In 25 countries of Europe, hours in microwaves and radio receivers began to go slower. How is it?!

Residents of Europe found that the electronic clock in their household appliances suddenly broke: the time on them began to lag behind the real for several minutes. For example, the Slovak forum Slotech reports on failures in watches installed in radio receivers, oven and alarm clocks. One of the users said that he even thought to change his alarm due to problems.

Users drew attention to the fact that the alarm clocks on the batteries continued to work normally - and suggested that the failure caused work from the mains.

ENTSO-E, the European network of systemic electricity transmission operators, announced on March 3 that since mid-January, “significant deviations” have been observed in the continent’s mains. They led to a slight decrease in the frequency of alternating current in the outlets, and this just entailed a slowdown in the course of the clock working from the mains. The consequences were manifested in 25 countries of Europe.

The fact is that in some household appliances, constantly connected to the mains (like the same microwaves), time is counted using the frequency of alternating current, and not the quartz generator . The current frequency in European sockets is steadily kept at about 50 Herz; The system is enough for this indicator to count the time of time (the “initial” position when connecting is set by the user).

In fact, the frequency changes slightly during the day, but usually its reduction is compensated by increases, and on average hours show the correct time. However, due to deviations in the European power grid, the average frequency was 49.996 hertz; The clock has accumulated a lag in six minutes from January.

On March 6, Entso-E announced that the failure occurred on the mains on the territory of Serbia and Montenegro, in particular in Kosovo. Because of this, the organization emphasizes, “lost” 113 gigavat hours of energy.

Entso-E believe that the cause of the failure was disagreements between the authorities of Serbia and Kosovo. The organization announced that in addition to technical measures to restore the correct frequency in the mains, political steps are needed from the European Union countries.

To correct the deviation of the time, Entso-E intends to launch a “compensation program”. Users can also lose time on their own - but they will have to repeat the operation when the frequency in the mains will be restored.

Sultan Suleimanov