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 Previous: FCC Emergency Communications Declaration Policy Prefers VHF-UHF |  Next: Hurricane Charley Response Reaffirms Amateur Radio's Value |
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
August 13, 2004
This week, we take time to find out about radio stations that have time.
Uncle Joe was the first person in our family to go to college (the University of Connecticut, to be specific). One fall day circa 1960, our family packed up the Chevy and drove to Storrs--the home of "UConn"--with cans of Spam and other delicacies to deliver to Uncle Joe. When we caught up with him, he gave us the grand tour of the campus including his dormitory. Two things in his dorm impressed me: the first copy of Mad magazine I had ever seen (the famous fly swatter issue #57) and a shortwave radio tuned to a station whose sole purpose was to tell the time.
 The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Time and Frequency Division Web site is the home of the folks who keep time at WWV, WWVB and WWVH. |
WWV, WWVB, and WWVH: Those ubiquitous and well-known call signs are quite familiar to people both in and outside of Amateur Radio. Information about the stations can be found at the Time and Frequency Division Web site of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This is a great Web site for basic information and specific items relating to time, frequency, archived GPS data, standards and metrology. (Not meteorology. "Metrology" is the science related to measurement; whereas "meteorology" is the science related to which way the wind blows.)
There are individual links for each radio station: WWV, WWVB and WWVH, where you will find links to how the stations work, their history, photos, a QSL gallery, and more including a link where you can hear a audio sample of the telephone time signal. For time north of the border, check out the CHU Web page of Canada's National Research Council.
For those who think that time is boring and about as much fun as watching rust form on a car bumper, visit this link, where you can hear WWV as it might be interpreted by the "usual gang of idiots" at Mad magazine.
A tip of my ham radio cap goes to Chuck Reville, K3FT, for coming up with the idea for this installment of Surfin', its title, and for actually writing some of it. Until next week, keep on surfin'
Editor's note: This Saturday, Stan Horzepa,
WA1LOU, will be at the ARRL
New England Division Convention in Boxboro, Massachusetts), so you can
discuss time, radios, surfing, and other important and neat stuff with Stan in
person. If you can't make it to Boxboro, send him e-mail at wa1lou@arrl.net.
| Previous: FCC Emergency Communications Declaration Policy Prefers VHF-UHF | Next: Hurricane Charley Response Reaffirms Amateur Radio's Value |
