For 84 years the major global news headlines of the day have been preceded by the six Greenwich Time ‘pips’. When the news of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon, President John F Kennedy’s assassination, and the destruction of the Berlin Wall were broadcast across the world on the BBC, they followed the familiar sound of the Greenwich pips.
The six-pip Time Signal was introduced on 5 February following the successful broadcast of the chimes of Big Ben to usher in the new year of 1924. Late in 1923, Frank Dyson, ninth Astronomer Royal, visited John Reith, Director General of the BBC, to discuss the idea of public time signals being broadcast. The six-pip Time Signal (pips for seconds 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60) was Dyson’s brain-child, devised in discussion with Frank Hope-Jones, inventor of the free pendulum clock, who had originally advocated a five-pip signal.
In 1939, the six-pip signal and the Time Service moved from Greenwich to the magnetic observatory at Abinger in Surrey. They then moved to Herstmonceux, Sussex in 1957. In 1990, the Greenwich Time Signal transmitted its last pips. Since then the BBC has originated its own pips based on signals from the GPS satellite network and from the 60kHz radio transmitter at Anthorn, Cumbria, operated by VT Communications under contract to the National Physical Laboratory.
The original clock used for the six-pips signal is in the Time and Greenwich gallery at the Royal Observatory. This is currently closed for redecoration, but will reopen on 1 March 2008.
The clock is regulator number 2016 by Dent of London. It was made in 1874 for use across the globe when observing the Transit of Venus astronomical phenomenon that year, before moving to Greenwich. It was the very first to provide the six-pip signals in 1924 with pendulum roller contacts, which are still in the Observatory collection.

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