Maintain funding for NIST stations WWV and WWVH

re: "this should be funded by a hybrid of both public and private funds."

In that case, skip it. I'll just "wing it" when it comes to calibrating my service monitor, or, I'll compare it to the City Of Dallas 2-way services (PD, FD, et al) and *hope* **hope** ***hope*** they are accurate.

Sincerely, I think services like this are a "public good" and therefore should be funded as such.I have made several posts on this subject, mentioning cross-checks and NIST traceability; I'll skip any reiteration of those here.

 

I think I read a savings of 6 to 7 million dollars if it is shut down. Really?... that's not even a drop in the bucket of a multi TRILLION DOLLAR National budget. I would like to know who's smoking what at NIST?

 

You're asking the wrong question. You should be asking why the current anti-science administration wants to cut NIST's budget.

 

I think it's some kind of hadron.

 

I worked in Motorla product labs & had separate everything for test equipment. In other words, I only touched a service monitor to help a repair tech carry things in or out of whatever if I was present.

The question is, can a service monitor tune 10 MHz? As in a GPSDO ...

And, could there be away of hacking a service monitor to use a GPSDO? Are there any hams here? Hello Hello .. er .. cq cq cq

 

A better question to ask is why is NIST cutting their most publically visible means of disseminating the fundamental measurements of time and frequency?

They even admit they provide a service enumerated in the constitution. (I've mentioned this before, but as we drift more and more into a lawless society, the constitution means less and less.)

https://www.nist.gov/fy-2019-presidential-budget-request-summary

6 or 7 millions is a drop IN THEIR bucket.

https://www.nist.gov/fy-2019-presidential-budget-request-summary/budget-tables

I'll tell you why. They're throwing a temper-tantrum. I say (nicely) the HECK with NIST.

GPS satellites are controlled by the GPS Master Control station. They compare their clocks with the US Naval Observatory Master Clock.

This master clock is composed of "dozens" of cesium clocks and "a dozen" hydrogen clocks. By comparing all these clocks, they maintain stability of less than 100 pico seconds drift per day.

The time on these clocks are transferred to the "multiple" cesium and/or "multiple" rubidium clocks located on each satellite.

They're all off by 17 seconds. (Leap seconds since Jan 1980). This is known, so it's easy to correct on your display.

I just ordered a GPSDO from Novus. I'll have as accurate a time and frequency reference as I need. And so will everyone else who needs a time and frequency reference. If WWV/B/H go off the air, GPSDO's will all of a sudden get really expensive. And then within a few months, manufacturers will ramp up production and all of a sudden GPSDOs will get really cheap. ...thanks to capitalism.

 

The President has asked NIST to reduce their budget from $954 million to $629 million. Put yourself in NIST's shoes. What can be cut? I hate to say it, but WWV/WWVH may be the low hanging fruit.

 

There are a lot of replies here. I am not certain I have read or even remember every one. I came across this on the net. I find it quite informative. I am sure if this has already been posted on the ZED, someone will point it out.

NIST takes aim at WWVB, WWV and WWVH
https://www.hamradio.me/news/nist-takes-aim-wwvb-wwv-and-wwvh.html

 

I have been in "NIST's" shoes. Not their department, a different department.

I'm all for keeping WWV/B/H on the air. Without these, many will lose their primary source of accurate time/frequency. Our founders knew that accurate standards of weights and measurement was key to freedom, fairness and our success; hence, it was enshrined in one of our founding documents.

However, our government continues to spend more than we agree to give them every year and they continue to "cook the books" without any accountability. With mathematical provability, we are headed towards what's happening in <Venezuela> right now (just to mention one country--there are many other countries I could mention also).

The president is not trying to balance the budget solely on the backs of NIST.

I would suggest there's plenty of low hanging fruit which is not enumerated in our constitution. Now, since I'm not an insider in NIST, I'm not familiar with *everything* they're spending (wasting) our money on. There are ways to hide how a government agency spends (wastes) money which most people are unaware. I worked inside some "black" budgets--these are budgets hidden from the public by law in the interest of national security.

And if I were president, my first official act on day 1 would be to immediately zero out the budget on at least one of these organizations because I have insider information on it. But I can't because I signed an NDA (an am being paid hush money--my retirement check) before I left, so it continues wasting tens of millions of dollars every year.

So I say let NIST turn off their transmitters. Then maybe people will start asking what they're spending (wasting) all that other money on?

 

re: "I just ordered a GPSDO from Novus."

What are you going to check it against? Trust but _no_ verify is not an option for a job shop ...

 

Same Q to you, what do you use to verify your GPSDO if but once a year even?

 

"dozens" of cesium clocks and "a dozen" hydrogen clocks at USNO and

"multiple" cesium and/or "multiple" rubidium clocks located on each satellite

should be checked against ONE 4 year old cesium clock (NIST-F2) which is checked against a 19 year old cesium clock (NIST-F1) in Boulder CO? Sure. Nothing wrong with that. But NITS-F2 can be reached directly over the internet via Network Time Protocol also.

https://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi

One of my senior computer science programming projects back in 1996 was a program I wrote (with a windows interface) which dialed NIST over the telephone, extracted the time string, convert it to the 40 bit hardware clock, and then set the hardware clock in my computer. Initial handshaking with NIST included a quick algorithm which measured propagation delay followed by a time string every second with an offset for that delay. I haven't looked into it, but I'm pretty sure there's something similar built into NTP already.

NIST has a program you can download which does the same thing over the internet.

https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/services/internet-time-service-its

How accurate are you time needs? Within 1 second is good enough for the Joe Taylor modes. Within a minute is good enough for logging QSOs.

One of the reasons I went with Novus is there's a little LED on it that's labeled "lock". Lock means it's now receiving good signals from at least 4 satellites. A quick glance at that LED will tell me that it's in check. When that LED is lit, there's a high degree of confidence the 10 Mhz output has an accuracy of ~E-12. That's pretty accurate.

As for frequency reference, NIST themselves say transferring standards over satellite are more certain than transferring standards over HF.

https://tf.nist.gov/service/pdf/calibrations.pdf (Table A.4, page 73)

And it looks like NIST is on path to obsolete their HF transmitters as frequency references anyway. "NIST on a Chip"

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/ne...requency-combs-are-reliable-measurement-tools

I know some emotional attachments have been formed over the years by some because of always being able to tune to 2.5, 5, 10, 15 etc and *ALWAYS* hearing the familiar tones, ticks and voice. But as has been mentioned by at least one other poster, the cost of keeping old, outdated HF transmitters on the air eventually reaches a point of no longer being worth it.

Ask me about the first couple of computer systems I was trained to operate and maintain back in the early 80s. My sense of self worth grew because of those old beasts. And the emotions I went through when the teams came in with hack saws, bolt cutters, cutting torches and fork lifts to rip them out, throw them in the back of a truck and dump them on the ground outside to be recycled for precious metals only... I liked BBN 1822. But it turned out TCP/IP ended up working much better.

We can survive with out WWV/B/H. Maybe we'll even be better off with out them.

 

I'll say it again - hand the xmtr sites over to the Smithsonian and have them operated for public admission as a National Historical Landmark and educational STEM museum.

"WWV is the oldest continuously-operating radio station in the United States, first going on the air from Washington, D.C. in May 1920, approximately six months before the launch of KDKA."

 

re: "We can survive with out WWV/B/H. Maybe we'll even be better off with out them."

When you say "we", that does not include everybody, such as myself. My primary interest does not include metrology to the degree it does you apparently. I also think that the majority of folk out in the field who make use of WWV as a frequency reference for setting/calibrating/verifying a wide variety of operational equipment in the field do not have as deep an interest in the 'tech' of GPS and Cesium and Rubidium 'standards' either. You also seem to have a preoccupation with "time" in your answer, whereas my primary interest is frequency.

You weren't clear in your response, either, from at least my perspective, how you would assure in a timely and cost effective manner (perhaps once each year) the "accuracy" of your local *frequency* standard. Reception of WWV/WWVB signals off-the-air offers a quick means by which frequency standards can be assured to be within whatever the limits are of the particular method of reception, with WWVB propagation offering less in the way of propagation distortion than the use of the MW pr HF sources of WWV.

Again, I've covered in posts here various methods of assuring the accuracy of one's own house frequency standard given tight constraints of time and money (conditions MANY home hobbyists and hams alike face), but I'd like to hear _your_ prescribed method without a lot of handwaving this time.

 

I say NIST deserves to celebrate a 100yrs of service!
And we oughta think this threw a bit more, before we close the doors and pull the power cord.

I just signed the petitions. Just so we can perhaps get a think tank upon the issues.

The standings are 11k and 6k.

"You've successfully signed the petition below. Your signature has been verified and counted."
89k and 94k To go sign it.

Plus, thank you NIST, my National NC-300 was calibrated when I was a poor teenager budding ham operator, but it all started with a 15$ yard sale, and a labor of love with a diddle stick inside ceramic forms and your time signal. It surely helped me fuel the economy! And it's fun.

How is it that proof, always gets into the wallet?
Well that NC-300, turned an 800% profit and then into a KENWOOD TS-520se and then that leaded
into Kenwood TS-940SAT. And I'll stop the list here for now. Oh it, continues on. I'm sure others
have a story about how WWV made you feel proud of a sweet calibration at 3am?


KA2RRK