Hello Tim,

The "usual" way of getting a WWVB receiver chip is to buy a cheap WWVB
clock and rip out the chip and antenna. Some have external
chips/antenna connected via cable already.

Agree. Many like the Sony even contain two crystals. These alone can
cost more than a whole clock.

But if it's a matter of pride you can build your own even without any
special chips. When I was a kid I built a receiver for DCF in Europe. No
crystals, only a few transistors and 741 opamps. It worked great, except
that I didn't have a PC or anything to decode the signal with. It was
just the detected pulses but these came through nice and clear. With
today's opamps you wouldn't even need any transistors to do it. A decent
quad can be had for 50c while I paid a whopping $3 for a single
re-labeled 741 of rather dubious quality level.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com