I recently read that the shortwave Canadian time station CHU was shutting down. When I was younger, my parents had a 1940s era radio that also went into the shortwave bands. I probably first heard CHU on that radio. When I got a Heathkit GR-64 shortwave radio kit for Christmas, maybe in 1968, I began listening to shortwave more often and began my journey into amateur radio when I received my first ham license in 1971.
Back then, to accurately set ones clocks often meant using the TV switching between shows or using larger radio network news stations that usually stated the time or had one reference or another to go by.
If you had a shortwave radio, the US station WWV was the standard. But for me, WWV was not always easy to receive. They had transmissions on several different frequencies, from a few locations. I know one was Colorado and another Hawaii, but I could not always get a good signal. CHU, the Canadian time station, was located near Ottawa, ON, just a couple hundred miles from me, and their 7 MHz signal was always strong, no mater what time of day. I think they used to be on 7.337 MHz back then, eventually moving to 7.850 Mhz at some point. It was just above the 40 meter ham band, so very convenient.
The time was always given in GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time. It changed to UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time along the way. The time was the same, just the name changed. In ham radio back then, you were required to keep a log of all transmissions, which included the time. So keeping your station clock accurate was important.
The audio tones indicating the exact seconds was very helpful in getting clocks as close as possible.
Time stations were not just important to hams. Other services used them as well.
These days, the requirement for logging has been less stringent, but most hams still do for various reasons. Computer logging is common, with the PC providing the time. WWVs budget has been under fire, and apparently the Canadian government has decided that CHU was no longer necessary, or at least not worth the price to keep it running.
These time stations served a purpose for decades and their usefulness has not completely disappeared, but certainly has diminished. Hopefully WWV can continue in some form or fashion.
Here is a link to a video about CHU –
