Talk:WWVB

Antenna question

What kind of antenna is used for WWWVB? How high are the used masts?

from https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/radio-station-wwvb

"WWVB uses two identical antennas that were originally constructed in 1962, and refurbished in 1999. The north antenna was originally built for the WWVL 20 kHz broadcast (discontinued in 1972), and the south antenna was built for the WWVB 60 kHz broadcast. The antennas are spaced 857 m apart. Each antenna is a top loaded monopole consisting of four 122-m towers arranged in a diamond shape. A system of cables, often called a capacitance hat or top hat, is suspended between the four towers. This top hat is electrically isolated from the towers, and is electrically connected to a downlead suspended from the center of the top hat. The downlead serves as the radiating element."

174.216.148.196 (talk) 14:57, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Problem with receivers in 2012

My understanding is that there was a problem exposed by a change in modulation in 2012. http://ka7oei.blogspot.com/2013/02/did-nist-break-bunch-of-radio.html 174.25.57.105 (talk) 00:10, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Propagation

Is the increased propagation distance at night due to skywave propagation? ZFT (talk) 21:49, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Ground wave propagation hugs the earth and can reach over the horizon. Skywave is not unheard of at 60 Khz, but the low frequency was chosen specifically to avoid skywave. This is because the speed of light radio signal delay would vary wildly with skip conditions fading in and out.

I'm positive from my own experience that time signals like WWVB work better at night, and NIST propagation maps published online bear this out, but this may be because of a reduction of interference on these frequencies rather than some kind of nighttime enhancement. I can't find a straight answer I trust. 174.216.148.196 (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

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Closing soon?

There is an article Time running out on atomic-clock station in Fort Collins claiming that "The National Institute for Standards & Technology based in Boulder may close its time-signal radio station in Fort Collins [...] as part of agency-wide proposed budget cuts". There is a similar article at NPR.

Trump has proposed to cut the budget of the NIST from $954 million to $629 million.

Is it too early to mention that on this page?

--The very model of a minor general (talk) 22:39, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Done, with a "horse's mouth" reference. Jeh (talk) 12:24, 13 September 2018 (UTC)