Mills@UDEL.EDU (12/23/87)
Folks, At least two WWV-synchronized clocks, one at U Michigan and the other at U Delaware, have wandered out of lock for the last day or two. In an effort to find out why, I discovered a scrofulous, apparently spurious, modulation on at least the lowest four of the five WWV broadcast frequencies. The result after demodulation is a rogue baseband frequency in the 100-Hz range, which is close to the synchronizing signal itself and scrambles the clocks. I don't know how the spur originates, but since it appears on several broadcast frequencies, I assume it is due to something like a broken synthesizer or baseband equipment at the transmitters. The problem does not seem to affect the 60-Khz transmissions from WWVB, so the NCAR, ISI and UMd clocks normally used by most of us are well. If WWVB goes bust, we can always camp on CHU, LORAN-C or go sight a star. Dave
perry@MCL.UNISYS.COM (Dennis Perry) (12/23/87)
As a last resort, we can also try the calendar. They haven't changed for a few centuries :-) dennis