
Show HN: Radio station WWV audio simulation - LVB
https://wwv.mcodes.org
======
dbcurtis
Ha ha! Wonderful. Just by chance, happened to catch it as the top the hour
rolled over, so got to hear the full station ID. Great fun. But what do you do
about propagation and weather announcements? :)

My favorite WWV story: Was helping set up a ham radio station with a rather
low-end transceiver (I did not select it...) anyway, there was this one multi-
band antenna we were tuning up, and every time we got it close to matched, the
receiver went nuts -- crap all over. I needed a signal that I knew would be
reliable and where I knew what I would be hearing, so I tuned in 10MHz WWV.
When the antenna got close to a good match, I started hearing Mexican polkas.

I quickly dismissed the possibility that WWV had changed its programming.....

As it turns out, our station was about 4 miles away from a local AM station
and we were right in a major lobe of their pattern. The crappy front end on
our receiver got totally crushed by overload from the AM station, which of
course caused IMD products in the first mixer from "DC to daylight", as they
say.

Solution: Quickly knocked out a high-pass filter that we could transmit
through at 100W. The Polka-Be-Gone(TM).

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JoeDaDude
If you did not follow the links in the article, WWWV is at risk of getting
shut down due to budget cuts [1]. There was a petition drive to keep the
stations operating [2] but it failed to get enough signatures.

[1]. [https://www.voanews.com/a/time-may-be-running-out-for-
millio...](https://www.voanews.com/a/time-may-be-running-out-for-millions-of-
clocks/4554376.html)

[2]. [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/maintain-
funding-n...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/maintain-funding-nist-
stations-wwv-wwvh)

~~~
drmpeg
WWV is funded for FY2019.

[https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43908](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43908)

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Stratoscope
What a marvelous project! Thank you to the author for creating it.

For anyone interested in the history and technology behind WWV/WWVH/WWVB, NIST
has a great writeup from 2005:

[https://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/1969.pdf](https://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/1969.pdf)

Fun fact: the WWV announcer is San Francisco talk show host Lee Rodgers.

You can also listen to WWV by phone. The number is in the PDF.

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jrockway
It seems to be missing the 100Hz time code subcarrier:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station)#Digital_ti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_\(radio_station\)#Digital_time_code)

There should also be doubled ticks near the start of the minute to indicate
the difference between UTC and UT1 (i.e., how close we are to needing a leap
second). There is one right now, but I did not carefully count what second it
should be attached to. (Going to guess 9 though.)

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sciurus
This is a fun idea!

If you'd like to listen to the real thing, check the list of WebSDR servers at
[http://www.websdr.org/](http://www.websdr.org/)

I have an SDR in my office hooked up to an outdoor random wire antenna. So far
this morning I've listened to shortwave broadcasts from France, Nigeria, and
Saudi Arabia. The HF band is even more fun at night when propagation is
better.

Shortwave listening is an easy hobby to get started with; an RTL-SDR dongle
plus a 7M long wire antenna only costs $34 from [https://www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-
rtl-sdr-dvb-t-dongles/](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-rtl-sdr-dvb-t-dongles/)

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kabdib
I grew up just a few miles from WWV. When I was a teenager I had an
electronics lab, and the most reliable noise in the circuits I built was the
WWV signal.

I could take a diode, a length of wire and a speaker and know the exact time,
no tuning necessary :-)

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james_pm
Canada also has three stations broadcasting time signals. More information:
[https://www.nrc-
cnrc.gc.ca/eng/services/time/broadcast_codes...](https://www.nrc-
cnrc.gc.ca/eng/services/time/broadcast_codes.html)

~~~
reaperducer
There's a couple of dozen more around the world

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_clock#List_of_radio_time...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_clock#List_of_radio_time_signal_stations)

Back when I was into SWL, I used to get a station in South America. My memory
tells me it was out of Peru, but it's not on the wikimopedia list.

~~~
dbcurtis
A time station? Or HCJB in Quito Equador. HCJB used to have a poindinf
footprint into North America when I was a kid.

~~~
reaperducer
Wow. Mentioning "HCJB" brought back a lot of memories. I'll have to check to
see if it streams.

What I was thinking of was a time station. It was on the same frequency as
WWV, and if the propagation was right you could hear it in Spanish.

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anfractuosity
[http://bastianborn.de/radio-clock-hack](http://bastianborn.de/radio-clock-
hack) \- I thought this was very cool, emulating the signal emitted by a time
signal station, to alter radio clocks, using just a speaker.

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trothamel
It's pretty easy to listen to the real WWV, though it'll be delayed by a few
second (making it less useful). Visit [https://sdr.hu/map](https://sdr.hu/map)
, then click on one of the pointers in the US.

In the lower right, there's a controll panel. Type 100000 into the text box in
the upper left of it, hit enter. Make sure AM is selected (it should be), and
you'll be hearing WWV.

~~~
icebraining
_It 's pretty easy to listen to the real WWV_

Maybe not for long, though: "the station's future is in doubt, because it,
along with WWVB and WWVH, has been recommended for defunding and elimination
in the NIST's Fiscal Year 2019 budget request.
([https://www.nist.gov/fy-2019-presidential-budget-request-
sum...](https://www.nist.gov/fy-2019-presidential-budget-request-
summary/scientific-and-technical-research-and-services-3) )"

~~~
LVB
I'd been dabbling with this project for a long time but didn't have much audio
recorded. Seeing ^^^ announcement was the real "oh sh*t, I better get going on
this" moment.

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rmason
This makes me so happy. I started out as a short wave listener (SWL) before
becoming a ham. WWV was part of both hobbies though it's been quite a while
since I've heard those tones and it took me right back to my childhood. WWV
should be part of the web, thanks for bringing it there.

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Rooster61
Bit of a tangent, but I just realized this is the radio station that is heard
on Godspeed You! Black Emperor's song "Static".

I've always wondered where that sample came from. This simulation is pretty
spot on. Well done :)

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jachee
This brought back memories of tuning in WWV as a young ham in the early 90's.
Well done!

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llacb47
Awesome!

