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A speaking clock service is used for people who wish to know the correct and accurate time. Speaking clock services are most commonly accessed by telephone.

The format of the service is somewhat similar to those in radio time signal services. Every ten seconds or so, a voice announces "At the third stroke, it will be twelve, forty six and ten seconds...", for example, with three beeps following. At the third beep, the time at that point is the time announced previously.

Sweden

The speaking clock (Swedish: Fröken Ur) in Sweden has been in service since 6th October 1934, and can be reached by dialling 90510. Four women have contributed with their voices for the service: Eva Ulvby (1934-1956), Berit Hofling (1956-1968), Ebba Beckman (1968-2000), Johanna Östlund (2000-).

U K

In the United Kingdom, the speaking clock can be reached by dialling 123. On BT's sponsored Timeline, a male voice announces: "At the third stroke, the time sponsored by (sponsor) will be (hour) (minute) (and (seconds) seconds / precisely)" followed by three bleeps; other operators now run their own speaking clocks with broadly similar formats.

Speaking clock services are not, in fact, always useful for amateur scientific purposes, since the time feed for the speaking clock is not always ensured to be exactly accurate, plus time delays through the telephone. However the BT service is assured to be accurate to five thousandths of a second.

A speaking clock service first started in Britain, from July 24, 1936. There have been five different voices heard on the British Speaking Clock, with Jane Cain being the voice from 1936 to 1963, Pat Simmons from 1963 to 2 April 1985, and Brian Cobby since then. Comedian Lenny Henry provided the voice for two weeks as part of Comic Relief fund-raising in March 2003. A 12-year-old girl from Scotland, Alicia Roland, became the voice of the Speaking Clock for a week in October 2003 after winning a competition, the first time a child's voice had been used in the history of this telephone service.

The speaking clock service in the very clear Pat Simmons voice, which was in Received Pronunciation, was commonly known as "Tim".

During the Cold War, the British Telecom speaking clock network was designed to be used in case of nuclear attack to broadcast messages from Bomber Command to HANDEL units at regional police stations. From there, automatic warning sirens could be started and alerts sent to civil defence volunteers equipped with manual warning devices. The rationale for using an existing rather than a dedicated system was that it was effectively under test at all times, rather than being activated (and possibly found to be faulty) only in the event of war. The signals to automatic sirens were sent down the wires of individual (unaware) subscribers for the same reason - a customer would report any fault as soon as it occurred, whereas a problem with a dedicated line would not be noticed until it was needed.

A version of the speaking clock was also used on recordings of the House of Parliament made by the BBC Parliament Unit, partly as a time reference and partly to prevent editing. On a stereo recording, one track was used for the sound and the other for an endless recording of the speaking clock - without the pips, as these were found to cause interference.

On the occasion of a leap second, such as at 23:59:60 on the 31st December 2005, there is a one second pause before the beeps, thus keeping the speaking clock in sync.

United States

In many parts of the United States, a speaking clock can be reached by ringing the seven digit number 853-1212 (or, in some communities, 767-2676 (POPCORN), and various other numbers such as 844-1414 in other localities). Every ten seconds, a mature female voice announces the time of day according to this formula: "Good (morning / afternoon / evening)! At the tone, (time zone) (standard / daylight) time will be (hour):(o'clock / minute) (exactly / and (n) seconds)," followed by a one-second tone.

Many shortwave radio time signal services provide speaking clock services, such as WWV and WWVH, operated by the National Bureau of Standards from the United States of America. To avoid disruption with devices who rely on the accurate timings and placement of the service tones from the radio, the voice recording may be "notched" clear of some of the tones.

Electronic speaking clocks and wristwatches are available, many marketed to the visually impaired.

Many telephone answering machines and similar devices include a speaking clock capability so they can announce the time when a message was received.

• Clocks