7th Feb 2024
This is a simple personal project which I made so that even when I’ve got the radio off, I can still hear the Greenwich pips. If you’re unfamiliar, BBC Radio 4 plays the sound of the Greenwich time signal every hour. It is an iconic sound of the station. There are 5 short pips (or beeps), which accurately mark the final 5 seconds of the hour, and a longer pip which marks the hour itself. It is generated by an atomic clock in the basement of Broadcasting House and sent out across the country. There is endless debate about whether it has any use these days, but I am a fan of it and so I built this little script so I will always have my own Greenwich pips at home.
The script requires Python and PyGame to be installed (both free software packages), and can be made to run on something like a Raspberry Pi (or in my case an old laptop which I use as a NAS). Anything really.
In order to run it, simply run the python script, and leave it going.
As much as I love the pips, I don’t want to be woken up by them, so there’s an option to turn them on and off at a certain time automatically. Currently, they turn on at 6AM and off after the pips which sound at 10PM. In order to adjust this, open the script, and change the line:
datetime.time(6, 0) < current_time < datetime.time(22, 0))
to any hours you so choose.
That’s it really. If you’re interested, this is not a recording of the pips, this is a synthesized version which I made myself. It’s not perfect or an accurate recreation pitch-wise, but it is time-accurate.
Tagged as: programming projects python