On 23 Jan 2004 08:18:31 -0800, (Chris Campbell)
wrote:

It was months ago (I *did* give up and my memory is
fuzzy but I know I left it up at least overnight in each position, and
for a week or more in some locations (i.e. on the bench, pointing in
different directions). I never got a sync indoors.

It's just that now I'm trying again, after having given up. Thanks
for your help and I'll try the surrounding-loop solution. Makes me
wish I'd taken that antenna design course in EE school.

Hi Chris,

Some years ago in my Cal Lab, the antenna that I used to receive WWVL
was a 16 foot whip. I had it connected to a specialized receiver that
separated out the Naval Observatory's TOC which was a specifically
shaped pulse that occurred every 17 minutes. I used this to
synchronize my Atomic Clock to within 100nS of UTC. It was never a
simple feat, and missing that pulse meant a delay of at least 17
minutes (which was about how long the entire process took).

One question that I have failed to ask the various posters that came
here was "how do you know it hasn't synchronized?" I can imagine
there being a gross error of seconds if not minutes (which may
contribute their/your problem), but under one second variation is
difficult to confirm.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC