Greenwich Time Signal Greenwich Time Signal The Greenwich Time Signal (GTS), popularly known as the pips, is a series of six short tones broadcast at one-second intervals by many BBC Radio stations. The pips were introduced in 1924 and have been generated by the BBC since 1990 to mark the precise start of each hour. Their utility in calibration is diminishing as digital broadcasting entails time lags. There are six pips (short beeps) in total, which occur on each of the 5 seconds leading up to the hour and on the hour itself. Each pip is a 1 kHz tone (about halfway between
Greenwich Time Signal tone when a pip should be sounded. This let faults on the line be detected immediately by automated monitoring for loss of audio. The Greenwich Time Signal was the first sound heard in the handover to the London 2012 Olympics during the Beijing 2008 Olympics closing ceremony. The pips were also broadcast by the BBC Television Service, but this practice was discontinued by the 1960s. To celebrate the 90th birthday of the pips on 5 February 2014, the "Today" programme broadcast a sequence that included a re-working of the Happy Birthday melody using the GTS as its base sound. The