WWV / WWVH Petition

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

And WWV transmissions aren't "vulnerable to solar flares and terrorism"?



A better question is why spend millions of dollars for a system which 1. Should be privatized and 2. Serves a benefit to only a handful of people?



Government dependence should be a career goal.

WWV has hardware in the ground so it is not directly vulnerable to flare damage like satellites.
The broadcast signals are several orders of magnitude stronger than satellite broadcasts so less impacted to solar noise. This also means they are less susceptible to jamming than GPS.

Vulnerability to terror is somewhat similar.

The argument for privatization is questionable. There are a lot of things that need to be synchronized it our technologically dependent society. Electrical grids and communication networks key among them. Using the internet for time sync is not viable, the system latency is too high and too variable.
WWV & WWVH are not the main synchronization methods, but they are the backups.

I expect that maintaining the existing stations is on the order of $5M-10M/yr.

Letting Loran go was a $35M/yr savings and the DoD is really regretting it now.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

And that relates to my question how?

It's merely one example of an answer. I assumed you were looking for answers instead of an excuse to be pedantic.

[CarinaPDX]

@Adelie: thanks for covering that GPS satellites are subject to permanent damage from solar flares, as opposed to just being obscured. We are depending far too much on GPS for too many things, including precision time measurements.

Services such as WWV are EXACTLY the sort of thing the government should be doing: it provides value to a large number of users, where there is no clear mechanism for individually paying for it. It is also pretty darn cheap to operate, and of course is doing far more than providing a time signal.

BTW I have seen the opposite approach in action: in the UK they charge for weather forecasts. Which means that the radio stations don't forecast more than about 12 hours out (they can't give away the service). While in Falmouth waiting for a window to cross Biscay, the Port Captain stopped posting daily forecasts because it was costing too much. (I did show them how to get non-Met Office forecasts at that point - about 20 years ago.) In other words paying for some services results in under-consumption and increased risk. Bad idea.

Greg

[a64pilot]

Why do you think the DOD misses LORAN? It was even at is best a very imprecise system.
So far as GPS Satellite’s vulnerability to Solar Flares, maybe if the EMI was high enough, but I’m sure they are hardened way beyond our power grid and other key systems. Military has become pretty dependent on GPS it’s unlikely they are stupid enough to let a Solar Flare take it away.

As far as the Navy teaching Celestial Nav, I’m sure they are, probably for a historical perspective or maybe to teach them something else, but as far as relying on it for a fix, highly doubtful.
Decades ago Helicopter inertial Nav systems could go free inertia and after a couple of hours flying maneuvering the whole time and covering a couple of hundred miles, they would often be within a few Ft of actual location, if a helicopter can, surely a ships system is much better.
Don’t subs navigate for very long times and very long distances off of INU’s? Haven’t they for nearly a Century, 3/4 of one anyway?

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

It's merely one example of an answer. I assumed you were looking for answers instead of an excuse to be pedantic.

My question was how do you run such a service (time signals) profitably..since most private organizations are for profit.

AARL is a non-profit.

However, I agree that AARL might be a viable option to take over WWV.

[darylat8750]

I'm just hoping people will consider cost/benefit. At some point we will have to accept that government spending is a zero sum game. I would like to see actual figures on how many benefit from wwv and how much it actually costs. And whether there are less expensive alternatives. What if the trade off would be better dredging on the intracoastal waterway in New Jersey for instance? I don't know the answer but I hate to see decisions made without evidence being presented .

I agree that decommissioning the Loran system was a mistake. After it was announced that the system would be shut down my friend picked up a dozen LORANC units for about $1000. Put them in his BE18 freighters and got more than 4 years of use out of them before they really pulled the plug. The late units had enough computer power to adjust for the variation of the propagation over different types of land mass and water and they were terrific. They would put you right on the middle of the destination runway every time. Way better than the early ones that were better than dead reckoning but not trustworthy.

[hellosailor]

The WWV time signals are for more than the obvious. There are hundreds of thousands of watches, clocks, wristwatches, that all use WWV to reset themselves daily. In that quiet and invisible way, a great many people are relying on "atomic time" even if they have no idea that it is being used.

With shortwaves of any sort, "Try listening for WWV" is a standard diagnostic. If you can't hear WWV, there's usually something broken. If you CAN hear it, the radio and antenna are working. Again, thousand more have USED WWV this way, even if they don't do so daily.

GPS is all well and good, but the redundancy and other roles played by WWV mean it ain't obsolete yet. That's like shutting down Amtrak and all civilian air travel (terribly dangerous) because we've got no need for them: You can always take the bus.

[CarinaPDX]

@a64pilot: The problem with shutting down LORAN was the loss of the facilities, not just the old LORAN-C technology. Someone with something to gain insisted on closing down LORAN and destroying the broadcast towers (mandated). This as the plans for eLORAN, an updated technology which used the old infrastructure to provide modern positioning was reaching the point of consideration for deployment. Someone wanted it stopped, and fast. And succeeded. And what was really crazy is that the EU had just brought on line new chains which made the system even more useful. I would love to hear the real story behind the closure - the costs were just too low to really be the issue.

As for GPS, in the GPS community it is widely known that the satellites will not withstand one of the largest solar flares that have been seen in the past. Perhaps the newest block has been hardened, but the birds that are up there now are at great risk of a direct solar flare hit. As are our communications satellites. At least for comms we still have a lot of undersea capacity.

Greg

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

My question was how do you run such a service (time signals) profitably..since most private organizations are for profit.

AARL is a non-profit.

However, I agree that AARL might be a viable option to take over WWV.

Doh...that should read "ARRL"...

[sailpower]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Decades ago Helicopter inertial Nav systems could go free inertia and after a couple of hours flying maneuvering the whole time and covering a couple of hundred miles, they would often be within a few Ft of actual location, if a helicopter can, surely a ships system is much better.


Don’t subs navigate for very long times and very long distances off of INU’s? Haven’t they for nearly a Century, 3/4 of one anyway?

Back in my time we would be underwater for 60/70 days.

Our main navigation was by Ships Inertial Navigation System (SINS).

There were two setups on board and one was designated as master based on how it was performing at that time.

Before patrol the system was initialized with a SATNAV fix and the computer then kept a DR based on those inputs.

It did all this by measuring acceleration in three planes and converting to directional velocity.

In order for the acceleration inputs to be accurate the accelerometers had to be on a stable platform oriented to a fixed point in space.

The platform was stabilized by three gyros, one for each plane. Over time gyros start to wobble (precession) and the platform would not remain level.

To correct this we had real time Loran-C and a daily Transit Satellite pass which would be inputted and when necessary, the Master SINS would be reset.

It was amazingly accurate.

It is all different today so presumably much better.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Why do you think the DOD misses LORAN? It was even at is best a very imprecise system.
So far as GPS Satellite’s vulnerability to Solar Flares, maybe if the EMI was high enough, but I’m sure they are hardened way beyond our power grid and other key systems. Military has become pretty dependent on GPS it’s unlikely they are stupid enough to let a Solar Flare take it away.

As far as the Navy teaching Celestial Nav, I’m sure they are, probably for a historical perspective or maybe to teach them something else, but as far as relying on it for a fix, highly doubtful.
Decades ago Helicopter inertial Nav systems could go free inertia and after a couple of hours flying maneuvering the whole time and covering a couple of hundred miles, they would often be within a few Ft of actual location, if a helicopter can, surely a ships system is much better.
Don’t subs navigate for very long times and very long distances off of INU’s? Haven’t they for nearly a Century, 3/4 of one anyway?

If the earth is hit by a Coronal Mass Ejection (such as the 1853 Carrington event, 2-3yr ago we had a near miss for one of these) we would likely lose all the satellites in orbit. Newer blocks may be hardened, don't know either way. Even if the satellites aren't wiped out the ground stations are dependent on surface utilities. Yes, there will be backup generators, but are they really stocked with fuel for a months long electrical outage. If we get hit by another Carrington-like even, utilities will be out for months.

Ultimately there are multiple vulnerabilities to the GPS system and the other satellite location systems. GPS is very reliable but it is not impervious and treating it as such and ignoring alternative backups is certainly ill considered at the national and corporate levels.

The USNavy has started teaching celestial nav at the academy again because they realized the vulnerability of relying solely on GPS when out of sight of land for extended periods. The specific vulnerability they are most worried about is computer intrusion. CelNav is not being taught at the Academy for historical perspective or for any non-functional purpose it is being taught as the backup for GPS. The instruction is not so the newly minted officers can perform this function themselves but so that they can intelligently oversee the enlisted folk who actually do the work. Teaching of celestial to the enlisted was never discontinued, but maintaining practice varied with the preferences of the commanding officer of any given vessel. The resumption of teaching celestial at the USN Academy was a topic of discussion on the NavList some months ago. The US Merchant Marine Academy never discontinued teaching it and apparently has been very helpful in re-establishing the program for the USNA.

The USN now regrets the abandonment of Loran because however it compares to GPS as a backup generally it was an order of magnitude better than CelNav which is what they are left with. With CelNav a good fix is 1 NM circle of error, even from a nice stable platform like an aircraft carrier. With repeated shots of bodies and averaging of results that can be improved somewhat but better sextants and more diligent sight reduction won't impact the result, the limit is the optical resolution of the horizon. With Loran results were on the order of 0.1-0.25NM generally and 20-100m repeatedly (that is for locations that had previously been visited and for which time differences (TDs) had been recorded. Also LORAN was all weather. Beyond ground wave ranges accuracy degraded but it still remained as good or better than CelNav until reception was lost. LORAN is also vulnerable to various problems and attacks but they are different than the ones for GPS which is what one want in a backup. Work was in progress to allow receivers to use signals from different chains to get a fix which would have significantly improved accuracy and coverage area.

Regarding INS (Inertial Navigation System). In modern aircraft systems INS has a drift rate of about 0.6nm/hr (https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/...n_System_(INS))). Let's assume the military systems drift at 0.1nm/hr on aircraft and 0.6nm/d on ships. A64 that means for you the INS system you had on your Apache was more likely a GPS/INS system which gives better instantaneous results than a pure GPS system (and provides results during intermittent loss of GPS signal) and better long term results than a pure INS system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS/INS).

For USN vessels relying on INS this means that in a week that they can expect a 4.2nm probable error in position without any outside update.

For small pleasure vessels, INS will never measure up even to the accuracy possible in aircraft, there is a much greater movement in a small vessel than even a small aircraft and this increases the computation load on the system and rate position errors accumulate.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

The WWV time signals are for more than the obvious. There are hundreds of thousands of watches, clocks, wristwatches, that all use WWV to reset themselves daily. In that quiet and invisible way, a great many people are relying on "atomic time" even if they have no idea that it is being used.
....

It is my understanding that WWVB is the reference for updating watches. The funding for that transmitter is not at risk at this time. NavList has been discussing this issue recently.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Adelie

It is my understanding that WWVB is the reference for updating watches. The funding for that transmitter is not at risk at this time. NavList has been discussing this issue recently.

Some devices sync to WWVB (transmits on 60 KHz from Colorado), and some sync to WWV/WWVH (2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz).

WWVB used to be the best way to obtain accurate time for engineering and science projects, since it propagates via ground wave and doesn't suffer from the ionospheric propagation path-length variations of the WWV/WWVH signals. These path-length variations affect the frequency and phase of the signals -- essentially the Doppler effect.

These days we engineers use GPS for timing down to the nanosecond and better. I've got a Rubidium standard oscillator in my home lab (just for fun, I don't really need that kind of accuracy), but I calibrate it with GPS.

I would be sad to lose WWV/WWVH, or WWVB, but their value is mainly as a backup to the satellites. I wonder what the WWV costs as a fraction of the entire National Institute of Standards and Technology budget?

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Some devices sync to WWVB (transmits on 60 KHz from Colorado), and some sync to WWV/WWVH (2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz).

WWVB used to be the best way to obtain accurate time for engineering and science projects, since it propagates via ground wave and doesn't suffer from the ionospheric propagation path-length variations of the WWV/WWVH signals. These path-length variations affect the frequency and phase of the signals -- essentially the Doppler effect.

These days we engineers use GPS for timing down to the nanosecond and better. I've got a Rubidium standard oscillator in my home lab (just for fun, I don't really need that kind of accuracy), but I calibrate it with GPS.

I would be sad to lose WWV/WWVH, or WWVB, but their value is mainly as a backup to the satellites. I wonder what the WWV costs as a fraction of the entire National Institute of Standards and Technology budget?

An ARRL article (NIST FY 2019 Budget Would Eliminate WWV and WWVH) indicates a $6.3M/yr savings based on shutting down the 2 radio stations and some indeterminate number of related projects. The share that supports the 2 radio stations is less than $6.3M/yr.

[JPA Cate]

To me, it is that WWV and WWVH have been very useful to us, and I would like them to stay there in case we need them. One never knows when one's electronics will "go down", and it could be life saving to be able to have the radio contact with them. For me, it is that simple.

Ann