re: "It's that it's a traceable source of standard time and frequency, the best that available technology can provide, backed by NIST." This fact would seem to escape one notable bloviator.
NIST radio broadcasts and timebases provide at least 2 services that have no equal in the world. Direct NIST accuracy, rather than "Indirect" traceability accuracy. The WWV-NIST radio broadcast services are utilized by metrology (the test equipment utilized by science, industry, and government) 1. Direct NIST Timebase (not just traceability) 2. Direct NIST Frequency Standard (not just traceability) For commercial RF Engineering, the NIST-WWV broadcasts provide instant *direct* field checks of frequency accuracy calibration. That's a very important touchstone, because we RF Engineers are very distrustful of little tags that say "calibrated on x date". While GPS-based standards provide a good timebase-frequencybase source, they are not ubiquitous, and in many cases in metrology, require secondary equipment. Having a world standard multi-frequency direct NIST broadcast is one of the things that once made USA a great beacon of civilization, science, and technology. Recently, some zealous entities in the upper echelons of government have pursued a religionist agenda of anti-science and anti-research; the budget-starving of NIST is a typical example of such small-minded thinking.
Most commercial and government operations use GPS based time standards now. Every cell phone tower and server bank uses GPS. https://www.gps.gov/applications/timing/
So, I have to ask you, what is your exact point? Furthermore, is there _no_ engineering development or troubleshooting going on in the world? I'm reminded of those stories where some ppl express that they think that 'food' grows in grocery stores and not on farms and so forth ... there is a LOT of manpower and effort that goes into engineering those systems that are so lightly pointed to in your post, and I guarantee that are checks and cross-checks of that GPS disciplined reference when the cell site dos not come 'up', reports a fault back to the NOC and the technician begins his or her troubleshooting ops ...
I've utilized service monitors in places where I could get WWV but not GPS. Example: the factory floor of a production line. Usually, all it takes is a couple clip leads on the receiver antenna port to pick up WWV on HF/MF. GPS often requires a long USB or cable extension to put the GPS receiver over at a window that can see the sky. It gets even more complicated to get a GPS lock when you have to work inside a screen room, where the only through-ports are type N connectors. The weak GPS satellite 1GHz signal is easily blocked by walls and roof of a building. Get a wise old RF Engineer to show you how.
There're GPS disciplined oscillators which can be used to measure frequency to within 1 part per billion. How accurate does a typical ham need to be? 1 part per billion is within .03 hz at 30MHZ. I've thought about getting one to play around in the bi-annual ARRL Frequency Measurement test. I've done the "use WWV on 2.5, 5, 10. 15, and 20 (recently now on 25) to find the best fit line of error in my receiver" trick a couple of times and been within 1 hz when I do that. The folks with the flex radios with attached GPSDO's don't have to do anything other than leave their radios on for a couple hours (stabilize temp) and they're getting within 10's of MILLIHERTZ accuracy (and still complaining about doppler shift and stuff...) I've also seen references stating after you remove the predictable error, GPS time is within 40 nanoseconds. Yes, I'll miss the quick check on 10MHZ to see if my wall clock is within a few seconds, but how many people actually use WWV to do that these days? All cell phone companies usually bump their time signal to all cell phones up against some time standard, so HF WWV has become even less used these days. If WWV goes away on HF, I'll buy a GPSDO pretty quickly. Probably one from Novus. I'm tired of people saying this is a drop in the bucket of the federal budget. And that's a drop in the bucket in the federal budget. And nothing can be cut because kids will starve and grandma will be pushed off the cliff. We have to cut something. If we don't, we are quickly approaching some sort of major reset in society because of $21T in "on the books" debt and $200T in government promises. Why pay for both HF and satellite time/frequency standards? Which on makes more sense to cut? Just my 2 cents.
Yes ... and I suppose at all times you just assume your GPSDO is correct. FB. Consider that your GPSDO is still an extra step or two away from a primary standard and still no assurance of accuracy. Quoting from upstream (words I don't think perhaps you read, or understood?): The WWV-NIST radio broadcast services are utilized by metrology (the test equipment utilized by science, industry, and government) 1. Direct NIST Timebase (not just traceability) 2. Direct NIST Frequency Standard (not just traceability) Close quote. I posted the following some time back in one of these threads, I would not expect you to find it or remember it, so I'll repeat it again. There was an application where a 10 MHz GPSDO outputting 10 MHz to all the factory floor test instruments. In final test on the EF Johnson product line, the radio's reference oscillator for the synthesizer was trimmed to be within spec. It would be practice each day that the 10 MHz GPSDO frequency was verified to be within limits compared against WWV. Normally this is an observed phase difference, any 'beat note' would indicate a failure in the GPSDO. THIS TEST represented a direct comparison that was deemed to have been compared with an NIST Frequency Standard.
That would be nice but the frequency spectrum 10.009 to 10.996 is an international Aeronautical mobile band. This spectrum is heavily used (by commercial standards) If we ever get more spectrum for our 30 meter band it would most likely be above 10.150 MHz. Tom WA4ILH
With all the talk of time standards, I think everyone has a hold of the wrong end of the stick. It's true that there are other ways to get a reference time, what we're all overlooking is the propagation verification WWV provides. There's nothing else like it in the world, that I know of. CHU in Canada doesn't even come close to the reach that WWV has. Consider that we are talking about a consistent set of well-maintained high power transmitters on a set of defined frequencies that are on 24/7. This allows anyone to check propagation conditions at any hour of the day or night.. And this isn't just for hams, I'm sure Federal HF operators use WWV for propagation checks, as well as State Part 90 HF stations. We have WWV in our State HF Net radios for just this purpose. If you can't hear WWV on at least one frequency, something is very wrong, either your antenna or propagation is badly hosed. Either way, at least you know that you aren't going to be talking to anyone until something changes. The short-sightedness of taking this service off the air is beyond belief. 73! Bill AB9TA
Gotta figure that any sort of shortwave broadcasted "standard" is probably seen as obsolete. And affected by propagation to make it often unusable, here. GPS sats don't have that issue short of some huge catastrophe. Who uses WWV besides hams, very much, anyway? Not that I am against WWV at all and assumed it would stay around a long time, but technology has passed it by, at least the shortwave versions. WWVB can be used to sync clocks and does so quite well. For most purposes, shortwave communications have become secondary backups and SW broadcasting is a dodo with one foot in the grave. Like it or not, that is where we stand.
Following your line of thought, we ought to zip up the ham bands and sell them to the highest bidder! Especially 440 and 1296 MHz! They would be dandy for cellular and data services! Why are we even ourselves dealing with HF anyway? We have the internet now! Radio is dead. Long live radio!
Now that I'm retired/tired, this works just fine for me "Daylight Saving Time" screws me up every now & then
