On 11/7/2012 7:47 PM, Fred McKenzie wrote:
In ,
wrote:

I'm interested in any sources of info that might help me in my planning.

Rick-

Jeff and others have probably answered your questions with regard to
antenna design. I was wondering what your WWVB receiver was to be used
for?

I considered such a receiver, as well as amplifying WWV at other
frequencies. My goal was to derive an accurate frequency to be used for
calibration of counter timebases.

What I settled on was a Rubidium Controlled Oscillator. I found an
Efratom (Ball) unit on E-Bay, that generates an accurate 10 MHz. I had
to build a 24 Volt power supply for it. It is probably accurate within
a few parts per billion, and is not affected by propagation or
interference.

Fred
K4DII

Hi Fred,

I am building the antenna as part of a radio controlled clock whose
purpose is to construct it to use as little power as possible. This
will be powered from scavenged sources such as thermal differences,
pressure variations, vibration, light, etc. So the receiver will be
done in a very low power FPGA using minimal circuitry and as little
analog circuitry as possible.

I may create a PLL to track the phase of the signal. This would use a
tunable crystal oscillator which would be "conditioned" against the WWVB
signal over long periods of time.

I'm not specifically looking for a reference source, but this would be
capable of providing one.

Rick