I know I am showing my ignorance, can anyone tell me what the purpose of the green and red on the clock faces of the maritime clocks?
Thanks
Christmas colors? Port and Starboard? Do you have a picture as I’m not able to visualize the clocks you refer to
Hang on just took one, I’ll try and upload it
Okay here goes
Oh I just remembered we can’t post pictures anymore unless you have a URL for them…
The green portion extends from the 12 to 3 minutes after the 12 and the same for the 6, and the red portion is corresponding on the 3 and 9,
I may be incorrect, but I think that those times that are in the green & red are observed silence periods. Noe testing of comm equipment allowed.
Isn’t that also when there’s important info sent out over VHF/SSB/SAT-C/etc.? I think Telex messages are sent out at the beginning of the hour.
The Chelsea Timemaster has a silent, high precision quartz
movement specified by the U.S. Military because it meets
standards for vibration, temperature and humidity extremes.
Marked by a red band on the dial, the two 3-minute silent
periods (no signals transmitted) which must be observed by all
radio stations beginning at 15 and 45 minutes past each hour,
for the purpose of listening for any distress calls sent by
radiotelegraph (International Morse Code) at a radio frequency
of 500 kilohertz.
Marked by a green hand on the dial are again two 3-minute
silent periods (no calls transmitted) which must be observed
by all radio stations beginning at each hour and half hour,
for the purpose of listening for any distress calls sent by
radiotelephone (Voice) at a radio frequency of 2182 kilohertz.
The 4 second marks in red around the outside edge of the
minute track over which the sweep-second hand passes, enables
the radio operator to accurately transmit the 4 second alarm
signal provided by the International Telecommunications
Convention and the International Conference of Safety of Life
at Sea (SOLAS).
The dial is arranged with the conventional 12 hour numerals,
plus a secondary row of smaller hour numerals from 13 to 00,
so that direct reading of Greenwich Mean Time is clearly and
easily obtained for logging as required.
The clock has two hour hands. One of them, the black one, is
geared directly to the movement and driven by it. This “main”
hour hand is set on Greenwich Mean Time and thus the clock is
always running on and correctly indicating Greenwich Mean
Time. The other hour hand is white and is not geared directly
to the movement, but is held to and driven by the “main” hour
hand by a positive friction device, and thus is manually
movable to any point on the dial to indicate local zone time.
Thank you for the enlightenment!
Well, I was close…
The green is good. It is the time I get to take my nap.
The red is bad. This is when the engine alarms go off.
Next question…
“The red is bad. This is when the engine alarms go off.” and he has roll over to grab the phone next to his bunk and find someone to send below to find out why.