i have a real tough time getting a decent timekeeping signal onthe Eastern Shore of Maryland. Why no additional towers for such a useful service? How much can it cost for a broadcast tower to cover the eastern US?
[edit] Radio time sources
i have a real tough time getting a decent timekeeping signal onthe Eastern Shore of Maryland. Why no additional towers for such a useful service? How much can it cost for a broadcast tower to cover the eastern US?
[edit] Radio time sources
I used to call the US Naval Observatory in DC. Now a GPS receiver is all I use.
GPS is great but not for indoor clocks.
The short answer is that WWV(H) is all but obsolete since GPS provides a good time signal which has the advantage of being computer-accessible. WWV was designed for the era when humans listened with their ears & set clocks with their fingers.
I don’t have any info that there is such a plan, but I would not be surprised to see one or the other shut down in the next decade.
Internet time is accurate to a few mS - how much better do you need?
Use an NTP client on a computer. That works indoors. Windows has a built in one.
The issue is that there are a lot of clocks and watches that use the atomic signals to automatically set themselves, and these clocks and watches are not set up to interface with the internet. So it does seem as though a repeater station somewhat closer than Fort Collins would be a good idea.
Pity. WWV went on the air in 1923. It originally broadcast from the Bureau of Standards building in Washington, which gave it good coverage of the eastern half of the country when most of the clocks, ears, and fingers lived there. During the 1930s it began sending A-440 for tuning musical instruments, and still does.
I know a Luddite in Maine who sets her alarm clock every night by CHU - over an RCA Victor all-wave console that’s so old you can make your own records with it.
Good accuracy standalone clocks for civilian use are practically all based on the WWVB signal, and I can’t get them to work in my house either - a great frustration. If you read NIST’s advice on how to design such a clock, they point out that building the antenna into the body of the clock will impare reception and limit the positions the clock can be placed in, but recommend doing it anyway. I think WWVB is nifty and have toyed with the idea of erecting a big tuned loop antenna in the trees out back so I could receive it, but this is such a dumb use of my overtaxed time that it will wait for at least my 5th reincarnation from now.
More literally, I think the reason they don’t build another tower for it closer to the east coast is that it takes quite a large antenna to broadcast a 60 kHz signal effectively, and they don’t get all that much money to provide the service in the first place. I read about their major overhaul of the transmitter and antenna system a few years ago, and I am vaguely remembering expenditures in the tens of thousands.
I get reasonably good GPS reception indoors in a small, wooden house.