[time-nuts] RFDO - Experience and questions

[Gilles Clement]

Hi, 
Indeed, the station is located in central France with a very powerful transmitter (up to 2MW).
It covers all Europe and it was a real pain for me when they stopped broadcasting the France Inter Station. 
The longwave signal can be received anywhere, even in the basements (ground effect propagation). 
No need for an external full sky antenna etc… 
Hopefully they are still operating and sending the time code. 
And actually the signal is much clearer today in 2017 than when it was also amplitude modulated. 
Good news, but how long will it last ... ?
Best, 
Gilles. 


> Le 5 mars 2017 à 23:42, Iain Young <iain at g7iii.net> a écrit :
> 
> On 05/03/17 20:23, paul swed wrote:
> 
>> Gilles what signal is that at 162KHz. A European station? Nice thats its C
>> controlled.
> 
> That's TDF from France. Their equivalent of WWV/MSF/DCF. Used to carry
> the AM Station France Inter as well, but that went when France turned
> off all LW, MW, and LORAN stations at the end of 2016.
> 
> The Time Signal is Phase Modulated (I have a gnuradio decoder which
> works very well if anyone is interested)
> 
> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TDF_time_signal and
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allouis_longwave_transmitter
> 
> With no AM modulation, there are obvious benefits with regards to using
> it as a frequency reference. Average phase and frequency deviation is
> zero over 200msec (see link above for details)
> 
> 
> Iain
> 
> PS, The signal is used by the French railways SNCF, the electricity
> distributor ENEDIS, airports, hospitals according to the Allouis link
> above
> 
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