Pip pip hurrah

BBC director general John Reith (pictured left) conceived the idea of broadcasting an accurate signal marking the end of each hour and beginning of the next with astronomer royal Sir Frank Watson Dyson and with advice from Frank Hope-Jones, inventor of the free pendulum clock. Before this, radio news bulletins at 7pm and 9pm had been introduced by the Westminster Chimes being played on a piano or tubular bells. On 5 February 1924, the BBC had just moved into the Savoy Hill House buildings in London owned by the IET’s predecessor the IEE, and the first pips would have been broadcast from the 2LO transmitter on the roof. Low-powered and unable to reach far beyond London, 2LO was upgraded in 1925 to double its power and relocated to the roof of Selfridges department store on Oxford Street. At the end of 1924 the high-powered 5XX long-wave transmitter was established at Daventry to relay broadcasts, including the time signal, to most of the UK.