U.S. Metric Association this week at the August WWV ARC meeting

The next meeting for the WWV Amateur Radio Club is on Thursday, August 27, 2026, at 6pm MDT via Zoom.

The Zoom meeting will open at 5:30pm MDST for shooting the breeze for about 30 minutes until our meeting STARTS OFFICIALLY AT 6PM MDST.

U.S. Metric Association presentation

This month our presentation will be given by Dr. Don Hillger, WD0GCK, President of the US Metric Association, covering many aspects of measurement standards, US and world acceptance and usage, and its importance in nearly all commercial and private life. Did you ever wonder why we discuss bands and wavelength in meters, and why we still choose to discuss antenna length in feet?  What other areas might we be a bit arbitrary about when it comes to which measurement standard we use, and does it simplify or complicate our measurement process?  

Don will be discussing the Metric System, its promotion as an international standard which simplifies all measurement throughout the world, and how the US Metric Association works toward this end.

Operating Event discussion

We are also at a point where we need input from our members regarding our various on-air events, especially our upcoming yearly celebration of WWV's anniversary in October.

As before, this event would be done by operators being on air from their own locations, using the WWV callsign, and choosing the times within the event period they would like to operate. We know that people love to catch WW0WWV on the air, as evidenced by the number of contacts we make, and the interesting and enthusiastic comments we get from those conversations.  

There is some concern in considering the publishing of a longer (i.e., several days) event like we’ve done in the past, then not actually being on-air for many of those days due to a lack of operators.

Last year, we shortened the event to hopefully fill more of the operator slots. In the past we’ve mostly gained input from discussion with members who attend our meetings. We would like to encourage an online discussion to include more of our members.  Our groups.io list is a great place for you to express your interest and ideas, and this information has been posted there as well.

We hope you can attend this Thursday!

Zoom information is forwarded in emails to the membership a few days before each meeting.

Please contact swartzdaveco@gmail.com if you have any issues logging in.

We look forward to seeing you on Thursday, August 27, 2026, at the usual time of 6pm MDT (5:30 early arrivals).

1stOnAir this coming weekend, Friday night and Saturday, 7/31 and 8/1 !

Every 1st of the month, WWV ARC members are encouraged to get on the air for our 1stOnAir operating event.  We'll schedule a 24-hour period aligned with a standard UTC day.  The format is exactly like our October Anniversary operating event.  Operators who would like to take part should contact Dave Swartz at swartzdaveco@gmail.com or R.J. Bragg at airrj1@gmail.com to request access to the Google event folder for the schedule (below) and also Operating Guidelines

Our next 1stOnAir is August 1, 2026 !   Check below to see who is operating when.

For club operators, please place your call sign in the appropriate cell for the hour, band, and mode of operation.  Visitors to this website are able to scroll the operating schedule and see who is where and when.  If you decide to change when you're operating, please be sure to make changes at the Google site.  Consider signing for a 1 hour window at first to allow others on a busy band, but if an hour is vacant on the schedule, feel free to take a slot if it appears open. Sign in!

If you're operating digital or CW your exchanges are usually limited to signal reports, maybe a short CW conversation.  On sideband you have the chance to share more and learn of each other's WWV stories.  Be sure to share yours!  Read the Operators Guide and also follow some of the links to the history of the station if you care to have more knowledge of WWV in general.

Thank you for the great February , March,  April, May, June, and July 1stOnAIr events so far!

This August 1 also marks 150 years of Colorado statehood!

73,  Dave Swartz, WWV ARC Communications Director

The Schedule for August 1, 2026 is . . .

Click here for a link to the August Operator Schedule

The amateur radio community learned the week of May 20 that the time and frequency broadcasts of the NRC Canada radio station CHU would cease effective June 22, 2026. 

Reaction was swift and widespread, especially among the HamSCI.org members who utilize broadcasts like CHU and WWV extensively for their research.

The HamSCI Science Advisory Board released the following statement on May 29, 2026, regarding the announced closure of the CHU service:

HamSCI General Statement on CHU

The Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation wishes to emphasize the significant scientific value of National Research Council (NRC) Canada’s time standard HF radio beacons at station CHU in Ottawa. NRC Canada recently announced a plan to cease CHU operations on 22 June 2026. As active scientific users of CHU’s signals, we urge the NRC to reverse this decision.

The entire statement and accompanying post are available at HamSCI.org/CHU.

I had a short email exchange this week with Steve Herman, W7DQ, Chief National Correspondent for the Voice of America until 2025, now the executive director of the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation, School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. 

Steve authored an excellent article in 2018 about the administrations proposed Fiscal 2019 budget and the suggestion to remove the NIST Time and Frequency Services broadcasts. (Time May Be Running Out for Millions of Clocks:  https://www.voanews.com/a/time-may-be-running-out-for-millions-of-clocks/4554376.html)

Steve was gracious enough to answer one of my questions and to allow the club to post it here. 

The question:

From your perspective as a Washington observer and reporter and an amateur radio operator … what are other challenges facing national time services and do they still have a role in supporting science, education, and industry going forward? 

His response:

The proposed shutdown of CHU and a potential similar fate for WWV are a short-sighted retreat from foundational scientific infrastructure. 

Legacy is not obsolescence. For more than a century, the high-frequency radio broadcasts from CHU have served as a universally accessible Canadian laboratory. In education and amateur science. The signals of CHU, WWV and similar time stations provide a free, reliable standard for calibrating equipment, teaching radio wave propagation and conducting ionospheric research. In industry these continuous feeds are an independent benchmark to verify local atomic clocks and synchronize distributed networks. To silence these transmitters is to dismantle a piece of open-access scientific infrastructure that costs relatively little to maintain but yield big dividends.

Modern civilization has become dependent on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as GPS. From financial transaction timestamps to the navigation systems of commercial airliners and emergency services, our world now runs on a fragile string of signals beamed from low-Earth orbit. Yet, these space-based systems are vulnerable. A severe geomagnetic storm, a well-coordinated cyberattack or the deliberate deployment of anti-satellite weaponry could instantly blind or corrupt the GPS network. Shortwave stations such as CHU and WWV stand as the ultimate, resilient backup. Unlike satellite signals, which require line-of-sight clarity and complex receiver architecture, shortwave radio waves bounce off the ionosphere, traveling thousands of miles across North America and beyond. In a crisis where the satellite systems are compromised, these ground-based transmitters will continue to broadcast accurate UTC time. They ensure that public safety networks, defense infrastructure and essential utilities can maintain the precise synchronization critical for operations. Silencing these signals will remove a vital failsafe, leaving society dangerously exposed to a single point of failure.

Steve Herman

W7DQ

I didn’t expect to get such a critical and  thorough answer.  Steve, thanks for sharing your support for these important government services and all they provide.

We’ll do our best over the course of the next month to keep our members aware of any changes to the situation or additional announcements about CHU and anything more from HamSCI.org.

73,

Dave Swartz, W0DAS

WWVARC Communications Director

May 30, 2026

edited August 14, 2025- Fort Collins, CO

Our webserver is now once again secure, thanks to help from Rob, AI4UC, and a few hours working closely with CPanel support.  The security for webservers is changing, and we are now set up through Let's Encrypt, a free service carried by CPanel. 

You should feel confident that any logins, passwords, and financial transactions like membership renewal are now secure from end to end.

The WWV ARC was created in January 2019 to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of NIST Radio Station WWV, located near Fort Collins, Colorado since 1966.  After the very successful October 2019 100th anniversary SES, several of the organizers kept the club loosely together and in the fall of 2020 discussions of re-writing the by-laws got rolling.  We registered with the State of Colorado as a non-profit in December 2020, and in April 2021 we established new by-laws and elected a re-organized Board.  WWV ARC is a recognized ARRL affiliated club as of May 28, 2021.

Our mission statement:

The WWV Amateur Radio Club (WWVARC) exclusively promotes and celebrates the historic, scientific, and cultural importance of radio station WWV and amateur radio by conducting club educational programs and activities related to WWV, time and frequency measurement, and amateur radio.

We look forward to exploring and supporting a variety of amateur radio topics, citizen science amateur radio initiatives, metrology themes and issues, historical ties between amateur radio and NIST, as well as continued support for radio stations WWV, WWVB, and WWVH and the NIST Time and Frequency services of the US Government.

WWVB South Antenna Repairs

On April 6, 2024, and incredible wind storm hit the entire Front Range of Colorado, all the way south from New Mexico to Wyoming.  I-25 near WWV was shutdown in both directions due to blowing dust, and wind speeds were clocked in the 90 mph range nearby.  The WWVB South top-hat and antenna collapsed when one of the crimps on the center-span cable, the triatic cable, failed at the top of tower #4.  Read the details in our story "WWVB South Antenna damaged by severe winds" under the NIST News tab on our main menu.

WSPRsonde-8 now transmitting as WW0WWV from the WWVB site on 7 amateur bands

The newest addition to the WWV/H Modulation Working Group partnership between NIST and HamSCI is a WSPRsonde-8, an 8 channel WSPR transmitter manufactured by Turn Island Systems.  The transmitter went on the air in mid July 2024 and recently added a 12m broadcast.  Read the details in our story "WSPRsonde-8 now transmitting from WWV/WWVB" soon to be posted under the NIST News menu tab.

As you can see, our club has several projects underway and we'd love to have you involved in our club!

We hope to see you here in Fort Collins or have a QSO on the air soon!

73

Dave Swartz, WØDAS

WWV ARC Communications Director

updated January 9, 2026:

WWV ARC members who would like to renew their membership, please click on this link to go to the Stripe payment page: RENEW. 

If you'd like to renew by mail, send your check to WWV ARC, PO Box 273226, Fort Collins, CO 80527. You DO NOT need to fill out a membership form again!

If you'd like a membership form, it is available here: Membership Form

IF YOUR MEMBERSHIP HAS EXPIRED :  Please email Dave Swartz and he can activate your membership and then you can click on the RENEW button link above after you have logged in.  If you forgot your login or password, please email Dave Swartz: swarztdaveco@gmail.com

Additional Questions?  Please email Dave or email info@wwvarc.org.

Thank you!