The culmination of months of planning will come to a head this weekend as the WWV Centennial Celebration and the related WW0WWV Amateur Radio special event get under way. WW0WWV will begin operation on Saturday at 0000 UTC and continue through October 2 at 0000 UTC. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Northern Colorado Amateur Radio Club (NCARC), and the WWV Amateur Radio Club have teamed up to organize 100th anniversary events. WW0WWV will be active around the clock on 160 – 6 meters on CW, SSB, and digital modes (FT8 operation will be Fox and Hound, except on 160 meters). WW0WWV will operate from the challenging RF environment at the WWV site near Fort Collins, Colorado. Logs will be streamed live to Club Log, and all logs will be uploaded to Logbook of The World (LoTW) after the event ends.
WW0WWV committee member Dave Swartz, W0DAS, said he’s been addressing last-minute details and putting out “many little fires.” Swartz is camping out at the WWV site ahead of the special event.
WWV is reputed to be among the oldest — if not the oldest — continuously operating radio stations in the world. It started out as an experimental station that eventually became a time and frequency standard, and WWV often broadcast music in its early years. WWV served as a beacon for Amateur Radio pioneers, who may only have had a rough idea of where they were transmitting. When they began, early time announcements were in CW. Voice announcements did not start until 1950. Time announcements used to be every 5 minutes, but WWV switched to announcing the time every 60 seconds in 1971.
W3V East Coast Special Event Will Also Mark WWV Centennial
An unrelated east coast special event, W3V in Maryland, will also celebrate the 100th anniversary of WWV. Originally an experimental/demonstration radio station, WWV was licensed to what then was called the National Bureau of Standards — today NIST — on October 1, 1919. The transmitter site, initially in the Washington, DC, suburbs, moved to the grounds of the Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Beltsville, Maryland, in the 1930s, before relocating to Colorado in 1966.
The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) also was located on the BARC campus, and the Goddard Amateur Radio Club (GARC) will host the W3V special event September 28 – October 2 at the GARC club station, just north of the old WWV site. It will use the former WA3NAN space shuttle HF retransmission frequencies — 3.860, 7.185, 14.295, 21.395, and 28.650 MHz — as well as amateur satellites. For many years, the GARC retransmissions used 100-foot wooden antenna poles that it inherited from WWV.
As part of the WWV centennial, HamSCI and the Case Amateur Radio Club of Case Western Reserve University (W8EDU) invites all radio amateurs and others capable of making highly accurate HF measurements to participate in the WWV Centennial Festival of Frequency Measurement. The event will take place on WWV’s centennial, October 1, from 0000 to 2359 UTC (starting on Monday evening, September 30, in the Americas). Participants are requested to share their data with the HamSCI community on the Zenodo data-sharing site.
Source:ARRL
Recent Posts
SL8SUB – 1st Submarine Flotillas official military amateur radio call sign
Here is a brief information release regarding Radio SL8SUB, the 1st Submarine Flotillas official military amateur radio call sign: The 1st Submarine F... Read more
Smoother FT8 Mode Operation with Constantly Evolving Firmware (IC-705/IC-7300/IC-9700)
Firmware update for the IC-705, IC-7300 and IC-9700* offers smoother FT8 operation. One touch FT8 mode preset, Scroll mode and other updates for each... Read more
My Wife Bought More Radio Gear On Wish and Ali Express
My wife surprised me at the end of 2020 with a new random box of goodies from Wish and AliExpress. Today we unbox some of these ODD radios and radio a... Read more
FTdx10 vs IC-7300 Comparison
This week Jonathan compares the new Yaesu FTdx10 and the Icom IC-7300. What are your comments on either? Read more
The K7RA Solar Update
Tad Cook, K7RA, Seattle, reports: What happened? Solar Cycle 25 seemed well under way, but no new sunspots have emerged since December 23. The last ti... Read more
ICOM IC-705 Review and Full Walk Through
Here’s the complete and detailed review of the ICOM IC-705. If you are already an owner of this unit, this video covers the essentials of the op... Read more
Radials, Radials, Radials! Learn about radials!
In response to an Oggie question, we talk about radials for vertical antennas. Read more
Hamvention 2021 is Officially Cancelled
Much like last year, Hamvention 2021 has announced their cancellation of the Hamfest for 2021. Lots of us are disappointed, but I wanted to share my t... Read more
Dayton Hamvention Cancels 2021 Show
Dayton Hamvention® will not take place for the second year. “Unfortunately, several setbacks in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic make necessary... Read more
AMSAT/Vanderbilt RadFXSat-2/Fox 1E Set to Launch
Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne is a go for launch on Wednesday, January 13, at 1500 UTC, carrying the AMSAT/Vanderbilt RadFXSat-2/Fox-1E CubeSat into spac... Read more
New Amateur VLF Transatlantic Record Set
Very low frequency (VLF) enthusiast Joe Craig, VO1NA, reports that Stefan Schaefer, DK7FC, copied his 50-character message transmitted from Newfoundla... Read more
100 ft Tilting Tower
Raising a 100 ft tower with a winch on a 35 ft pole. Read more
ARRL Life Member Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, is 2021 Carole Perry Educator of the Year
Orlando HamCation® has announced that ARRL Life Member Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, of Bloomington, Indiana, is the 2021 recipient of the Carole Perry... Read more
Explaining Ham Radio Antenna Baluns, UNUNs and Toroids
Explaining Ham Radio Antenna Baluns, UNUNs and Toroids Read more
I Found & Eliminated My QRM / RFI (Radio Frequency Interference)!
This is the third in a series of videos following my efforts to track down a source of local QRM / Radio Interference. Following the build of a succes... Read more
Solar Storm Graze & Red Planet Rendezvous
Solar Storm Graze & Red Planet Rendezvous Read more
QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo Team
“The first QSO Today Expo was a great success with over 16,000 attendees and the March 13-14, 2021 event is anticipated to be even larger. The Q... Read more
FTDX10 – Top 5 Features
– Hybrid SDR Configuration Like the FTDX101 series, the new FTDX10 utilizes the Yaesu Hybrid SDR configuration – Narrow Band SDR and Direc... Read more
2021 AM Rally Set for First Weekend in February
The 2021 running of the AM Rally will take place from 0000 UTC on Saturday, February 6 to 0700 UTC on Monday, February 8. The annual AM Rall... Read more
FCC Invites Comments on Expanding the Number of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators
In a January 5 Public Notice, the FCC requested comments on whether the current 14 Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (VECs) are sufficient to facil... Read more