[time-nuts] WWV

[Brad Dye]

There is a thread on http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/FMT-nuts/ with many observations of WWV reporting the wrong time. Here is a clip of just one of them:

> FYI,
> 
> I tuned into WWV this evening (August 19, 2012 UTC), and was surprised to hear
> the station making some incorrect audio time announcements.
> 
> Specifically,
> 
> 23:20 UTC was announced as 23:28 with no audio tone
> 23:23 UTC was announced as 23:29 with an audio tone
> 23:25 UTC was announced as 23:29 with an audio tone
> 23:26 UTC was announced as 23:29 with an audio tone
> 23:27 UTC was announced as 23:29 with an audio tone
> 23:28 UTC was announced as 23:28 with an audio tone
> 23:29 UTC was announced as 23:29 but was followed by station ID
> 23:30 UTC was announced as 23:30 with an audio tone (no ID)
> 23:32 UTC was announced as 23:35 with an audio tone
> 23:44 UTC was announced as 23:49 with no audio tone
> 23:57 UTC was announced as 23:59 with no audio tone
> 23:58 UTC was announced as 23:59 with no audio tone
> 
> I did not take notice as to whether the audio tones being transmitted were the
> correct ones for the particular minute, but some of the silent periods and the
> timing of the station ID appeared to be out of character.
> 
> I notified NIST of these unusual observations.
> 
> 
> 73, de John, KD2BD

I was able to verify this by listening to WWV and comparing the time announcements with my GPS-DO. The time was not consistently announced wrong -- just every few minutes (like above). I am sorry I didn't keep a better log of the exact time and frequency where I heard this. I just assumed that since so many guys were reporting the same thing that the WWV staff would know about it. I was surprised when they didn't.

Best regards,

Brad Dye
Editor, Wireless Messaging News
P.O. Box 266
Fairfield, IL  62837 USA
Telephone: 618-599-7869
Skype: braddye
http://www.braddye.com