Federal Goverment wants to shut down WWV and WWVH

c.coyle

Fighting the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Just saw it here. Internet time signals suffer from latency. Plus, anybody who has ever dabbled in ham radio or shortwave listening has used these stations not only for time, but for frequency calibrations and checking propagation.

Shortsighted if you ask me.

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I believe that my digital weather station's clock uses WWV's signal for calibration.
I like it because it is the one clock in the house that I know is always correct plus having been a shortwave listener years ago, I think that it is clever that the manufacturer thought to build this in.
Can't count on your phone or the internet working if there is a disaster that takes the networks down but you sure will be able to count on amateur radio operators with generators to provide a means of communicating and WWV for the correct time...
I agree, very short-sighted and very little to be saved in the big scheme of things.
Jim
 
Shortsighted .
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I'll buy 'em! Add jingles and sell ads & make big coin:) Seriously, a pretty dumb idea. Operational costs are basically the power bill & maintenance so it's hardly a budget-breaker. The signals themselves are a good propagation indicator, not to mention their periodic propagation reports. Pretty sure WWV was the first QSL card I received as a kid...ended up getting QSLs for all their frequencies as well as a couple of different WWVH frequencies. (WWVH is a TOUGH catch here in the Midwest) Verified a number of foreign time/frequency stations as well, such as Japan's JJY.

And, so-called "atomic" clocks use the digital signal from WWVB @ 60kHz for their info. IIRC WWVB only runs about 10 kW...but talk about a ground wave!

OLD radio joke: "My last gig was morning drive on WWV":)
 
I'm a pretty careful guy when it comes to money, and I always appreciate when governments are careful with how they spend my taxes. But it looks like the cost saving is going to be at most $6,300,000 (actually less, if I'm reading it right), which is just change for a nickel when it comes to the federal budget.

My bet is they will justify this by arguing that there are tens of thousands of WWVB 60khz devices out there, plus every personal computer can access internet time servers. But those are just time standards, AFAIK. No propagation or frequency (audio as well as RF, other than 60khz) calibration capability.

The NIST release contains a perversely sweet piece of bureaucratic doublespeak: "The proposed reductions will allow NIST to consolidate and focus on narrower core SI measurement programs . . . " They're cutting their budget across the board, yet implying that the savings will allow them to better "focus" on other existing programs! They're cutting everything, not moving money around.

Hey, times change. Maybe time stations are obsolete.
 
One of the really sad things about this is that WWV is the oldest continuously-operating radio station in the US...going on the air in May 1920...beating KDKA, Pittsburgh by about six months. Originally they followed a Friday night schedule with concert broadcasts, news via Morse code, then switching to providing standard frequency information in 1922. Time signals were added in the 1930s.
 
Who exactly is it in fed govt that thinks this is a good idea?

The people at NIST who prepared their 2019 budget. It gets submitted to Congress for its consideration, and probably goes first to a committee where staffers comb over it, not actual congress people. A very, very small percentage of the general population knows what WWV is, so it's reasonable to assume that very, very few Congress people do, either. The congresspeople will probably go along with their staff's recommendation (and the staff with the NIST's recommendation) unless somebody opposing the cuts gets the direct attention of actual congresspeople.

It seems to me that lobbying and public input are the only things likely to actually put something as boring to lay people as some radio station that beeps, and that you can't hear without a special radio, on any Congress person's radar. There are probably hundreds of little budget items as obscure as WWV every year.

As far as lobbying, my first thought was the ARRL (the national ham radio organization). Their website yesterday mentioned the proposed shutdown, but pretty much just cited the SWLing Post article. It will be interesting to see if ARRL gets active on this.

There are probably scientific and technical organizations that also use these stations.
 
I'd think a redundant independent time and frequency standard a matter of National security interest. Modern solid state broadcast gear is energy efficient and very reliable low maintainance.
 
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I'd think a redundant imdependent time and frequency standard a matter of National security interest. Modern solid state broadcast gear is energy efficient and very reliable low maintainance.

That would be a good argument.
 
Almost every clock in my house relies on WWVB and I calibrate my frequency counters with WWV. Why is it getting warmer and what am I doing in this hand basket?
 
As far as time and frequency standards go, GPS is used in almost all (all?) modern gear. That said, I also have an "atomic" clock and would hate to see it abandoned.
 
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