[ntp:questions] Re: improving WWVB reception

George R. Gonzalez grg at umn.edu
Tue Aug 5 14:40:04 UTC 2003


You may have a RFI problem.  The 60KHz signal is pretty weak compared to a
lot of the signals floating around in the average civilized office.   Light
dimmers, flourescent lights, CRT's, switching-mode power supplies all  put
out lots of RF in that part of the spectrum.  Your best bet might be to just
receive WWV on a SW radio and use it to set your clocks.  Low-tech but
usually works, unless propagation is just shot.




"Chris Campbell" <chris-google at pobox.com> wrote in message
news:bglodn$qgr$1 at xuxa.iecc.com...
> I recently bought this clock:
>
>    http://store.yahoo.com/atomictime/attimsildigw.html
>
> for use in a radio studio.  We're going to do a fancier timekeeping
> solution after our studio move next year but for now this is good
> enough.
>
> Well, it would be if it worked.  The clock synchronizes with WWVB
> every night, and I had it working on my engineering bench.  But with
> it mounted on my air studio wall, it won't sync.  I've tried three
> different positions -- mounted flat on west, north and east walls.  In
> each position, I left it there for about a week to see if it would
> sync.
>
> I'm in Atlanta, so WWVB is generally west from me.  I don't know how
> the internal antenna element is oriented, but I assume it's parallel
> to the big flat dimension of the clock, so either east or west should
> have worked best.  Obviously the building is attenuating the signal,
> but I really want it to work in that room, so I've got to find a way
> to improve the signal reception without moving the clock much from
> where it's at.
>
> So, does anyone have any experience with opening these clocks up and
> adding an antenna?  What kind of antenna should I use, and how should
> I orient it?
>
> - Chris
>






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