The National Institute of Standards and Technology Radio Station WWV will be celebrating its 100-year anniversary in October 2019. The oldest continuously operating radio station in the world deserves a grand celebration. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Northern Colorado Amateur Radio Club (NCARC) have reached an agreement and are working together to organize the event. NIST will focus on the plans for Tuesday, October 1, when they will host a recognition ceremony and an open house at the radio station north of Fort Collins. NCARC will operate a special event amateur radio station, call signWW0WWV, on the WWV property starting September 28 and going 24-hours a day through October 2. The goal is to make as many U.S. and world-wide contacts during the 120-hour period as possible, using multiple bands and multiple modes on at least 4 simultaneous transmitters. The effort will require hundreds of volunteer operators. Information on the Special Events Station visit: http://wwv100.com https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2019/10/nist-radio-station-wwv-100-year-anniversary
It was the decision of all the GPSDO (GPS disciplined oscillator) owners that WWV/WWVB et al weren't needed anymore, to which I asked the question "How do you verify your GPSDO is working?" I think the answer I got back was: "Look at the green LED that says everything is okay." That may be fine with them, but I still want to see the GPSDO output compared/checked against WWV for the final word ... The LED driver could just have a solder splash across it forcing the LED on regardless ...
At the tone, 100 years, 0 months, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 seconds, coordinated universal time. BEEP. I remember when WWV called it Greenwich Mean Time and use WWV to determine propagation. I have a couple of "Atomic" clocks that set themselves as long as I feed them batteries once a year. They kind of get grumpy if I miss their feeding time. It's nice to know that WWV is still being used in this age of digital phones, computers etc. and hope it goes on for another 100 years.
Might have to look into a road trip... This really would be about as cool as it gets for a kid who grew up setting everything to WWV.
This news posted on ARRL site 29 March 2019. My take from this read is the service will not discontinue in the foreseeable future. http://www.arrl.org/news/department...t-interoperability-exercise-info-via-wwv-wwvh A short excerpt: "....Department of Defense to Transmit Interoperability Exercise Info via WWV/WWVH 03/29/2019 The US Department of Defense (DOD) plans to start making use of a provisional time slot on WWV and WWVH to announce upcoming HF military communication exercises and how the Amateur Radio community can become involved in them. The announcements will occur at 10 minutes past on WWV and at 50 minutes past on WWVH. WWV and WWVH transmit on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz. “DOD’s use of the broadcast time slot on WWV/WWVH will benefit the MARS program’s mission of outreach to the Amateur Radio community,” said US Army Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY. “The actual messages to be broadcast are coordinated by the DOD Headquarters that the MARS program supports...." I will hasten to complete the survey mentioned at end of article when available. I hope others might do likewise to help firm up listener data on this valuable service. 73 CW
I have heard rumors that WWV and WWVB and WWVH will not be shutdown. It would be nice if the ARRL would publish something definitive on the status of the stations. Maybe that is too much to ask. Great frequency and time standard. Great indication of band conditions close to the reference frequencies. 2.5 (for 160/80m) 5.0 (for 60/40m) 10.0 (for 40m) 15.0 (for 20m) 20.0 (for 15/10m). Solar flux index reports etc. Great stations!
NIST has to be appropriated a budget every fiscal year. WWV, WWVH and WWVB will potentially be on the chopping block again for FY2020.
LOL. I never thought about it but next "Tme" (pardon the pun) I can't sleep it might be a good thing to listen to!!!!
I've been listening to and using WWV signals since the early 1970s, and on a whim one day I visited WWV in May 2012 on my way cross country. I drove 120 miles out of my way to do it. I didn't think to check and just assumed that the WWV staff still conducted tours. No tour of course but I did get special permission to go onto the property and take a few outside pictures for my private collection. I thought that it was pretty cool at the time. Happy upcoming BD WWV, lets hope for another 100 years!
Talking clock; when my vision was impaired a few years ago; it was either them or WBBM 780 out of Chicago ...
