{"id":40086,"date":"2019-10-07T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=40086"},"modified":"2019-10-06T11:21:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T15:21:49","slug":"nist-radio-station-wwv-celebrates-a-century-of-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/nist-radio-station-wwv-celebrates-a-century-of-service\/","title":{"rendered":"“NIST Radio Station WWV Celebrates a Century of Service”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

NIST radio station WWV from the air. Each of the six frequencies the radio broadcasts in has its own antenna, each one surrounded by a white safety fence. The tall antenna for the lowest frequency has a flashing white strobe on top (in the left foreground) to make it visible to aircraft pilots.
Credit: Glenn Nelson, NIST<\/p><\/div>\n

(Source: NIST Blog<\/a> via Eric McFadden)<\/p>\n

\n

NIST Radio Station WWV Celebrates a Century of Service<\/h2>\n

By Laura Ost<\/p>\n

What technological application has had musical, timekeeping, navigational, scientific, traffic-control, emergency-response, and telephone applications?<\/p>\n

Answer:\u00a0WWV<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s oldest continuously operating radio stations.<\/p>\n

NIST received the call letters WWV a century ago, in 1919. Since then, it has operated the station from several different locations \u2014 originally Washington, D.C., then a succession of locales in Maryland, and now Fort Collins, Colorado.<\/p>\n

The programming is rather dry but very, very useful. WWV broadcasts time and frequency information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to millions of listeners worldwide. The station broadcasts standard time (aka\u00a0Coordinated Universal Time<\/a>) and\u00a0standard frequencies (e.g., at 5, 10 and 15 megahertz) for use in calibrating radio receivers, alerts of geophysical activity, and other information.<\/p>\n

WWV broadcasts on six different\u00a0shortwave frequencies<\/a>\u00a0because transmission effectiveness and reception clarity vary depending on many factors, including time of year, time of day, receiver location, solar and geomagnetic activity, weather conditions and antenna type and configuration. Broadcasting on different frequencies helps to ensure that the radio transmission can be received on at least one frequency at all times.<\/p>\n

Over the years, WWV has had a startling number of applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, WWV will always be interesting because of the huge role it played in the development of radio in the United States by allowing broadcasters and listeners to check and calibrate their transmit and receive frequencies,\u201d says Michael Lombardi, leader of NIST’s Time and Frequency Services Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, WWV still serves as an easily accessible frequency and time reference that provides information not available elsewhere,\u201d he says. \u201cFor example, along with\u00a0its sister station, WWVH in Hawaii<\/a>, WWV provides the only high-accuracy voice announcement of the time available by telephone [by calling 303-499-7111 or \u2014 in Hawaii \u2014 808-335-4363]. These phone numbers receive a combined total of more than 1,000 calls per day. \u00a0Both the radio and telephone time signals are used by many thousands of citizens to synchronize clocks and watches, and also by numerous industries to calibrate timers and stopwatches. We also know that WWV is highly valued by scientists performing\u00a0radio propagation<\/a>\u00a0studies because it provides them with accurate time markers on six different shortwave frequencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

NIST time and frequency broadcasts are also available via the internet, of course, but the internet is not always available. Radio broadcasts can also support celestial navigation (i.e., using the stars to set one\u2019s course) and can provide backup communication of public service announcements during disasters or emergencies.<\/p>\n

WWV is also popular with amateur radio (aka ham radio) operators, who use the broadcasts to get geophysical alerts \u2014 indicating how far\u00a0high-frequency radio<\/a>\u00a0signals will travel at the current time and receiver location \u2014 as well as to tinker with their electronics and teach young people how radio works.<\/p>\n

As a ham operator said on NPR<\/a>, WWV is \u201cthe heartbeat of shortwave radio. When something goes wrong, you check WWV to see if you’re picking up their signal. And you know then that everything’s OK. Maritime operators, military operators, amateur radio operators, we all listen to and use WWV regularly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many technical papers and even books have been written about NIST\u2019s radio work. One such book, published by NIST, is\u00a0Achievement in Radio<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The radio broadcasting craze started after World War I. NIST, then known as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), got the call letters WWV for its experimental radio transmitter on Oct. 1, 1919.<\/p>\n

A 1919 newspaper story recounted that NBS experimented with broadcasting \u201cmusic through the air,\u201d transmitting tunes played on a Victrola record player several hundred yards to an NBS auditorium. That demonstration might have been sponsored by military laboratories then operating at NBS.<\/p>\n

WWV began broadcasting in May 1920 from Washington, D.C., at a frequency of 600 kilohertz. The first broadcasts were Friday evening music concerts that lasted from 8:30 to 11. The 50-watt signal could be heard about 40 kilometers away.<\/p>\n

Among many other relevant activities, NBS supported the public\u2019s use of the novel technology by publishing instructions on how to build one\u2019s own radio receiver. The agency\u2019s\u00a01922 how-to publication<\/a>\u00a0cost 5 cents.<\/p>\n

A legacy of impact<\/h2>\n

WWV and WWVH had a broad impact on the world in their early years, as the 1958 NBS annual report indicated:<\/p>\n

The radio broadcast technical services are widely used by scientific, industrial, and government agencies and laboratories as well as by many airlines, steamship companies, the armed services, missile research laboratories and contractors, IGY [International Geophysical Year<\/a>\u00a0(PDF)] personnel, satellite tracking stations, schools and universities, numerous individuals, and many foreign countries. They are of importance to all types of radio broadcasting activities such as communications, television, radar, air and ground navigation systems, guided missiles, anti-missile missiles, and ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n

NIST has conducted several\u00a0surveys of WWV users<\/a>. Many people rely on WWV to set the clocks and watches in their homes, as indicated by regular increases in calls to the telephone time-of-day service whenever Daylight Saving Time starts or ends.<\/p>\n

In one interesting example of the NIST radio station’s impact, WWV time codes were used in a 1988 project by the city of Los Angeles to synchronize traffic lights at more than 1,000 intersections. City officials estimated that this project saved motorists 55,000 hours a day in driving time, conserved 22 million gallons per year in fuel, and prevented 6,000 to 7,000 tons of pollutants per year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not easy to think of a lot of technical services offered by the government that have stayed relevant for 100 years, but WWV is about to do just that,\u201d Michael Lombardi says.<\/p>\n

WWV history highlights<\/h2>\n

WWV has been very useful to the general public and to many industries and government agencies over the years, as indicated by the newly published article, “A Century of WWV,<\/a>” by NIST electronics technician Glenn Nelson. Following are some of the station\u2019s highlights:<\/p>\n

1919<\/strong>\u2014First public announcement of call sign WWV being assigned to NBS in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

1923<\/strong>\u2014First WWV broadcast of standard frequencies to help users calibrate their radios. (In subsequent years, the station began broadcasting at higher frequencies, as well, to get better transmission and reception.)<\/p>\n

1931<\/strong>\u2014The WWV broadcasting station moves to College Park, Maryland.<\/p>\n

1933<\/strong>\u2014The WWV station moves to Beltsville, Maryland.<\/p>\n

1936<\/strong>\u2014The FBI asks NBS to conduct tests using WWV to determine the feasibility of using one transmitter to cover the entire country. (Such a system was eventually ruled out.)<\/p>\n

1936<\/strong>\u2014In response to requests, WWV broadcasts its first musical note. Such tones are useful to piano tuners, for example, and in later years to the police for calibrating radar used to check vehicle speeds.<\/p>\n

1937<\/strong>\u2014WWV begins broadcasting time interval signals.<\/p>\n

1939<\/strong>\u2014Pioneering NBS effort to reflect WWV transmissions off the moon. It didn\u2019t work then but the military later accomplished it. (It turns out that bouncing signals off the moon is easier and scientifically more useful if done with lasers.)<\/p>\n

1943<\/strong>\u2014NIST begins using quartz crystal oscillators to provide greater accuracy in setting standard frequencies.<\/p>\n

1945<\/strong>\u2014WWV begins broadcasting the time using telegraphic code.<\/p>\n

1948<\/strong>\u2014NBS\u2019 second high-frequency radio station, WWVH, begins operating in Maui, Hawaii (later moved to Kauai), in order to broadcast to the West Coast and to ships and countries throughout the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

1950<\/strong>\u2014WWV voice announcements of standard time begin.<\/p>\n

1954<\/strong>\u2014The NBS Central Radio Propagation Laboratory moves to Boulder, Colorado, and the quartz crystals are flown to Denver and driven to Boulder (although WWV still broadcasted from Maryland).<\/p>\n

1957<\/strong>\u2014WWV broadcasts its first solar-storm and geophysical data alerts.<\/p>\n

1960<\/strong>\u2014WWV becomes the nation’s first radio station to place a digital time code in its broadcasts.<\/p>\n

1961<\/strong>\u2014The WWV station moves to Greenbelt, Maryland<\/p>\n

1963<\/strong>\u2014NIST\u2019s low-frequency radio station, WWVB, goes on the air from Colorado, to broadcast accurate standard frequencies needed by satellite and missile programs.<\/p>\n

1966<\/strong>\u2014WWV moves to Fort Collins, Colorado, and begins broadcasting from there.<\/p>\n

1967<\/strong>\u2014The second is internationally redefined to be based on the vibrations of the cesium atom, and NIST’s radio stations begin broadcasting Greenwich Mean Time rather than the local time at the stations. (Several years later, WWV and the other stations begin broadcasting Coordinated Universal Time, as they do today.)<\/p>\n

1971<\/strong>\u2014WWV begins offering the time of day by telephone, gets 1 million calls per year by 1975.<\/p>\n

1980s<\/strong>\u2014GPS and the internet are introduced, offering new and more accurate ways to distribute time and to support navigation, and NBS is renamed NIST.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click here to read this full post with accompanying photos via the NIST Blog.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Source: NIST Blog via Eric McFadden) NIST Radio Station WWV Celebrates a Century of Service By Laura Ost What technological application has had musical, timekeeping, navigational, scientific, traffic-control, emergency-response, and telephone applications? Answer:\u00a0WWV, one of the world\u2019s oldest continuously operating radio stations. NIST received the call letters WWV a century ago, in 1919. Since then, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,305,288,43],"tags":[69,68,7545,1716],"class_list":["post-40086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-nostalgia","category-radio-history","category-shortwave-radio","tag-nist","tag-wwv","tag-wwv-centennial","tag-wwv-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-aqy","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5717,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/history-of-wwv-and-the-nist-time-stations\/","url_meta":{"origin":40086,"position":0},"title":"History of WWV and the NIST Time Stations","author":"Thomas","date":"February 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Many readers know that I'm a bit of a WWV geek, so you can imagine how happy I was when my buddy, Mike, and the Southgate ARC made me aware of this 152 page history of the NIST time station family. At first glance, this looks to be an\u00a0authoritative\u00a0and thorough\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"WWV building in Fort Collins, Colorado (photo courtesy: NIST)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/wwvFtCollinsbuilding-300x195.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6846,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/wwvb-celebrates-50-years-of-keeping-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":40086,"position":1},"title":"WWVB celebrates 50 years of quietly keeping time","author":"Thomas","date":"July 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks, David, for sharing a link to this brilliant article on the history and future of WWVB: (Source: Wired) Every night, while millions of Americans are fast asleep, clocks and wristwatches across the country wake up and lock on to a radio signal beamed from the base of the Rocky\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"WWV building in Fort Collins, Colorado (photo courtesy: NIST)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/wwvFtCollinsbuilding-300x195.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36125,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/fy-2019-nist-budget-looks-good-for-time-stations\/","url_meta":{"origin":40086,"position":2},"title":"FY 2019 NIST budget looks good for time stations","author":"Thomas","date":"February 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to the number of SWLing Post readers who have forwarded this article from the ARRL News\u00a0that notes the WWV Special Event Station, planned for later this year, is a go. This is great news indeed. With regards to the FY2019 budget uncertainty surrounding NIST radio stations WWV, WWVH\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/MattDeutch-WWVB-1024x600.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/MattDeutch-WWVB-1024x600.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/MattDeutch-WWVB-1024x600.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":33521,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/nist-fy2019-budget-includes-request-to-shutdown-wwv-and-wwvh\/","url_meta":{"origin":40086,"position":3},"title":"NIST FY2019 budget includes request to shutdown WWV, WWVH, and WWVB","author":"Thomas","date":"August 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to a number of\u00a0SWLing Post readers who have pointed out the NIST\u00a02019 Presidential Budget request which has now been posted online and includes a desired reduction of: \"$6.3 million supporting fundamental measurement dissemination, including the shutdown of NIST radio stations in Colorado and Hawaii\" I've always considered WWV\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Broadcasting"","block_context":{"text":"International Broadcasting","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/international-broadcasting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/WWV-TimeCodeGenerator-1024x582.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/WWV-TimeCodeGenerator-1024x582.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/WWV-TimeCodeGenerator-1024x582.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":33716,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/nist-official-response-to-closure-questions\/","url_meta":{"origin":40086,"position":4},"title":"NIST: Official response to closure questions","author":"Thomas","date":"August 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just received the following formal response from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) regarding the\u00a0President\u2019s NIST FY 2019 budget request: (Source: NIST) NIST has a long-standing history of providing time and frequency services through our radio stations and we appreciate that many people use these services.\u00a0\u00a0 NIST\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/wwvFtCollinsbuilding.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/wwvFtCollinsbuilding.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/wwvFtCollinsbuilding.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":27156,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/wwv-seeking-reception-reports-of-25-mhz-broadcast\/","url_meta":{"origin":40086,"position":5},"title":"WWV seeking reception reports of 25 MHz broadcast","author":"Thomas","date":"July 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"(Source: WWV) Current 25 MHz Broadcast Specifications As of 2042 UTC 7 July 2017 the 25 MHz broadcast is now on a turnstile antenna with circular polarization and will remain in this configuration until after the solar eclipse on 21 Aug 2017.\u00a0 Signal reports are requested. 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