what is a-440?

On the surface, seems obvious. But, what I want to know is, where I can find
a standard.
I have here several devices, a bunch of tuning forks, and several areas I
can check.
But, in all of these, I can find as much as a 3 or 4 cent variation.
I have a Sanderson Accufork, which is about 2 cents lower than a corg k-12 I
have here.
One of my forks is closer to the Sanderson, but not quite with it.
Back when I took my tuning exam, I set one of my forks to the national
Bureau of Standards short-wave station WWV. It sent out an a-440 about ten
minutes before the hour, if memory serves.
They told me I got my fork within points of a cent.
Certainly close enough for jazz.
But, here in the UK, I can't pick up the station. Conditions don't permit
it.
So, guess begs the question, where can I go to find an a-440 I can really
trust?
Thanks for any thoughts.

--
MAILTO:HENRY@LISTENTOHEAR.CO.UK
HTTP://LISTENTOHEAR.CO.UK
g0gku/k1hbj

<snip>
> So, guess begs the question, where can I go to find an a-440 I can
really
> trust?
> Thanks for any thoughts.
>
> --
> MAILTO:HENRY@L...
> HTTP://LISTENTOHEAR.CO.UK
> g0gku/k1hbj

At one point I had a link to a free program that generated A 440, but
I lost the link. If I find it I will let you know.

John Starrett

> So, guess begs the question, where can I go to find an a-440 I can
really
> trust?
> Thanks for any thoughts.
>
> --
> MAILTO:HENRY@L...
> HTTP://LISTENTOHEAR.CO.UK
> g0gku/k1hbj

I don't know how accurate this is, but you can generate a lot of
pitches with this aplet:
http://pages.globetrotter.net/roule/accord.htm

John Starrett

<snip>
> So, guess begs the question, where can I go to find an a-440 I can
really
> trust?
> Thanks for any thoughts.
>
> --
> MAILTO:HENRY@L...
> HTTP://LISTENTOHEAR.CO.UK
> g0gku/k1hbj

Depending on what you need to do with the tuner, this
http://vacworld.bzlogi.hu/minituner/index.html
may be just the ticket. There are other tuning devices
at http://www.sonicspot.com

John Starrett

Henry,
Jay here,
In Cool Edit I can theoretically at least, generate frequencies to some
pretty scary resolutions. I could sendja an mp3 file of a440 but what I
wonder is, does the accuracy of such a frequency generation have anything
to do with the accuracy of the various crystals in a compooder? I do know
that when I generate 60 hertz and any of its harmonics there are no beats
with power-line hum, so I'm guessing it may be okay. At 10:26 PM 8/23/01
+0100, you wrote:
>On the surface, seems obvious. But, what I want to know is, where I can find
>a standard.
>I have here several devices, a bunch of tuning forks, and several areas I
>can check.
>But, in all of these, I can find as much as a 3 or 4 cent variation.
>I have a Sanderson Accufork, which is about 2 cents lower than a corg k-12 I
>have here.
>One of my forks is closer to the Sanderson, but not quite with it.
>Back when I took my tuning exam, I set one of my forks to the national
>Bureau of Standards short-wave station WWV. It sent out an a-440 about ten
>minutes before the hour, if memory serves.
>They told me I got my fork within points of a cent.
>Certainly close enough for jazz.
>But, here in the UK, I can't pick up the station. Conditions don't permit
>it.
>So, guess begs the question, where can I go to find an a-440 I can really
>trust?
>Thanks for any thoughts.
>
>--
>MAILTO:HENRY@LISTENTOHEAR.CO.UK
>HTTP://LISTENTOHEAR.CO.UK
>g0gku/k1hbj
>
>
>
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----- Original Message -----
From: "John Starrett" <jstarret@carbon.cudenver.edu>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 12:27 AM
Subject: [tuning] Re: what is a-440?
> >
>
> I don't know how accurate this is, but you can generate a lot of
> pitches with this aplet:
> http://pages.globetrotter.net/roule/accord.htm
>
> John Starrett
Thanks, John for that I'll give it a try.
Course, we still come back to the original question, what is the source.
Since it's probably tones regenerated by our machines, these depend upon the
accuracy of the timing chips etc. to give thest tones.
will beinteresting to check these tones against what I do have here, for
comparrison.
There was an old radio amateur who, when I was a kid back in the '60s asked
"What's your refference point"?