WWV VIDEO TOUR: Fort Collins, CO (Exclusive Video)
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- special event in 2019 here: ncarc.net/?q=no...
one fact: it costs $416 a day to power wwv & wwvb in Fort Collins, Colorado.
I was one of the lucky ones. It felt like you had found the golden ticket @ the Willy Wonka Factory. FOR NERDS! It was awesome. This video is for Education Purpose Only. I hope all the hams in our area and beyond will like this video. It was run and gun and sorry for the bad video. Peace and Keep Ham Radio Alive and I thank the Tour Guide who works at WWV.
By the way, I am Aaron NØWAR in Loveland, Colorado! I am good on QRZ.COM.
Peace to you and I love to spread the word about ham radio!
WWV is the friendliest station in America. They always give us the time of day. :-)
GREAT ONE BRUCE!!!! i love it. peace
Hearing WWV when I was 5 or 6 was my first glimpse into shortwave radio. As a kid, I always felt sorry for the man who had to sit in a room all day and tell the time every minute. LOL.
good one david!
David Dietrich in the early 2000’s I picked up the Cuban equivalent of WWV on my shortwave. It was two announcers live, a woman and a man. They would alternate announcing the time manually (with an automated tone), interspersed with news about the “socialist paradise”.
@@CrimLawGeek In all my SWL years I never heard anything besides CHU and WWV/H, never heard the Mexican or Cuban or Soviet or Chinese or Australian ones!
@Nathan De Bartolo thank you very much! They have a website with live broadcast. Brings back memories!
So did I David
Not only is it good for knowing what time it is, the carrier is an excellent frequency reference for calibrating signal generators and aligning radios.
thanks ray for watching and your comment. yes, its very handy for alot of reasons. peace to you and keep watching.
@Free in Jesus My understanding is that the WWV carrier frequencies are derived from the master NIST frequency standard (ie, _the_ master clock), so it's as good or better than the GPS signal.
I've always used WWV/H as a propagation as well.
I have heard WWV on and off during 60+years. It's like a very old friend. Thanks for your great service! / Håkan, Sweden
11:51 That "gigantic magnetic drum" he talks about was the recording and playback machine from the Audichron Company out of Atlanta Georgia. The designer and owner of this licensed device was a Mr. Barbee, who just happened to be the husband of Jane Barbee, otherwise known as "The Time Lady" whose voice was recorded for time announcements. Jane's voice was "the most listened to voice on planet earth". Her voice is still heard on Radio WWVH out of Hawaii.
jennifer, thanks for that great info! and your comment. thanks for watching!
Audichron supplies the same devices for Time of Day and Weather services - originally for AT&T. "They were mentioned in (The Andromeda Strain" as well - the book.)
I remember, with great anticipation, recording a 61 second minute from WWV ....probably in 1976. How exciting!
Where are the disc jockeys? What about the record library? The contests? 🤭🤔
brent, cool. thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
I have a cassette recording of that!
As a kid, it had to be 1960 at December 31 at midnight at the beginning of the New Year, January 1, 1961, I was outside with a transistor radio listening to WWV and did my best to make a firecracker (actually a cherry bomb) go off at exactly the WWV tone of the New Year. I may have been off a second or two but I did the best I could. I suppose that is a bit obsessive and I haven't changed a bit at 74. Got my general class amateur license in 1963. Thanks, WWV. 🙂
The first time I heard WWV on HF 5 Mhz, was back in the 70's as an SWL here in the UK, when I visited a ham friend of mine Martin Betts. He tuned in WWV on a Marconi CR100 receiver he was going to give me. That old CR100 receiver which he had renovated and aligned, was near enough spot on frequency at 5 Mhz, with hardly any band noise. I can still remember listening to that almost ghost like hollow clicking WWV transmission, and thinking this is a pretty neat sound :) All I can hear on 5.000 Mhz today is a lot of QRN from local electrical noise, and broadband ADSL2, which is a big difference to what it used to be back in the day. Hopefully Propagation conditions will improve tonight, would love to hear WWV again. Thanks for showing us around.
thanks matt. i love your profile pic of the meter. awesome. thanks for sharing your story and for watching and your great comment. peace to you!
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 Great stuff thanks, peace to you to. 73
Fired off an email once to WWV. Got a very nice response from one of the engrs. Very cool! I use them to set clocks and cal. gear at home.
I still have fond memories of discovering a relative's WWII vintage Hallicrafters SWR, and finding WWV as the only continuous and strong broadcasts that I could receive on it with a random wire antenna made from what I could scrounge. I used the same radio to pull in WLS-AM in Chicago (and CHU) down in Texas, my first taste of DX. Who knows what might have happened if I had been allowed to take that radio home and/or hook it up to a decent antenna.
Years later, working in television and familiar with SMPTE time code, I remembered WWV and became acquainted with IRIG-B. It's been a while since I've _listened_ to WWV, but now that I'm living in a place where i can use it to set my clocks, I've been happy to have it again. My Timex/Motorola Flex watch quit self-setting when pagers went out of style, and my Ambient clock stopped setting itself when the local FM station that carried the Accuweather signal that it got its data from stopped carrying it. If WWV/WWVB go dark, we'll be taking a giant leap backwards.
stringer, thanks for your great memories. i have a bunch of news stringing videos on my channel also! check them out!
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 thanks! Actually I'm more on the engineering side; my moniker is an homage to a real person I saw in Chicago. I think I was a TD back then, a buddy of mine learned that the MTX factory in Chicago was closing and moving to the other side of the Mississippi, and we went to get some clearance deals. On our way out we saw that a nearby building was on fire in a big way. Fire trucks everywhere, we couldn't leave so we watched.
Although the cops weren't letting us drive off, someone comes barreling onto the scene in an old Buick Skylark, parks among the emergency vehicles and this guy gets out, opens the trunk and pulls out a complete set of turnout gear, including an air tank. I grew up in the suburbs where we had volunteer firefighters, so I didn't think much of it until he then pulls a quarter-million dollar ENG camcorder rig out of the trunk of his $500 beater! That got my attention. He puts the camera on his shoulder and walks straight to the blaze, and that's the last I saw of him.
I asked a cop that he had been chatting with before and ask what his deal was. The cop explained that the guy was a freelancer, and made his living selling news footage to TV stations that he beat to breaking news scenes, or even asked him to shoot footage because they couldn't commit a whole news truck to the story. He pointed to the car's personalized license plates: "STRNGR1". I had heard of news stringers from B/W movies, they were portrayed as people that no newspaper would hire, peddling dubious stories to editors and being generally shady people, but this guy seemed to be the real deal.
Fast forward to ten years ago. I was in Madison on a contract job. My polling place was next door to the NBC affiliate, so I decided to drop in and ask if there was an email address for the engineering department. Next thin I know I was face to face with the stations chief engineer, and he was inviting me to see them put up a new antenna. Wisconsinites are friendly people and before long I know every station engineer in town. Things had changed a lot, and TV doesn't have the staff levels it used to have, like there's no 24-hour news staff. Most overnight video is shot by viewers, and predictably in portrait mode, one of my pet peeves. I'm a night owl, and my new friends tell me that if I want to see better video, I should _shoot_ better video for them when I'm out at night. Really cheap thumb drives didn't quite exist back then, so after not getting back a couple of costly SD cards I finally made this YT account. Ironically I never used it for that purpose...
Recapping and realigning my dad's old S-107 got me started on collecting and restoring vintage shortwave radios. Probably have half a dozen different Hallicrafters models in line to be restored, and a bunch of others as well. Cold winter days/evenings are perfect for working at the workbench on the latest project. :-)
I've been listening to WWV since 1954 when it was Eastern Standard Time. It also gave a propagation code with a letter and a number e.g. N 7 meaning No Change and 7 was an indicator of good atmospheric conditions. Never tire of hearing this wonderful bong bong and more. W2FKN
Thanks for this video tour, I have never seen a video tour of WWV so this was very interesting. This station goes back to my first short wave station discovered when I was a kid and it was a mystery to me at the time and from that I thought there was a whole new world of radio out there that I didn't know about. Thanks, WWV, it is about time.
Thanks for watching and your comment RadioHamGuy. I was very excited.
Same here. Always wondered how the heck I hear this beeping, clicking, and a guy's voice from a Hallicrafter's SX-110. THAT sold me on radio and electronics :)
In an infinite space-time, the most definable point, is the center. WWV being the most accurate time station, is that point. Even more accurate than any natural phenomena. Fort Collins is thusly, the center of the universe. 73 de AE7EC
thanks zaphod for that interesting insight. and thanks for watching! i will keep that in mind for the future. peace
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 What about CHU in Ottawa?
@@kimobrien. They should phase out CHU and replace with our good old WWV because CHU is nothing but a pale clone.
5:15 "you don't know you don't have to know". Arrogant.
thanks live. i kind of thought the same thing now that you mention it. he was just being funny. thanks for watching and your great comment! i might go back and do another video so please sub to see another video! peace
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 yeah. Wasn't funny to me. I'm a ham operator myself but I gladly share my knowledge to elmers. There's just a number of "amateur" arrogant minded know all jerks still out there. Thanks for sharing your videos. Good job there. 73s
I remember this station when we first heard it on shortwave radio in Saskatoon, Sask, Canada back in the late 80s. The 500 and 600 hz tones drove my dad nuts. Surprisingly, the signal was very good on 10 Mhz at night. If I'm not mistaken, your tour guide is WWV's chief engineer Matthew Deutch. Thanks for the vid, it's really cool to see what this station looks like.
thank you for your awesome comment. it was really cool. yes matt! you got it. chief dude and a ham and member of our local ham radio club. peace and thanks for all that info and for watching my video!
I've exchanged email with Matt Deutsch. Good guy, very helpful with my questions.
@@philkarn5661 One of the coolest tech videos I've ever seen.
Yes! I'm from Lumsden, Sask and I can receive WWV very well.
First heard this station listening to shortwave with my grandpa in the 1960s. Went back to it in the 80s and have been checking in on the broadcasts often since then. Great to see the works on a video tour. I remember the original guys voice in my head. He sounded a lot better then the new/current. Thanks for the video tour.
thanks paul for your memories. it was cool. i like the old voice also.....peace to you and happy new year. thanks for watching also.
In the late 60's and early 70's I set my Acutron to the time tic of WWV to synchronize my encryption machines.
thats awesome dad! wwv is still on the air today. i have an atomic clock in my ham radio shack. peace to you.
Former squid, games person who still loves this so very much.
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 Thank you! Perhaps we will QSO sometime, 73's kd9oam
@@rickraymo1319 Hello brother, as an ETN in the Navy I grew my love of electronics, when I called home from WESPAC I was hooked on radio, and after retirement I got my ham license. I have been a gamer since they came out and prefer PC, I kind of stalled a few years ago on UT my favorite still. Hope you had a good 4th. Bye!
Came upon this video and it brought back a lot of memories. I was an engineer in the British merchant navy, heard this time signal many times. A good reference that was totally reliable.
thanks for your input stephen! its feb 2020 and still on the air!
ShutterMafia I think your clock is slightly off... Lol nice video. God Bless
this is pretty neat i used to listen to this station way back in the 70s on my dads old military shortwave they sent me a folder that had everything about them back then i still might have somewhere i remember climbing two pine trees in the backyard and putting up the antenna.thanks for sharing.
i remember first listening to WWV around 72-73 at my buddy's home, on a 1955 German built SABA Freiburg multi band console radio..... It was built in to a hidden cabinet in the wall of their den. The man who built the home was a prominent doctor with a large bank acct, so this radio was top notch and quite the rig, with roof mounted antenna. We would spend many evenings listening in and logging the SW stations we pulled in, and WWV was always among the faves.... Fast forward to just last year, I am nearly 60 now, and my friend's parents have both passed. That same large waterfront home on the shores of the Detroit River was up for sale. I inquired about the status of the old SABA radio that had not even been powered on for several years, I offered to purchase it, the family granted me this privilege.... I removed that radio from the cabinet in that den where it had been resting since 1960. Even disconnected the antenna cable still attached to the back of the SABA, the antenna that had fallen off the roof sometime in the 1980s. Today the radio is prominently placed in my living room, in mint condition, but sadly, i cannot raise WWV anymore...I will google it to see if at this late date (Feb 2020) if the station has indeed ceased to exist. Sad to think nearly 90 + percent of the SW stations have been silenced now..... How i would love to just cruise thru the bands on those long winter nights like back when i was a wide eyed kid of 11 or 12.
scott. congrats on the home. great story! wwv is still on the air. let me know. not sure what is up. but its on the air right now. peace. de n0war
Been a ham for many years and today i decided to search out wwv.
very nice.
I have a Military grade watch and it set the summer/winter from WWV
Nice room full of goodies :-) BOB AF2DX
thanks for watching and tx for your comment bob. it was awesome. no other videos on youtube of inside wwv. so i thought i better video it. listen for me on HF and holler if you hear me!
aaron
n0war
Thanks for this video. As a kid, WWV was the first station I ever heard on my Hallicrafters SWR my brother gave me when I was around 10. I think I have owned every device ever made that picked up the station to keep accurate time since then. I think the 2nd station I heard might have been WWV's sister station in Canada, also.
great story xmBill. thanks for watching and see the description of the video for a link to some ham radio special event happening @ WWV later this year!
Hey there’s a DANGER sign. Let’s go look inside. 👍
Nice tour of the facility. I’m surprised the place has not reduced to the size of a filing cabinet like so much other radio stuff. I guess being older government equipment is the reason. Wouldn’t it be funny if the tour guide looked at his watch and said excuse me and ran to the mic to do the voice over every time.
I have heard the Don Elliot story. Wouldn’t spend $300. Funny!
When I was a youngster in the 1960's I was given my great-grandfather's old floor model Zenith radio. This radio could could receive short wave bands as well as the regular AM broadcast band. My father taught me how to tune in WWV at 2.5 Mhz or 5 MHz so I could set my watch. Later in life I have been known to joke that my dream job was to become the announcer for WWV...
andrew, cool story. thanks. thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
Amazing. As kids, we used to listen to this on shortwave Radio Shack equipment. We thought if we could find this station, we would certainly have the power to find space aliens...lol. Thanks for posting this. I always wondered what this looked like.
thank you for waching my video and your comment. you can. i talked to the space station 30 time in one month on voice to col. wheelock. i am on nasa tv. i have it on my channel and its on nasa tv youtube channel and was on tv. glad you liked the video and its RARE to get a tour. i am local and this is one of the first and might be the last tour of the place in history. peace to you and thanks again!
Really cool.
( I would like to have heard more of the tour guide.)
Back when WMRI was WYFR, I was actually hitchhiking and went by, and “ popped in “ on them. They were great❗️. I got a personal tour of the whole place. There were towers spread out , with cattle wandering around completely oblivious to what all was above them. And the same
“Spooky “ sound .
They were really great to me . They fed me [ lunch], and gave me bumper stickers ( I put one on my backpack 😁). Gave me all sorts of trinkets.... wanted to give me a Bible too but I had one. They prayed with me, and drove me back to the main road.
( and one of them gave me a few dollars. The driver, gave me a $20. - and I asked for nothing).
Thanks for posting this.
📻🙂
jeff. wow. that is a GREAT story!!!! i wish i could have gotten a WWV bumper sticker. sorry i did not get more of the tour. it was packed with people that day. i wish i would have gotten every word the tour guide said. its HARD to get into that place. i had an opportunity to do a tour a few years back and thought i would be working and i missed out. but was glad to get this one. if i get the chance to do it again i will shoot another video and post it here. sub to see it! peace to you and thanks for sharing your story!
ShutterMafia
It was cool to see this WWV. I totally understand trying to video all of it.
Back in the day, ( when I was a young teen) I had a WWV, and WWVH
QSL cards.( I had cards and letters from EVERYONE/ EVERYWHERE. SW and AM).
I still love listening and DXing.
📻🙂
Yep the folks at WYFR were a great crew. They were customers of mine back in the 2000s and went out there in the swamp a couple times. It was mostly just them and the cows. Closest hotel was 35 miles away. Going to lunch was a 20 mile drive. But they have those old huge transmitters and just about every kind of SW antenna.
Thanks for sharing! Too bad the signal never reaches my Casio Multiband 6 here in NYC 😪
glad you liked it. it was fun. peace
That sound you hear are the waves shooting out of the antenna just like a microwave oven.
20:16 Audichron Co., was owned by Jane Barbe's husband. Jane was the voice of WWVH. She also was "The Time Lady" for the Bell Telephone Co. for decades, and she was " The most frequently heard voice in the entire world." Audichron made the physical rotating drum machines that accurately told time all over the world. Even though Jane passed away a number of years ago, Jane's voice can still be heard on WWVH, 5.0 Mhz A.M. broadcasting from Hawaii. She will always be "The Time Lady" to listeners around the world.
jennifer, thanks for that great info! very cool. i might be going back there to do another video so stay tuned! peace and thanks again.
Cool story
Thank you so much for this video tour. You have no idea how lucky you guys were to get this tour. I have been trying for years, and even with my connections I could never get it due to restrictions.
thanks! oh, we were lucky for sure. i am glad to have shot and posted this video for everyone that is interested!
ShutterMafia I have ridden by it a few times on my motorcycle all the way from Florida I might add and only wished.
If there is any return trip opportunity, please let me know! I’ll make the trip! de KA4EPS. ka4eps@gmail.com
"RF HAZARD, DO NOT ENTER!"
"Let's tour inside!" :D
I remember hearing this radio transmission on SW radio on my dad's Sangean when I was growing up! This is so cool to virtually tour WWV! Thank you for recording this and publishing it! :)
Ooo, you lucky devils! I love how they have their own full-shield RF chamber. Since I wasn't there, thanks for filming this!
your welcome railgap. de n0war. peace
“You don’t know, you don’t need to know.” Best comment in the video.
Thanks for a very interesting video. I have always been curious about how WWV might appear. I used check and set my watch by WWV/WWVH on our aircraft HF transceiver.
thanks meek. its a rare video for sure. thanks for your great story. it is a cool place. great comment. peace to you!
Always wondered where that signal originated from! Now I know! Thanks SO much for posting! Fascinating!
I once met someone who read the weather and solar flux between the minutes in 1994. I shook his hand
thats awesome nic! please sub!
Can you explain this? I know WWV has weather and solar announcements but I'm failing to see the story here.
@@PINKBOY1006 Yes. I was interviewing for a Job at NOAA. The interviewer saw that I had a ham radio license and we started talking about HF. He said that in the past he read the weather and solar flux on WWV. I was impressed and awed as a 21 year old. So I said "WOW Let me shake your hand!"
WWV and CHU (Two Stations That ROCK !!) and no Commercials.. (To Paraphrase: I'll be you HAM Guide on you HAM tour.. feel Free to ask any HAM Questions.).. Largest TX'r I've ever worked on
was 10Kw.. (Very familiar seeing this stuff).. Thanks for posting this Video.
I remember Don Elliott Heald's voice - man, that was a long time ago. Took a while to get used to the "new guy's voice".
Thanks for this video - just excellent.
thanks a bunch for that! please sub for more. i might get to go back there again soon.
I agree !
Who is the lady that announces WWV from Hawaii just before Colorado announces theirs?
Came on this video by accident, it brought back memories from a long time ago.... I was part of a "monitoring" network to record the very first broadcast of WWV - Fort Collins... I used my old Hallicrafters SX-101 Mk III plus a dual track reel/reel tape recorder. One track recorded audio from the radio and the other track recorded my voice giving S-meter readings... At the very moment the station came on the air, the signal level was recorded.. Before Fort Collins station came on, the time signals came from another station (I don't remember where that was)... The recording gave the differences of sound and S-meter levels................cool video.......73's de WB6PVC
glad you enjoyed it. thanks for watching
In the mid 1970's, I was a SWL (before I got my Ham License). I sent WWV a letter asking for autographs of the voice announcers. They sent a letter back saying they work for a company out of Atlanta, GA
cool story, thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
Thanks for this. I would always go to these frequencies just checking how propagation was on shortwave.
your welcome glock. it was awesome!!!
This is a great video. Thank you for sharing, it's awesome of you for doing that.
thank you for watching and your great comment. happy to share it.
I have heard WWV since the 1970s (yes,I'm old). Always wanted to know what the station was like!
Thanks for sharing this tour; I had looked for one of WWV a couple years ago and never found this for some reason. This must've been very fun to experience in person!
hi jeff. thanks. it was fun for sure. bigtime. glad you liked it. the only video on the internet from the inside. peace man. i might go back. i know the manager and he is a ham.
jesus, jeff you have a huge youtube channel. i am humbled you watched one of my videos! please sub. lets do a colab?
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 That would be awesome! My Dad's a radio engineer (though not a ham), so seeing a place like this that blends some scientific equipment with the RF stuff he's often shown me is really cool.
Would you be okay if I use a short clip (with attribution) of the sign and the towers in a video (about 8-12 seconds in total) I'm going to make about network timekeeping?
@@JeffGeerling sure thing jeff. no problem. give me credit, sub and i would love to see what you do with it. peace. aaron n0war
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 Awesome! I'll have a credit over the video clip and link in the description, and the video *should* go up on Wednesday (as long as I can get the editing complete by then!).
I have fond memories of listening to WWV for the very first time on my home made bread board crystal shortwave receiver when I was about 14 in the 1960's. I thought it sounded like the very heartbeat of America. It is sad to hear that the heartbeat will be gone. The death of America.
thanks larry for your comment!
Always wondered what the place looked like. Before the internet always listened 18 minutes after the hour for the solar report.
hi sean! thanks for your comment bro. peace man.
"Solar activity... quiescent..." tok tok tok tok....
(or something like that. It's been so long.)
You aren't the only one curious. WWV/WWVB/WWVH still have a purpose; though they are SOMEWHAT (but not completely) obviated by the Internet-connected timekeepers ALSO run by NIST (tick.nist.gov and tock.nist.gov - tick is in Fort Collins; while tock is in Gaithersburg, MD - home to NIST HQ itself.)
The sound of that transmitter! Spooky! 200 amps! Holy crap! Very cool! Thanks for sharing!
if an antenna is making that kind of noise lol, don't even go near it because if it is making that kind of noise there has to be more then 100 thousand watts being fed through it lol
sondra, the manager said it was pretty safe. thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
I've was recently offered a IBM master clock(mechanical weight driven) that apparently uses wwv for time correction. Imagine my surprise that the service is still active.
dale, thanks for watching. its still active today. please subscribe!
Been listening to 10mhz wwv on my DIY direct conversion receiver using a 3mhz high pass filter into a 24db one transistor amp, into an NE602N mixer chip, through a low pass filter, into an NE5534 and then a class B audio with two power transistors and into a 4 inch speaker
thanks. i think
Great tour, and 73 to WWV's Matthew Deutch! Interesting to see what they've done with the HF transmitter plant with the 'new' (surplus) Navy transmitters, which have apparently replaced most of the 90's CCA and all of the original Technical Materiel Corporation (TMC) transmitters. Time marches on: TMC and CCA have been out of business for many years. Only downside is the newer ones don't seem to sound quite as nice on the air as the old ones did.
thanks a bunch for your comment. yep. the good ol days. nothing is the same now. peace to you
Surprised about the clutter. I remember WWV when it, if I recall correctly, was located near Washington, DC.
jerry that is a great question. i dont know the answer to that. hopefully someone will leave a comment with info. thanks for watching!
I sent for the NBS radio stations pamphlet in the early 1970's as a teen, I learned a LOT about WWV from it. Then, I've look at the WWV web page. Yet, this video mentioned the old tape track system for time announcements, something new to me.
I think I still prefer Don Elliot's voice, the current announcer seem too soft Also, RIP Jane Barbe, the voice of WWVH, and, a lot of other things, she died in 2003.
It's also nice to know the WWV 25 MHz is back on the air, a good indicator for 12 meter propagation.
thanks for the additional info! and thanks for watching. they should buy back dons voice. i think his family would accept $1 and have his voice eternally on the air. they should ask.
That Palomar Watt Meter brings back memories. My father used one with his CB base station back in the 80's that was exactly like that one @ 1:40.
thanks for that story. i wanted to tune that rig to 20 mhz. thinking back now i wish i would have rolled the dial just to hear wwv from there. i guess they keep it slightly off freq so they dont hear it unless they want to. oh well. thanks for your story and peace to you and your dad. i miss my dad and he was also a ham. kc0zig.....r.i.p. dad. love you. he is steve vale cathcart
LOL! 6:16 Some Dude! But whoever he was I can bet he was prompt and never late for an appointment or meeting.
thanks crazy. it was fun touring the joint.
I first listened to the WWV signal back in 1978 as a Navy Radioman syncing up my KWR-37. Seems like yesterday.
great to see the station. I see broadcasting on 25Mhz again. I get too much noise hear to pull it out. late at night I hear WWVH 2.5 Mhz with the female voice. western new york. great video.
thanks for watching. i appreciate your great comment. i am in loveland colorado. never heard wwvh here. always tune into wwv/vb. peace to you. de n0war
When I was a young kid I tuned up WWV to set my Timex watch to the exact tone. I grew older and set my Casio watch to the tone with better results. I’m 62 now and have to go through the house and correct all the ‘automatic atomic’ clocks every time the DST changes. No watch left, just use the smart phone.
Je, thanks for that. great info. thats awesome. i have one atomic clock here.
Sad to hear that 2018 may be WWV and WWVB's last year in operation. NIST is proposing shutting it down. They claim it will save them $6.3 million a year that can go to more important projects. Therefore, it looks like all future time syncing will be done by GPS, which is already pretty much the standard in most industries where accurate time keeping is important (like telecommunications). Problem is that for us average consumers we have no good way of keeping clocks in sync without WWVB (outside of our cell phones and PC's of course). So, if this budget passes, get ready to toss your radio controlled wall clocks, alarm clocks and atomic wristwatches.
I realize time marches on and technology progresses. I am not sentimental in that regard, but I am just miffed that there's no good alternative to WWVB for some applications right now. If I could go out and buy a GPS wall clock or wristwatch for the same price as a WWVB clock, then I wouldn't care. But there's no such clocks for the consumer market (and I've looked hard). There are companies that make GPS and NTP/Ethernet/Wifi wall clocks but they are specialized and sold to schools, hospitals, office buildings, governments, etc. They are not sold to consumers, and even if they were, they are VERY expensive.
thanks john for the great comment. it would be sad to see it go. lucky to be able to even see this in person. i am glad to have been able to shoot and share this video. thanks for watching and we will see what happens soon!
Very interesting seeing the home of WWV. I still enjoy hearing it on Short Wave along with CHU Canada.
thanks a bunch for watching and for your comment!
While you are there, look up John Clarence Karcher, and W.B.Kendall. Karcher founded the UTC (Ater WWI) My Grand uncle, W.B.Kendall Jr, along with Karcher, invented Fracking in Chickasha Oklahoma, In 1925-27.
james, i will do that next time i visit. thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
At the tone, 1 hour, 0 minutes central standard time, deeeeeet. This is radio station wwb fort Colin’s Colorado. Broadcasting on internationally allocated frequencies of, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz, broadcasting time of day, and other relevant information, 24 hours a day. Qsl can be sent to the station address announced on the real version of this announcement. Dong! Second tones etc. lol. I guess when I’m bored I’ll listen to it too much LOL
All that technology but no one could find a wireless lavalier microphone or a wind screen?
I heard the tour guide mention WWVL. I wish there was more information on that station available. I've read the NIS article about it, but it said nothing about what it would have sounded like if you had tuned to 20 kHz (assuming you have a receiver that can tune that frequency).
I remember first hearing WWV on my Knight Kit shortwave radio that I’d built.
awesome. thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
Thanks for posting-this is a great video! How did you get a tour? This is something I’d love to do!
thanks for watching RF. and your comment. i got lucky. the guy that runs the place giving the tour is a ham and a member of our local club. sub for more. i might be going back in a few months for WWV 100 Year Celebration. They will have a special event station on the air on the property! i will make another video.
Can anyone explain why the antenna generates sound at 8:00?
Very cool. I've listened to WWV since I was a kid with my first SW radio around 1960, I don't remember what it was though. Why is there such a high noise level in what seems like much of the facility? Thanks for the tour. I loved it.
tim, thanks for watching. it was very loud in there. i think it was cooling fans for all the equipment.
Like many here, WWV was my first SW signal that I tuned in when I was 8 back in 1978, so thanks for this video tour. Reading the description above, I gather that tours of WWV are rare and I can imagine why. Still, as a photographer, I would love to get some images of the Antenna Farm, so are visitors allowed? I can not seem to find an answer to this question anywhere online, any help would be appreciated.
Hopefully people can get enough support so they don't have to shut down WWV/WWVH (NIST didn't have it in their budget apparently.)
not sure what the status is currently. thanks for watching!
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 WWV is still on Shortwave.
In general I think the tour was interesting but not enough detail.
Unless I missed it I would like to know where the timecode source comes from is that the naval observatory or where exactly does the Time start. Where those atomic clocks that was displaying the time. What was their error be? What would be the lifecycle of the tubes and some of the other equipment that would break down eventually do the heat electronics and Environmental issues?
Could WWV & WWVH be used for navigation
ed, thanks for watching and your comment. the atomic clock is in Boulder, Colorado just a short distance from here. Peace to you.
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 Thank you. I am wondering what the time corredtion between the 2 laocaiotns.
Listening to WWV on 5.000 MHz right now in the UK, time 00.48 UTC. Signal S9+10 with some QSB, receiving on a Yaesu FTDX101D. CW ID RWM. Can't hear WWV on 2.5 MHz at all. 73
awesome matt! do a youtube video of it from the UK. peace again brother. are you a ham? are you on dmr? we hang out on brandmeister tg 3171 and 310869 or TGIF network 420 "the SUPER FREQ!"
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 Hi there, yes I am a ham callsign G4ZZB, not on QRZ though. I don't use DMR so not so good on that one. I will try to do a video tomorrow evening, and see how that goes with uploading it on my channel. Peace to you again man. 73
When I first heard WWV, I thought it was broadcasting from under water. LMAO.
haha it sounds like that now that you mention that
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 The radio I used at the time was this:www.radiomuseum.org/r/unknown_venturer_2959_2.html
This is awesome ! Thank you very much !!!
your welcome francois. please like, share and subscribe! i had a blast on the tour and making this video to share with everyone who only dreams of what it is like in person. it was awesome. i hope to go back and make another video so please subscribe! peace to you. de n0war
Man, so cool :) I'll be possibly be driving through in the coming months and I thin it'd be cool to stop by and sign the guest book. I doubt they'd let little ol' me do that though :p Thanks for recording and sharing such a rare video with us!
73s de KI7MAT
thanks colton! i have a bunch more ham radio videos. please sub and watch more. thanks again and i will post more!
=Dddd awesome! Thanks so much for posting this! I was just talking to a friend about whether or not tours could be done. I read that its hard due to security issues...Lucky you have the 6-degree hookups lmao XD #FELLOWNERD
thanks a bunch for your comment. it was really fun filming this. i wish i could do it again and i will if i can and do it better. lots of great comments on here. i might be able to set that up. peace to one and all and enjoy the airwaves however you can.
Uh luv the rural dub ya dub ya vee country ham drawl.
Can uh hear a y'all from y'all?
But seriously, great tour video of the facility.
thank you very much. great comment. peace
My First Shortwave Excpance was WWV on 2.5...5...10...
15...and 20mhz...I was 10 years old back than. .....It is amazing the same people are on it still 😃
cool story. thanks for sharing and watching!
Not at all what I was expecting! Fascinating.
jeff thanks a bunch for watching and your comment! i also had no idea what to expect so was glad to share this exclusive video with the world. peace
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 As a kid in the mid 1970s, I was big into shortwave radio listening, and to finally see the place associated with the WWV time signals after all these years was mesmerizing.
I toured the facility in 2008(?) and enjoyed it thoroughly. We got to visit the helix house and all the transmitter rooms. Great fun. AB5XZ.
Aaron, thanks for this tour.... This was awesome!!!
Darryl KI6MSP
Darryl, Your Welcome!! It was fun making the video. Thank you. n0war
WWV out of context looks like an abbreviation for World War 5
Back in junior high (1970s) I set my Sanyo alarm clock and ten buck Timex to the WWV. On a no - name cheap SW receiver...
those inductors are in the antenna building were amazing.
it was awesome to see for sure
The narrator sounds as excited as hell.
your damn right i was. peace mark!
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 I know, right? lol! 73 e KE5LIB- you, sir, are as crazy as I am. Kindred spirits playing tennis with a live grenade lol
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 Seriously OM, I thought about that after lobbing that grenade, then I thought- if it comes back at me I deserve it. But I meant it in jest. Thank you for being just as nuts as I am.
I wish someone had asked how they phase lock WWV with WWVH so that both can be heard at the same time without any phasing problem.
Ha! I live here, I've driven past the place I couldn't tell you how many times and it took this video to show me around inside! Life is funny sometimes!
hi rocks, i am in loveland. thanks for watching! please sub. peace
It used to say Greenwich Mean Time! I have a recordings of that before they changed to Universal Coordinated Time recorded off my grandparents 1935 Zenith console radio with the tuning eye from the early 60's through the 70's. Bored kid but fascinated!
thanks for the story. thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
I also thought, since we have WWV down here on earth,there aut to be something for interplanetary or interstellar time that could use one if not several of the hf bands for the time signal. I bet it could be done.
That CCA transmitter I built it at the factory.
great info James. thanks for sharing that! where was the factory located?
@@ShutterMafiaStudios1 Their last plant was in Fairburn Ga. It was 2002 before they went bankrupt. I did most of the final tests on the transmitters that were built to make sure they passed FCC specs. Their was a lot of very talented people that worked there they taught me a lot.I did a little of everything there.
You don't match the 50 Ohm transmitter impedance to the antenna's radiation resistance. You match it to the antenna impedance. The radiation resistance isn't a real resistance. It's simply a resistance value to use in calculations that is equivalent to the losses of the radiated signal that 'disappears' from the circuit.
The FCC part 97 rules in the first couple of paragraphs state that the purpose of the Amateur Radio Service is to create a pool of technically knowledgeable radio operators for emergencies or in times of war. It's basically a sandbox created by the government for the RF curious to play in in the hopes that they will learn as much about radio as possible. Their ideal is to see hams involved with groups like TAPR all over the USA, or at least to put up and play with our own antennas, fix our own gear and build and tune some kits. They realize they can't force that on us, so they provide incentives like multiple bands, and high power transmission. They even authorize technician class hams to design, build, and operate kilowatt station with huge antenna arrays for EME communications. That should be a hint. They want hams who know RF. Otherwise, they would just have told us all to 'go buy a CB' and talk to our heart's content.
BTW, I used to listen all day long to WWVB on its 180 kHz harmonic and watch it on my o'scope on the output of my 60 kHz TRF receiver. I used it as a calibrator for my LowFER gear. The first time I heard it I thought it was some drunk CW operator. But then a week or so later I had both the scope on WWVB and I was listening to 180 kHz on my LowfER receiver, and as I walked up to my workbench I saw and heard both together and broke out laughing. :)
So this place is like relay station and atomic Clok and... and on April fools installing CFL bulbs everywhere to make one heck of a noise on the radio haha😂
kay, the atomic clock is in boulder colorado. this location just transmits the signal. thanks for watching. please subscribe!!!
As a kid I imagined some poor man sitting there at a microphone 24 hours a day announcing the time 😂
Did I spy a VTVM on the lower right of the screen, at 2:46? On a shelf. I have an old Eico unit that is just cherry and works flawlessly, after about 45 seconds of warm up. If anything, I drag it around with me at work in the winter when I need a meter and leave it plugged in and on. To warm the hands, of course. Them rubber electrical insulation/isolation gloves with the leather covers are stupid hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. Lol
Edited for correct timestamp
The very first short wave transmission I ever heard, at the age of 5
awesome eliot!!!! peace to you
That was riveting? I cant contain myself? oh the excitment?
thanks for the tour. used to drive my older sis crazy with the tones and the voice . a side note wonder how close to teslas colrado lab this is ?
this is in fort collins. tesla was in colorado springs. 2-3 hours south of here. peace!
Someone should start a shoutcast stream using the audio from WWV lol. I haven’t seen anywhere where it would violate copyright lol