Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall who shares the following recording and notes:
Reception location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna
Notes: Prior to July 1, 1971, time and standard frequency station WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado was giving ID's in Morse code as well as voice every 5 minutes. They were best heard here in southern Ontario, Canada on 10 and 15 MHz.
WWV Station sign at WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Myke Dodge Weiskopf, who shares the following recording and notes:
BROADCASTER: WWV
DATE OF RECORDING: December 08, 1991
STARTING TIME: 0218
FREQUENCY: 5000 kHz
RECEPTION LOCATION: Rockford, Illinois, USA
RECEIVER AND ANTENNA: Unidentified boombox
NOTES:
NIST Radio Station WWV as it sounded on 8 December 1991 at 0218 UTC.
Due to the high cost of maintaining the aging drum-based voice announcement machines, NIST implemented a digital voice announcement system in 1991. The new male voice, belonging to Eric Smith, started at WWV on 13 August. The voice of WWVH belonged to Johanna Stahl. The voices were sorely lacking in high EQ at first, but were sharpened with an audio filter on 27 August. The modification did not help, and after months of equipment failures and complaints about the poor quality, NIST retired both voices on 11 August 1992.
An excerpted version of this recording is found on "At the Tone: A Little History of NIST Radio Stations WWV & WWVH." This unedited version is being shared by special arrangement for the Shortwave Archive.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:
Broadcaster: Time signal station VNG Lyndhurst Victoria Australia
Date of recording: December 13, 1971
Frequency: 4.500 MHz
Recption location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna
Mode: AM
Notes: Recorded on December 13, 1971, here is the announcement given by station VNG in Lyndhurst, Victoria, Australia transmitting with 10 kw on 4.5 MHz shortwave. This station was active from 1964 to 1987. Receiving location was Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. Amazingly, the recording was made on a cheap Demonstration Musicassette that had tape placed over the ends so it could be reused. It still plays today and was used to produce this digital version. The announcement is given twice and goes: "This is an Australian Post Office standard frequency and time signal transmission from VNG, Lyndhurst, Victoria on 4.5, 7.5, or 12 Megahertz." This was given during the 15th, 30th, 45th and 60th minute of each hour according to their QSL card.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:
Time signal station WWVH in Kekaha, Kauai, Hawaii was occasionally heard over WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado from my receiving post in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada in the 1970's, particularly on 10 MHz or 15 MHz. Here is a recording of their voice announcement from 1971, when they were still using the term Greenwich Mean Time as opposed to Coordinated Universal Time. The familiar "Aloha" is heard at the conclusion of the announcement.
Reception location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna
Photo by Agê Barros
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:
Prior to July 1, 1971, time and standard frequency station WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado was giving ID's in Morse code as well as voice every five minutes. They were best heard here in southern Ontario, Canada on 10 and 15 MHz.
Reception location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:
Early in 1973, WWV made this announcement that they would make regular broadcasts of planned ATM (Apollo Telescope Mount) schedules by the new Skylab space station.
Reception location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:
KC2XIO was an experimental radio station operated by the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colorado between July 1970 and May 1971. This was to gather information in preparation of the format change for WWV and WWVH which happened in July 1971. Here are two recordings of their voice announcement (one male and one female) as heard in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada on a Hallicrafters S-52 receiver that was hooked up to an outdoor longwire antenna. The frequency used for these test transmissions was 13560 kHz shortwave.
Reception location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Paul Walker, who shares the following recording of BOM and notes:
BPM on 10 MHz surpassing WWVH’s signal, which does not happen often at all—if ever that I can remember—in McGrath, Alaska.
The dits form BPM are obvious, but the morse code beginning at 39 seconds and the voice at 1 min 21 secs just wipe away WWVH.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Bruce Atchison, for sharing the following recording and notes:
This first [recording in a series I’m sharing] is of CHU Canada. I recorded it in July of 1993 on 7,335 kHz with my Kenwood TS-690S transceiver:
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Myke Dodge Weiskopf, who shares the following recording and notes:
NIST Radio Station WWVH as it sounded in the 1980s. To contrast with other recordings of the WWVH station ID, note that announcer Jane Barbe does not say (her now-famous) “Aloha!” at the end of this version.
This recording was found at WWVH in 2015 on an undated cassette labeled “JB on Old Audichron TCG” (which stands for Time Code Generator, the device which reconstructs and plays back Jane’s voice over the air). As such, the precise broadcast year is not known, but it is consistent with the voice and broadcast format of the 1980s, until the introduction of the short-lived digital voice in 1991.
An excerpted version of this recording is found on "At the Tone: A Little History of NIST Radio Stations WWV & WWVH." This unedited version is being shared by special arrangement for the Shortwave Archive.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Emilio Ruiz, who shares the following recording of WWV and notes:
Sad for the news, the closing of WWV is like close a park, a comunity place where scientifics and enthusiast of radio could learn and experiment not only about time, radio propagation too. I not have much money for bought radiofrecuency equipment for repair or make my own radios, i use WWV for that.
To go to the future it is not necessary to destroy the past, I'm teaching to children about science and technology and when talk about radio share with they the listen of WWV with old radio receiver (BC-548Q), for they the sound of ticks and the history about radio and time is a amazing topic.
I wrote this review (in Spanish) about WWV for those SWListeners and Radio Amateurs who do not spoke English,--I think can be useful.
I hope radioamateurs of U.S. can reverse the decision.
Broadcaster: WWV
Date of recording: 11/3/2017
Starting time: 14:00
Frequency: 15000 kHz
Reception location: Chiapas, México.
Receiver and antenna: Dipole antenna, Keenwood R-600
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, who notes:
Live recording of Radio Reloj (CMBD), Havana, Cuba, on 30 August 2015 beginning at about 15:55 UTC on a frequency of 950 kHz. The signal originates from a 10 kW transmitter at Arroyo Arenas / San Augustin, near Havana, using the Centros Transmisores de Ondas Medias 1 (CTOM1) non-directional antenna facility.
(Radio Reloj can be heard on various frequencies in the AM and FM bands in Cuba and live on the Internet at http://media.enet.cu/radioreloj.)
The recording, in Spanish, is a typical Radio Reloj broadcast with two announcers alternately reading news bulletins accompanied by time signals. The announcers identify the station and verbally give the local time each minute. In addition to the verbal station identification, each minute either the letters RR in morse code (using 1800 Hz tones) are transmitted or five-note chimes (D4, G4, B4, D5, B4) are played. The chimes sound like those of a dinner chime or even some door bells and are reminiscent of the U.S. National Broadcasting Company (NBC) chimes. On a couple of occasions in this recording, during a particular minute, neither the morse code nor the chimes are used and sometimes, during a particular minute, both are used. In this recording, we can also hear at some minutes pairs of tones being played going up and down the scale as news headlines are read. On other occasions, three- and four-note chimes in various sequences have been heard (perhaps at the announcers' whim).
Different tones identify each second, minute, and five-minute epochs. Based on measurements, each second is marked with a "seconds tick" consisting 10 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.01 seconds duration). Minutes, except for multiples of 5 minutes, are marked by 172 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.172 seconds duration). Every 5 minutes, the marker is extended to 672 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.672 seconds duration). The minute and 5-minute markers are preceded by 5 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone, followed by 0.013 seconds of silence.
The time signals in this particular broadcast were well within one second of the time given by a computer's clock synchronized to the U.S. time standard using Network Time Protocol.
The broadcast was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with its built-in loop antenna in Key West, Florida, using an RF bandwidth of 5 kHz. The receiver was oriented for maximum signal strength. Signal quality is generally good. However, there are repeated static crashes (QRN) from thunderstorms in the region.
Richard also notes that he was located in Key West, Florida, using a "Tecsun PL-880 receiver with built-in loop antenna using an RF bandwidth of 5 kHz. The receiver was oriented for maximum signal strength."
One of four WWV time code generators in late August, 2014 (Photo: Thomas Witherspoon)
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares the following recordings he has transferred from audio cassette. Tom includes the following notes:
I combined several audio files of some of the common time signal stations available back in 1981 and 1982 into one clip. These were made using a DX-302 which had poor image rejection and you can hear some stations behind WWV which shouldn't be there, such as RCI's interval signal at one point.
00:00 - VNG, Australia - August 16, 1981 on 12.000 MHz at ???? UTC
03:02 - LOL, Argentina - October 15, 1981 on 15.000 MHz at 2349 UTC
07:27 - BPM, China - January 16, 1982 on 10.000 MHz at 1255 UTC
08:38 - ZUO, South Africa - December 18, 1982 on 5.000 MHz at 0329 UTC
OOne of four WWV time code generators in late August, 2014
Yesterday, I posted a brief article about the leap second that occurred between 23:59:59 June 30, 2015 and 00:00:00 UTC July 01, 2015.
I decided to record the leap second on as many shortwave time station frequencies as possible. The only viable options for me--based on time of day and my reception location--were the WWV frequencies 10, 15, 20, and 25 MHz, and CHU frequencies 7,850 and 14,670 kHz.
I was able to monitor four different time station frequencies simultaneously on the TitanSDR Pro. (click to enlarge)
Unfortunately, HF propagation was very poor yesterday, so the higher WWV frequencies--20 and 25 MHz--were completely inaudible, as was CHU on 14,670 kHz. There were numerous thunderstorms in our area, so static crashes were prevalent.
Still, since this was a first attempt to record a "leap second," I didn't want to take any chances. I had the Titan SDR Pro monitoring and recording two CHU and two WWV frequencies [screenshot], the Elad FDM-S2 recording WWV on 15 MHz [screenshot], and the WinRadio Excalibur on WWV's 10 MHz frequency, as well as recording the whole 31 meter band spectrum [screenshot].
In the end, the strongest frequencies I captured were CHU on 7,850 kHz and WWV on 15,000 kHz. WWV on 10,000 kHz was much weaker than normal and the band was quite noisy--still, it's readable, so I included this recording, too. Recordings follow...
The sign above WWV's primary 10 MHz transmitter (2014).
All of the recordings start just before the announcement of 23:59 UTC.
WWV added the extra second and higher tone, then continued with their top of the hour announcements, including a note about leap second (which begins after the 00:04 announcement). CHU's adjustment included a long second tone and period of silence.
WWV on 15,000 kHz using the Elad FDM-S2:
CHU on 7,850 kHz using the TitanSDR Pro:
WWV on 10,000 kHz using the WinRadio Excalibur:
One interesting note about the 10 MHz WWV recording above: I believe I may be hearing BPM China in the background. I'm curious if anyone can confirm this because I don't know BPM's cadence/pattern well enough to ID it.
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