![]() ![]() When something goes wrong, you check the WWV to see if you're picking up their signal. I mean, the thing is they're sort of the heartbeat of shortwave radio. WITHERSPOON: (Laughter) I'm a nostalgic guy. SIMON: Are you just being nostalgic about WWV. You know, one of the reasons I love it so much is someone could be in a country under a repressive regime and listen to a shortwave radio, and there's no way the powers that be could actually track them. The BBC World Service still broadcasts on shortwave - the Voice of America. But there are surprisingly a lot of stations that are still out there that you can hear. It's expensive to run shortwave radio stations. The state of shortwave radio right now - a lot of the large international broadcasters are dropping out of the scene. In fact, one of the very first things I heard on shortwave radio was WWV, when my father would set his watch manually to it from a little console radio in our living room. I've been listening to shortwave radio since I was 8 years old. I'm an amateur radio operator, so I actually communicate over the shortwaves. So I am absolutely in love with the shortwaves. WITHERSPOON: That's a really good question. What's the state of that as a hobby these days? SIMON: I think I know the answer because I used to listen to shortwave and haven't in years. So if it goes through as proposed right now, it will be cut in 2019. But right now as the budget sits, it does cut out all of the WWV time stations. WITHERSPOON: That's nice to hear someone in industry saying that. He says that he thinks Congress would never approve this cut because there are so many millions of devices. They make a lot of these radio-controlled clocks that are found in schools and factory floors and homes. SIMON: Now, one of our producers spoke with the president of La Crosse Technology. ![]() This kind of runs in the background and doesn't need the internet - doesn't need anything else. The little embedded receiver, they don't require a lot of resources. But I've got an alarm clock next to my bed, for example. But a lot of people think that devices are actually connecting to the Internet to get their time signal. SIMON: Isn't that all taken care of on the Internet these days? I mean, we set the time according to what we see on our iPhones. So if the WWVB signal goes away, these devices will have to be changed manually. WITHERSPOON: Well, these little WWVB receivers are embedded in lots of devices that look for accurate timing - clocks, watches, weather stations, even irrigation systems. SIMON: So what would the effect of the closing of WWV be? THOMAS WITHERSPOON: Oh, thank you very much. Thomas Witherspoon wrote about this on his shortwave listener website, He joins us from the studios of the CBC in Quebec City - that's a lot of alphabet soup to get through in this intro. But a 2019 budget proposal for NIST would close WWV, WWVH in Hawaii and WWVB, which syncs up the time for about 50 million radio-controlled clocks, wristwatches and appliances. ![]() The time stamp is regulated by an atomic clock. It's signal provides a frequency standard for receivers. SIMON: WWV is the oldest continuously operating radio station in the United States. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: National Institute of Standards and Technology time - this is radio station WWV, Fort Collins, Colo. Shortwave listeners might recognize this signature ID. ![]()
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