The Concerts Must Be On Time! Plummer Auditorium's Tower Clock Now Accurate.
After years of being frustrated by seeing the weird time of day shown on the auditorium's tower clock, Ed Bridgeford said, "Surely there is something that can be done about it." (Ed graduated from Fullerton High School circa 1950.)
The clock not only showed time that varied from minutes to hours off from the correct time, the time shown on the four clock faces were also different from each other.
True to form, organ crew members (engineers) Bob Trousdale and Ed Bridgeford checked into the 1930's mechanism and electrical equipment system and said, "Hey, I see the problem."
The clock presumably was kept on time from signals passing back and forth to the school's master clock, but sadly the signals got crossed up due to problems in the clock itself. So Bob and Ed dove in and came up with an electronic escapement system independent of the signals from the school's master clock. It now runs the clock with an accuracy of about 2 seconds per week. It has a battery backup in the event of power failure.
To get the four clock faces in agreement, Bob and Ed first took much of the play out of the gearing system, then adjusted each clock face drive shaft from within the tower clock room. To do so, Bob had Ed to walk around the building and onto the Fullerton College campus, communicating with hand-held radios, with Bob using a crescent wrench up in the tower. The radios are normally used for communicating during trouble shooting and regulation operation on the organ.
The 6-foot clock face hands still slightly vary from each other depending on how much the wind blows, but the difference is now small.
Last Update: November, 2004