<story><title>What Closing a Government Radio Station Would Mean for Clocks</title><url>https://www.voanews.com/a/time-may-be-running-out-for-millions-of-clocks/4554376.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nutcracker46</author><text>WWV, WWVH, and WWVB are more than charity for timekeepers.  They distribute time and frequency, traceable to a national standard, for one leg of &amp;quot;positioning, navigation, and timing.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Before GPS and the internet, numerous services depended on those signals.  I would argue that now, we have positioning, navigation, and timing from multiple satellite systems (and a phone network providing excellent time &amp;amp; freq references derived from satellites).  We have internet time synced to atomic standards and satnav.  All of the modern references are more precise, accurate, and stable than WWV, WWVH, and WWVB.&lt;p&gt;As to devices which sync from WWVB, there are gadgets which can get GPS time and transmit an LF signal for syncing those devices.  No problems, ladies and gents, you&amp;#x27;ve still got time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anishathalye</author><text>I made one of these GPS -&amp;gt; WWVB simulators a couple years ago. There&amp;#x27;s a short write-up here, in case anyone is interested in reading about it: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anishathalye.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;26&amp;#x2F;micro-wwvb&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.anishathalye.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;26&amp;#x2F;micro-wwvb&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are also some neat iPhone apps that use the audio circuitry to produce a low-power signal that can be picked up by radio-controlled clocks that are close by: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;itunes.apple.com&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;app&amp;#x2F;clock-wave&amp;#x2F;id1073576068?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;itunes.apple.com&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;app&amp;#x2F;clock-wave&amp;#x2F;id1073576068?mt=8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A couple people mentioned the FCC and licensing issues in the comments below. As far as I know, as long as you&amp;#x27;re transmitting at a very low power (40 µV&amp;#x2F;m as measured at 300m), it&amp;#x27;s okay. This should be fine for personal use, but won&amp;#x27;t work on a municipal level.</text></comment>
<story><title>What Closing a Government Radio Station Would Mean for Clocks</title><url>https://www.voanews.com/a/time-may-be-running-out-for-millions-of-clocks/4554376.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nutcracker46</author><text>WWV, WWVH, and WWVB are more than charity for timekeepers.  They distribute time and frequency, traceable to a national standard, for one leg of &amp;quot;positioning, navigation, and timing.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Before GPS and the internet, numerous services depended on those signals.  I would argue that now, we have positioning, navigation, and timing from multiple satellite systems (and a phone network providing excellent time &amp;amp; freq references derived from satellites).  We have internet time synced to atomic standards and satnav.  All of the modern references are more precise, accurate, and stable than WWV, WWVH, and WWVB.&lt;p&gt;As to devices which sync from WWVB, there are gadgets which can get GPS time and transmit an LF signal for syncing those devices.  No problems, ladies and gents, you&amp;#x27;ve still got time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>saagarjha</author><text>The services you described as being dependent on these stations cannot necessarily be upgraded to use internet or satellite time.</text></comment>