Hi all ham radio amateurs here.
Yesterday I read in the packet radio networks
http://gw.iw2ohx.net:8060/cmd?cmd=READ+all+1013
that there exists a project to decrease the founds to maintain WWV stations, very important for all us.
There is a petition to review this item at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/maintain-funding-nist-stations-wwv-wwvh
but I don't know if foreign people accounts to collaborate at this respect. Does anyone can help me?
Yesterday I read in the packet radio networks
http://gw.iw2ohx.net:8060/cmd?cmd=READ+all+1013
that there exists a project to decrease the founds to maintain WWV stations, very important for all us.
There is a petition to review this item at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/maintain-funding-nist-stations-wwv-wwvh
but I don't know if foreign people accounts to collaborate at this respect. Does anyone can help me?
Signed also. Bad place to make cuts IMO.
My lab is locked to the GPS constellation, but we have a 60 KHz radio clock. I was thinking of using some 10 MHz xtals as filters to pick up WWV - just for chuckles as a TRF, AM detector radio thing. Do they still have stations at 5, 10 and 15 MHz?
-Chris
My lab is locked to the GPS constellation, but we have a 60 KHz radio clock. I was thinking of using some 10 MHz xtals as filters to pick up WWV - just for chuckles as a TRF, AM detector radio thing. Do they still have stations at 5, 10 and 15 MHz?
-Chris
The 60KHz "atomic clock" service will continue.
It appears the 5 10 15 MHZ services will be de-funded.
Personally, I have heard but never used the MHz services. The original point, precision navigation by sextant and chronometer, is not used for serious navigation. Precision time is also available via GPS, cell-phone, and (on a decent wire) internet.
It may still be a useful time source for many far-away places around the world (and even in Maine).
CQ, and Osvaldo also, use the signal to track radio propagation conditions. To know if the ionosphere is rising or falling. Of course other signals could be studied; WWV was known strength and pattern, unlike other short-wave services which would modify power and pattern to suit their target audience (or budget).
It appears the 5 10 15 MHZ services will be de-funded.
Personally, I have heard but never used the MHz services. The original point, precision navigation by sextant and chronometer, is not used for serious navigation. Precision time is also available via GPS, cell-phone, and (on a decent wire) internet.
It may still be a useful time source for many far-away places around the world (and even in Maine).
CQ, and Osvaldo also, use the signal to track radio propagation conditions. To know if the ionosphere is rising or falling. Of course other signals could be studied; WWV was known strength and pattern, unlike other short-wave services which would modify power and pattern to suit their target audience (or budget).
I used these services when I was in high school and always toyed with the idea of having a small AM purpose-built radio for receiving the steady "tock - tock - tock", then the time announcement.
I guess you're right. I just assumed they would always be there. I might build that radio just to see if it works before these signals go off the air for good.
-Chris
I guess you're right. I just assumed they would always be there. I might build that radio just to see if it works before these signals go off the air for good.
-Chris
I was listening to the tock tock tock over 60 years ago. I think in this day and age, that counts as forever. I mean TV broadcast is gone, we now have DTV on different bands. WWV has outlasted broadcast television. WWV went on in 1920.
I first heard WWV at about 9 years of age. I heard this beeping sound that came and went. I followed it around the neighborhood and finally traced it to a house nearby. The owner had a large sundial, and he had WWV playing out his window as he aligned the sundial for proper time. He explained what it was and what he was doing, making a scale for his sundial to correct for seasonal variations. Anyway I was fascinated and roared off into short wave radio and never looked back.
WIKI has a reasonable article on WWV:
WWV (radio station - Wikipedia)
I first heard WWV at about 9 years of age. I heard this beeping sound that came and went. I followed it around the neighborhood and finally traced it to a house nearby. The owner had a large sundial, and he had WWV playing out his window as he aligned the sundial for proper time. He explained what it was and what he was doing, making a scale for his sundial to correct for seasonal variations. Anyway I was fascinated and roared off into short wave radio and never looked back.
WIKI has a reasonable article on WWV:
WWV (radio station - Wikipedia)
I also read the wikipedia article. And in an old 1954 Radio Amateur's Handbook, it says that the precision is about 1 in 100,000,000. Not too bad for that era 
I listened WWV stations in MW/SW tube radios and also when one time I repaired an old BC348 receiver several years ago. The sound was funny.
I listened WWV stations in MW/SW tube radios and also when one time I repaired an old BC348 receiver several years ago. The sound was funny.
Same bands, although they did lop a few more channels off the top of UHF again.
Channels 70 through 83 went away in 1982 to make way for 800 MHz public safety radios and cell phones.
Channels 52 through 69 went away in the DTV remapping in 2009. Most went to LTE cellular use, but 10 MHz was allocated for public safety use. One of those channels (54 or 55) was purchased by Qualcomm for their Media Flo mobile TV service which failed. It is now an LTE phone channel used by AT&T.
Complaints lodged by AT&T to the FCC about interference caused to cell phones by TV stations on channel 51 resulted in a freeze in new licenses for TV on channel 51. Channel 37 is used by some of the radio astronomy observatories in the US, so there have never been any TV stations on channel 37.
The unused TV channels on 470 to 512 MHz, (TV channels 14 through 20) have been used by narrow band two way radio since the early 1970's. They are NOT supposed to be used by mission critical public safety like police and fire, but I could hear several small city police radios from my test boards from inside the Motorola plant where I worked on those channels.
The other unused TV channels have been allocated for low power wireless systems, mostly high dollar wireless audio microphones, for years. The microphone and TV industries have successfully fended off all recent attempts by industry to gain legal access to the "TV Whitespace" (unused channels) spectrum.
The old analog VHF and UHF TV channels up to channel 50 or 51 are still in use for DTV today. Modern TV sets have the ability to remap the channel numbers such that the channel number shown on the TV set is not the same as the channel number allocated to the transmitter by the FCC. This was done to avoid confusion since in large cities like Miami the actual broadcast frequency changed 3 times during the DTV switchover, but the number displayed on the TV set never changed. CBS Miami was on Channel 4 during the Analog days. The TV set still says "4" today even though the actual DTV transmitter is on channel 22. Some stations occupied a different transmitter channel during the transition period to allow for both DTV and analog broadcasting without interference.
Actually, I would hope they leave 10 MHz alone. Almost every lab frequency reference is at 10 MHz, and the new frequency is 100 MHz. Pokes the FM band right in the eye. But really, there is enough leakage at 10 MHz that comes and goes that you wouldn't want anything else there. The last thing a lab would need isa powerful transmitter at 10 MHz!
-Chris
-Chris
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