When I was a kid, I remember there was a number you could call that would repeat the current time every few seconds. Are those numbers still around today? I haven’t heard any one mention it in years. And back when they were around, who paid for the service? Why?
The ones I recall did not repeat the time, they just gave you the CURRENT time as of the time you made the call. Automated service, provided by various local businesses. Often included the temperature as well.
First State Bank operated such a service in Valdosta GA when I was a kid. And… I’ll be damned, I still remember the phone number! 912-242-1000
Hmm, doesn’t seem to be extant any more.
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The US Naval Observatory Master Clock voice time numbers:
Time Voice Announcer, Washington, DC: 202-762-1401 & 202-762-1069
Time Voice Announcer, Colorado Springs, CO: 719-567-6742
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Source: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/phones.html
I just called the first DC number and can verify it works.
At the tone the time will be…
Northern Michigan is where I come from and you just had to “dial” 404.
I had forgotten that from when I was a kid 40 odd years ago. But I just rang 1194 and it still works in Australia…“At the third stroke it will be two twenty two precisely…beep…beep…beep” And it’s still the same voice.
As ever nowadays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_clock
Ours was discontinued about five years ago. I don’t recall how we found out, but we knew ahead of time.
Milwaukee was 844-4444, and that worked until relatively recently. And it was run by the phone company.
Weather was WEather 6-1212. Err, 936-1212.
Time & temperature in New Orleans, 529-6111. Hasn’t been in service in 20 years though.
In the later years, you had to listen to a 5 second advertisement, which was for Blair Plumbing, which is still in business. The ad said something like “Blair plumbing, sewer and drain cleaning. Last page of the yellow pages.” And sure enough, for years they had the full page ad on the last page of the yellow pages.
ETA: Now that I’m thinking about it, there was also a number for weather, and it was the same thing you’d hear if you tuned in a Weather Radio. There was another one that got you the marine forecast. And there was one (522-NASH I think) that got the weather forecast from Nash Roberts, a highly respected local meteorologist who retired about 15 years ago. None of these have been around for years though.
When I was growing up we dialed POPCORN for the time. Later found out that 767 (POP) was the prefix for the time service, you could dial any four numbers you wanted.
But why were there so many of these free time services back then? They don’t exist as much today but I can’t think of anything that changed since then which would have made them less relevant. (Everybody back then had as many clocks as we do today, right?) Did people just sit around back then saying “Wow, I wish i knew if my watch was correct down to the very second?”
US Bureau of Standards cesium based time: (303)499-7111. (AKA radio WWV) Time is announced on the minute, with a tone to get it within a fraction of a second.
That # is from memory, BTW. It was a local call from my boyhood home…never used the Mountain Bell (now Qworst) time # after I got the WWV number.
Interesting. In Dallas many years ago you could call 844-any 4 numbers to get time and temperature, and it came with an ad by “Team Bank”. [I just googled and apparently 844-6611 still works in Big D. who knew?]
Back in the day there was no GPS and you didn’t know even two people who had cell phones. Its a new day baby. It used to be like Jed Clammpet trying to stay in touch with Oliver Douglas.
It was a public service in an age where there was no easy way to synchronize clocks and clocks tended to run fast or slow, or stopped if you didn’t wind them. You had to wait until the news came on the TV or for someone on the radio to announce the time or tune your shortwave set to WWV.
In this day and age of computers and internet, you can get the exact time by turning on your computer. It corrects every 24 hours by default. You can check the program guide on your cable or satellite tv.
We’re a lot more conscious of time down to the exact second these days. When I was a kid, it wasn’t uncommon to go into a house and see three different clocks with the times differing by 15 minutes. And it didn’t really matter all that much. But if a couple of the clocks stopped, you called the time number so you could set all of the clocks.
When I was growing up in the Cleveland (OH) area, the number was GReenwich 1-1212 (or 471-1212 if you didn’t appreciate the handy exchange mnemonic). We had electric clocks, and would call after the electricity came on following a power failure. I think my dad also called when he was changing the clocks to correspond to Daylight Saving Time or the return to Eastern Standard Time.
Our family always called it the “Time Lady”
I used to call the time in the 90’s when I was a teen and had a long-distance boyfriend I wasn’t allowed to talk to. We’d pre-arrange a time for him to call, I’d call the time phone number (I think it gave weather, too) and listen to the recording until the call waiting beeped and I’d switch over to him.
I can’t say I ever actually used it to set a clock 
For a good time, call TI4-8400.
It still works in DC.
I think ours was had ULrich 3-1212. IIRC it ended only a few years ago in Southern California. Although its useful life had long been over, I can see how it would have been very useful in the days when watches were usually wind-up affairs that didn’t always stay on time. I’m not sure when electric quartz regulated watches came in, but it was probably in the 1950s or 1960s. Plugged-in electric clocks were always reliable given a power supply, because they were designed around the frequency of the alternating current. Otherwise, if you needed the correct time, calling the time was your only option. Unlike today, truly accurate watches came at a premium.
From Talkin’ World War III Blues
In Champaign Illinois Busey Bank offered this service, and the voice was known as the Busey Bitch. The real person was a woman in Atlanta who was the voice of almost all phone company recordings. There was a chapter on her in book called “The Biggest Company in the World” about the Bell System pre-breakup. The place I worked had a section also.