Shutting down WWV? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: Housedad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 03:40:37 am
content: Apparently there is a budget cut proposal that would shut down WWV brodcasting of atomic time signals.Anyone know more about it?http://www.arrl.org/news/concern-rising-within-amateur-radio-community-over-wwv-wwvh-shut-down-proposal

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 05:25:13 am
content: There have been a couple threads here from two or three months ago.At the end of the day, though, we don't know much more than your one-sentence summary. It's not clear whether WWV/WWVH and WWVB stand or fall together, or if WWVB might be spared due to the large installed base of "atomic" clocks. And at this stage of the budget process everything is just a wild guess anyway. What would be useful (and ought to be known) are some deadlines when stuff will happen later in the budget process. But I'm guessing it's something like a year out for a "final" answer.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 06:28:27 am
content: I sure wish there was something we could do to save it. WWVB is used by tens of millions of people whether they realize it or not, there are millions and millions of "atomic" clocks that use it. WWV and WWVH and less widely used but still used none the less, I have a Heathkit clock that receives it, they have long been very popular items. WWV is the first thing I ever recall receiving on shortwave and it's still my go-to for assessing conditions. Shutting down the stations would save peanuts in the grand scheme of things, far more public money gets spent subsidizing useless sports stadiums, welfare handouts to already very wealthy corporations.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 10:44:50 am
content: I believe that the proposal was to shut down the time signals broadcast on the HF bands (5 MHz, 10 MHz etc). The low frequency 'atomic clock' signal would continue.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 04:28:43 pm
content: The HF bands are the ones used by the Heathkit clocks.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 05:45:02 pm
content: does anyone know how the properties of clock signals derived from the lower frequencies vary from the higher frequencies (previous thread was unanswered)?What unique attributes are we losing from the demodulated signal? besides ease of reception/propagation.

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 06:12:50 pm
content: The main difference is sky wave vs ground wave propagation, which adds quite a few ms of timing uncertainty to the HF signals.The HF signals are also not designed to be machine-readable in the way that WWVB is. This is relative, obviously, but especially now with the BPSK modulation layer on WWVB, it is much better suited for machine reception at weak SNR.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 07:50:07 pm
content: For whatever reason, I've always enjoyed listening to WWV or WWVH, it's kind of a nice soothing background noise. Tick tick tick tick...

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 08:34:57 pm
content: Me too. Sometimes I have heard multiple time signals from different countries on the same frequency at the same time.Quote from: james_s on November 18, 2018, 07:50:07 pm

author: Housedad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 10:35:31 pm
content: All this is making me want to get a SDR dongle to listen to until I get my Ham license and a station set up.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 10:37:07 pm
content: There's a lot of ham stuff you can do without a license, even though I have a license I'm mostly into listening. I've never really been the sort to sit around and gab on the radio.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 11:00:37 pm
content: Although you need to make a connection to two difficult to get to pins and clean up the input with filters, a generic RTLSDR can receive HF surprisingly well if you present the chip with the signal in differential form to the unused Q input on pins 4+5 of the RTL chip.That is called direct sampling.Although its not the best receiver by any means, not even remotely, they are incredibly cheap and work. Plus you can view around 2.6-2.8 or even 3 MHz of spectrum at once.The attached picture was taken with a generic RTL-SDR and a generic up-converter. This is typical. The static was from lightning in summer.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2018, 11:06:29 pm
content: can people make a fund raiser to save it like the movie UHF? patreon with comedy skits and music videos and shit?

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2018, 12:51:36 am
content: So what, is that really a big thing I don't think so. It's an old school way of calibrating time or frequency stanards and nobody uses it anymore. It is what it is and that's it old school.

author: Housedad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2018, 03:23:40 am
content: Tell that to the watch manufacturers that make units by the millions that use that radio pulse to set the watches.It is still being used, and quite a bit.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2018, 03:35:20 am
content: it's gonna be sad to see all that hardware go completely uselessoh well, a whole new line of hacks putting higher frequency equipment in old crap on youtube right?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2018, 05:08:10 pm
content: Quote from: chris_leyson on November 19, 2018, 12:51:36 amWow, are you really that clueless or are you just trolling?

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2018, 01:52:04 am
content: Oldschool, exactly.Businesses and schools that have big, often decades-old clocks in every room (this is the norm in businesses all around the country and world) commonly use WWV-based clock synchronization systems. No way are they all going to be able to afford to replace them, and if they did, with what?You can bet some new NTP-based system would cost several times as much. They don't need precision any less than a second.Quote from: Housedad on November 19, 2018, 03:23:40 am

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2018, 02:42:37 am
content: education system is actually a really good point, the last thing you need is a severely under funded school in the ghetto spending money on clock upgrades for working clocks lolhighly motivated students doing a bake sale so they don't have to stay late?Don't they normally use the power line though?

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2018, 02:54:36 am
content: Don't give them ideas. They are taking every excuse they can possibly find to shut down/privatize public schools.Quote from: coppercone2 on November 20, 2018, 02:42:37 am