maybe a prestart condition to give the generator a kick start....
And thanks for the link for Barbara Dennerlin. smooth musician. Now someone please clarify something..........going off topic. I understand the foot pedals and bass notes.....I hear  the notes from the upper keyboard, but the lower keyboard, I see her hand moving and cannot correlate her hand to any notes. OR is it a harmony thing with the bass pedals? I'm a musical dummy
Fred
On Topic.............I just realized from my "so what" statement about 60hz freq. NOW we'll have to go around checking all the clocks again. The oven  clock, the microwave, my clock radio. If they blink 12:00 after a power failure, they're dependent on the line freq.

[WA3VJB]

Hammond was either the inventor of or refined the practical application of synchronous motors used in clocks.   The earliest ones didn't have automatic synchronization, so there was this little wheel inside that had a shaft out the back. You'd spin it, and along the way it would hit 60 rpm (or a harmonic) and the clock motor would grab the 60 cps from the AC line, and away you'd go.

With the Hammonds, the START and RUN switches achieved the same effect.  There was a starter motor that would spool up the motor driving the spinning discs along the shaft that comprised the tone generator.  At speed, and you hold it a second or two, lift the RUN switch (not spring loaded) then release the START. The motor then grabs 60cps and you're makin' music.

I have to think his trick was to screw with that synch.  If you cut the RUN switch while hitting a note it does go out of pitch, because the motor driving the tone generator has lost frequency. There's probably a magic combination of manually goosing the START motor and interrupting the RUN motor that you were hearing.

I never had foot pedals. They lift up and off the main chassis, and most are discarded.  There was always a bass player.  That part of the song was up to them, but yes, they fill in the holes of rhythm and lead sections with notes that relate to, but may not be at the same time or notes played by others.

Dennerlin might actually be playing what appears to be an RT-3.  Extra bass octave, more pedals at her feet than the standard rack.  I had a chance to buy one of these from WRVA in Richmond about 30 years ago. The station dates back to when they had live bands, and a high-ceilinged studio for performances.  A Hammond weighs about 1000 pounds, so the station, as did many, had their own for bands to come in and use.

Years later, the Hammond was on its way out as part of a remodeling, and a friend of mine I used to work with at a kilowatt daytime AMer in Laurel Maryland remembered that I'm a player.  Problem ultimately came down to money, but we went to see it and drooled a while.

Unlike most roadworthy B3, this one had no cigarette burns, it wasn't painted flat black, none of the keys were cracked, and what a glorious sound.

[k4kyv]

Actually, I have for a  long time pondered the idea of building a 60~ generator, perhaps derived from the WWVB signal, and amplifying it to a level that would run a 115 v.a.c. wall clock, and wiring it up with battery back-up.  That way I could run my old 24-hour a.c. wall clock and it would keep time despite our frequent power outages.

I have just had too many other projects on the back burner to take the time to develop it.  I'm not sure how accurate the frequency is with the commercially available uninterruptable power supplies sold for use with computers. One of those ought to work if the a.c. stayed on frequency, since the amount of power drawn by a clock would take a long time to deplete the battery.

[K5UJ]

60~ a.c. clocks are going the way of CRTs, vinyl records, international short-wave broadcasting, carburettors, cassette tapes, over-the-air network TV, pay phones, mechanical analogue dials, etc.

I have two or three old clock radios with electric clocks and I always have one in operation.  They are useful in a crude limited way.  If there is a power outage while I am away at work and I come home to flashing lights and zeroed out timers and such, I can look at the battery clocks and the electric clock and quickly determine how long the outage lasted.   Then I am prepared for the disaster waiting in the freezer and refrigerator when I open the doors, if the outage has been long enough.  (But around here it has never been more than 45 minutes in the 17 years I've been at this QTH).  Other than that, I just like knowing what went on while I was away.

Remember  the "a.c.-d.c." radios?

What do you mean "remember?"  I have two!  They work and sound great!  I run one in the kitchen on 100 v. 

[W7TFO]

Here is a shot of part of the main power distribution at our AZ QTH.  These meters are mounted in the transfer switch panel I built.

Today is Sunday, not much going on around here, electrically speaking.

Now maybe the freq pointer will move off the mark...someday.

I be watchin'

73DG

[WBear2GCR]

Checked out Ms. Dennerlin's playing... if anyone cares for a review?

No doubt she can play the Hammond technically very well.
However, she can't play like Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Groove Holmes,
Jack McDuff or a number of others... since she covers a number of well known tunes, there's a basis for direct comparisons.

I wanted to like her, since the number of currently working B-3 masters is very thin...

Joey DeFrancesco is another player that I really want to like...

Can't.

Great players, fine technically, by that I mean the notes are all there, but there's no soul. The solos don't seem to have any focus, they're kinda flat all the way through. There's no tension so no release. Doesn't grab me at all.

Ah well... whatcha gonna do. At least there is the record that these past masters left behind.

                          _-_-bear

PS. these are just my opinions, feel free to enjoy Ms. Dennerlin's playing.

[WA1GFZ]

I've had problems with Elgars generating a crappy waveform making lots of EMI

[The Slab Bacon]

If they're concerned with saving money, as they claim, maybe they should be more interested in bringing the voltage down to 110/115. Right now the incoming voltage at my house is 126!
Larry

You should consider yourself lucky!! Around here it usually runs somewhere around 120-125 in the colder months, and 110-115 in the hotter months. The lower line voltage causes anything that is an inductive load to draw more current. (AC motors, air conditioners, etc)
This is their way of getting over on us, kinda like the butcher with his thumb on the scale.

Nothing around here (modern appliances) perform as well during the summer months.

I must have the wrong understanding of how it works. P = V*I, so a decrease in voltage is met by an increase in current which equals the same amount of power (watts) which is what the electric company meter determines and charges you for, not current. What you say about motors is somewhat true but the inverse is true for anything with a transformer; TV's, computers, DVR's, STB's, VCR's, radios, etc., far more devices than run on motors. They will run cooler, use less power, and their service life will be extended considerably.

Larry

Yezzzz, but "Watt Hour" meters really measure Ampere hours.................................

[WA2TTP Steve]

Actually Mike the whole country isn't sync'd together. Check out the link.

"The article also says “Some parts of the grid, like in the East, tend to run faster than others.” And “East Coast clocks may run as much as 20 minutes fast over a year, but West Coast clocks are only likely to be off by 8 minutes. In Texas, it's only an expected speedup of 2 minutes.”  I’m no expert but this sounds like complete hog wash. This could only happen if  plants powering the grid from East to West are not synchronized . That just seems too far fetched. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Interconnection

Steve

[Mike/W8BAC]

This quote from another public BBS sheds more light on the subject and explains the situation a bit better than that WIKI site.

"Since the reporting on this was non-technical, let me fill in some of the gaps.

Current practice is to strive for a grid frequency of 60.00 Hz.  However, as it turns out, it ends up a bit fast.  A synchronous clock on the power grid will gain time.  Currently practice is that when the accumulated time error reaches a few seconds (10 seconds on the Eastern Interconnect), they shift gears and try to hit a grid frequency of 59.98 Hz instead.  The idea is to "back out" the accumulated time error.  For the Eastern Interconnect, a control center in Indiana, near Indianapolis, sends out orders for all power plants within the Interconnect -- from Florida in the southeast to Saskatchewan in the Northwest -- to operate at 59.98 Hz for some period of time.  Of course, they all must do this in sync.

This procedure for deliberately running slow is called "Time Error Correction" (TEC).  In one form or another, the industry has been doing this since the 1930s, originally as an inducement that people should buy electric clocks (many of which were made by GE).

The proposal is to stop doing TECs, and to just allow the time error to accumulate indefinitely.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is charged with regulating the _reliability_ of the interstate power grid. The industry maintains that this is a "business practice" issue, not a "reliability" issue.  That is, "how" TECs are performed is "reliability."  Whether or not TECs are performed is a "voluntary business practice." Nonetheless, there is currently a reliability standard (regulation), BAL-004, that might be read to imply a requirement for TECs.  The industry has petitioned FERC to amend this standard.  That proceeding is currently pending.

For the complete record on the matter before the FERC, start at http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/docket_search.asp  and search for all filings on Docket Number RM09-13 .  The nine documents on the docket provide a lot of information about the industry's position.

Additional information can also be found on the NERC website, under "TEC Elimination"  http://www.nerc.com/page.php?cid=6|386 .  Look at the Webinars.

The AP story mentions that the "field trial" is planned to begin in mid-July, where they essentially stop TECs on all three U.S. Interconnects to see what might happen.

   - Jonathan Hardis"

[kb3ouk]

so really, the way that everyone here was interpreting it was the ac power is always a constantly regulated 60 hz, and the big idea was to not regulate it at 60 hz, but what is really happening is that the line frequency actually changes very slightly every so often and they are changing it so it remains constant?

[KC2TAU]

Speaking of Hammonds these videos always make me smile. 

http://youtu.be/5q7P0VNwxSs
http://youtu.be/SWJhxZSxJZQ

[WA1GFZ]

I think I'll slip a link on the timing chain in my truck motor just to see if I am as stupid as this

[K2PG]

Sounds like we're drifting into Third World status! In the appendix on electric power in various countries, Bill Orr's Radio Handbook lists the power line frequency in various countries and whether it is stable enough for running electric clocks, turntables, and other items with synchronous motors. All of the countries with unstable line frequencies are Third World countries with poorly developed infrastructure.

Some TV sets may have a problem with this, as the vertical deflection circuits, at least in older sets, are tied to the power line frequency.

[N2udf]

Will I have to reset my electric watches?

[kb3ouk]

what it really seems to be is a case of the bean counters or someone like that trying to make decisions on a situation that needs to be thought through by the engineers first. they think it is possible but have no idea of what is really happening from the engineering point of view.

[WA3VJB]

Speaking of Hammonds these videos always make me smile.  

http://youtu.be/5q7P0VNwxSs
http://youtu.be/SWJhxZSxJZQ

With good reason !
Hellkvist has got it going on.
And at his age !
I mean, like when did he start, to be playing like this by now ?
I wonder if he's a test driver for the shop that repairs and restores Hammonds that you see in these videos.

Love the plastic cup of beer on top of that '70.  Best thing about some of these that have been toured is that when you bring them home, the "aroma" of old beer, sweat, and various smoking products all comes wafting out of the cabinet when it's warmed up from playing for an hour or two.

[flintstone mop]

Speaking of Hammonds these videos always make me smile.  

http://youtu.be/5q7P0VNwxSs
http://youtu.be/SWJhxZSxJZQ

With good reason !
Hellkvist has got it going on.
And at his age !
I mean, like when did he start, to be playing like this by now ?
I wonder if he's a test driver for the shop that repairs and restores Hammonds that you see in these videos.

Love the plastic cup of beer on top of that '70.  Best thing about some of these that have been toured is that when you bring them home, the "aroma" of old beer, sweat, and various smoking products all comes wafting out of the cabinet when it's warmed up from playing for an hour or two.

AND I would smack that fella for having a glass of beer on the organ.........especially if it's sweating.....water stain.

There was quite a clamor from musicians trying to copy that familiar click sound from the B3 with their synthesized organs......keyboard type in the 70's.

[K1JJ]

Speaking of Hammonds these videos always make me smile.  

http://youtu.be/5q7P0VNwxSs
http://youtu.be/SWJhxZSxJZQ

Damn - that dude can play!  Buckle up your seat belts.
Just love the jazz.


Here's a guy who can really play a pipe organ. "SpringTime for Hilter"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzbFxFoVZIo

T

[KC2TAU]

Speaking of Hammonds these videos always make me smile.  

http://youtu.be/5q7P0VNwxSs
http://youtu.be/SWJhxZSxJZQ

With good reason !
Hellkvist has got it going on.
And at his age !
I mean, like when did he start, to be playing like this by now ?
I wonder if he's a test driver for the shop that repairs and restores Hammonds that you see in these videos.

Love the plastic cup of beer on top of that '70.  Best thing about some of these that have been toured is that when you bring them home, the "aroma" of old beer, sweat, and various smoking products all comes wafting out of the cabinet when it's warmed up from playing for an hour or two.

AND I would smack that fella for having a glass of beer on the organ.........especially if it's sweating.....water stain.

There was quite a clamor from musicians trying to copy that familiar click sound from the B3 with their synthesized organs......keyboard type in the 70's.

Agreed, the same goes for beverages on top of guitar/bass amplifiers. Absolutely not! The key click is devine, though.

I have an M-101 and when I finish playing it I always have a silly grin on my face.

[K3ZS]

I just saw a group this past weekend.   They had what sounded like a B3, but only the top part.   It was a big old wood box with the back exposed.   
http://www.myspace.com/chrisvipond/photos/76825243

[W2PFY]

I used to repair just about all manufactures of organs way back when. The problem with the B-3's were when they traveled with them often they would forget to set the "Traveling" Screws to lock down the tone generators. Wires would tear off. It was an easy fix. Hammond's were a real work horse and they sound great with the so called B-3 music or in blues bands but otherwise leave me flat  

[flintstone mop]

This thread has been really amazing..............there are a lot of musical folks around here, who appreciate all types of music and have even preformed in bands or small combos. And actually play a musical instrument. Hooray for you!!!
I regret having no interest in music when my dad was trying to teach me clarinet.
Maybe there is hope to learn and accomplish something at 65??
And other discoveries of folks loving photography too.

Fred