WWV is 90, WWVB turns 50.

[BPO]

WWVB turns 50.

Anyone else still keep an observatory radio tuned in to WWV/B/H?

I still love the sound of it when I'm working in the dark.

[gary]

That's a lot of ticks.

I've been tuning into WWV and WWVH for 41 years.

WWVB transmits way down at 60KHz and I have never been able to receive it in
Australia.

It is always interesting when they transmit an additional leap second.

[Steffen]

I've always wondered about the absence of commercially available radio controlled clocks in Australia. They were quite popular in Europe as kitchen and living room clocks, bedside alarm clocks and even wrist watches. Those received the DCF77 signal of course, but surely something similar should have been viable in Australia?

Cheers
Steffen.

[gary]

Originally Posted by Steffen

I've always wondered about the absence of commercially available radio controlled clocks in Australia. They were quite popular in Europe as kitchen and living room clocks, bedside alarm clocks and even wrist watches. Those received the DCF77 signal of course, but surely something similar should have been viable in Australia?

Cheers
Steffen.

Hi Steffen,

Perhaps one of the keys to German efficiency?

Best Regards

Gary

[BPO]

There's something serene yet spooky about sitting in the dark with WWVx in the background.

...doink-doink-doink-doink-At the tone, something hours, something minutes, coordinated universal time-doing-BEEEEEEEP-beeng-beeng-beeng-doink-doink-doink...

I was sure that lady was speaking directly to me, personally. Sigh...

[AstralTraveller (David)]

I never found WWV easy to use but used to use VNG regularly for grazes. I can still remember:

"This is VNG, Lyndhurst Victoria Australia on 4.5, 7.5 and 12 megahertz. VNG is a standard frequency and time signal service of the Australian Telecommunications Commission."

[Wavytone]

Originally Posted by Steffen

surely something similar should have been viable in Australia?

I recall some kits - possibly a Silicon Chip project - late 70's or early '80s that synced from VNG/WWV sold here, a few observers aiming to time Bailey's beads at solar eclipses built them, with both LED display and audio out that imitated the WWV beeps, and a frequency outputs which included 1kHz and 1s pulses for other things. Battery powered thing, about the size of a lunchbox, full of standard CMOS logic chips anyone could build with a soldering iron or wire-wrap pen.

Basically it had a local quartz oscillator to maintain time and synced when it could get a signal.

At the time my preferred clock was the HP41CX calculator which has a very interesting clock that is software-rate adjustable and stable to 1 part in 10^9. Using that to generate beeps it was OK to sync by ear to VNG 0.01 second, and I used it at a few eclipses and occultations.

The i41CX app for the iPhone/iPad includes the same clock functions, with the advantage that the iPhone syncs to GPS time as well, so if you want something that gives precise and accurately timed beeps, this is a very easy way to do it.