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Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408
Buried on page 25 of the 2019 budget proposal for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under the heading "Fundamental Measurement, Quantum Science, and Measurement Dissemination", there's a short entry that has caused plenty of debate and even a fair deal of anger among those in the amateur radio scene:
NIST will discontinue the dissemination of the U.S. time and frequency via the NIST radio stations in Hawaii and Ft. Collins, CO. These radio stations transmit signals that are used to synchronize consumer electronic products like wall clocks, clock radios, and wristwatches, and may be used in other applications like appliances, cameras, and irrigation controllers.
The NIST stations in Hawaii and Colorado are the home of WWV, WWVH, and WWVB. The oldest of these stations, WWV, has been broadcasting in some form or another since 1920; making it the longest continually operating radio station in the United States. Yet in order to save approximately $6.3 million, these time and frequency standard stations are potentially on the chopping block.
Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/08/20/what-will-you-do-if-wwvb-goes-silent/
(Score: 5, Informative) by drussell on Monday August 27 2018, @11:13AM
NIST is defined at the beginning of the first paragraph.
WWV, WWVB and WWVH aren't acronyms. They are the radio station identifiers for the time standards.
WWV broadcasts on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 MHz from Colorado.
WWVB broadcasts on 60 kHz long wave, also from Colorado.
WWVH broadcasts on 5, 10, and 15 MHz from Hawaii.
It would be silly to shut them off, they're still incredibly useful for a variety of purposes.
Canada also has a time signal station called CHU, been in operation since 1923 which operates on 3.33, 7.85 and 14.67 MHz which can be used for some of the same things as WWV, but any things like automatically synchronized clocks that use the WWV frequencies for their timebase would cease to function without significant modifications to the receivers.