I have one of the MFJ "atomic" clocks in my basement shack (in New York) It
will not pick up the WWV signal in the basement, but does fine when upstairs
and placed in a vertical position. There is no external antenna
connector---that would make things too easy. Is there an accepted way to
connect an external antenna? Any experience with external antennas on these
things? (This should be a very common problem!)

I have not taken it apart yet -- sometimes such things are easier to take
apart than to put back together. I am quite willing to take it apart if
there is a good reason for doing so.

Bill
W2WO

"Bill Ogden" wrote
I have one of the MFJ "atomic" clocks in my basement shack (in New York)
It
will not pick up the WWV signal in the basement, but does fine when
upstairs
and placed in a vertical position. There is no external antenna
connector---that would make things too easy. Is there an accepted way to
connect an external antenna? Any experience with external antennas on
these
things? (This should be a very common problem!)

I have not taken it apart yet -- sometimes such things are easier to take
apart than to put back together. I am quite willing to take it apart if
there is a good reason for doing so.

Bill
W2WO


Hi Bill, if you do open the receiver, I would be very careful how much
signal you apply, as the front end could be extremely sensitive and might
easily be destroyed by applying an external antenna directly. You could try
running an insulated antenna wire from some area that has reception, and
strip the insulation to fasten to the back of the clock (without opening the
back).

If that doesn't work, here's a new hi-tech digital clock that will:

http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/sto.../03/index.html

Best regards ;-)

Jack Painter
Virginia Beach, Virginia

"Jack Painter" wrote in message
news:4zA2e.72452$7z6.65415@lakeread04...
"Bill Ogden" wrote
I have one of the MFJ "atomic" clocks in my basement shack (in New York)
It
will not pick up the WWV signal in the basement, but does fine when
upstairs
and placed in a vertical position. There is no external antenna
connector---that would make things too easy. Is there an accepted way to
connect an external antenna? Any experience with external antennas on
these
things? (This should be a very common problem!)

I have not taken it apart yet -- sometimes such things are easier to take
apart than to put back together. I am quite willing to take it apart if
there is a good reason for doing so.

Bill
W2WO


Hi Bill, if you do open the receiver, I would be very careful how much
signal you apply, as the front end could be extremely sensitive and might
easily be destroyed by applying an external antenna directly. You could
try
running an insulated antenna wire from some area that has reception, and
strip the insulation to fasten to the back of the clock (without opening
the
back).

If that doesn't work, here's a new hi-tech digital clock that will:

http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/sto.../03/index.html

Best regards ;-)

Jack Painter
Virginia Beach, Virginia



Thanks Jack, thats a great clock.. All my buddies will be getting one of
their own soon. I already have mine.

I was thinking that Bill might be able to get his other clock to pick up
WWV by the same method you suggested. But, I was wondering if he could
tolerate having a few turns of the wire from outside wrapped around the
clock on the way to a ground connection in the room.

Jerry

Bill:

Find some way to listen to 60 kHz. I'll bet your problem is not lack of signal, but excess of noise. Computers, any
device with a switching regulator or power supply can wipe out LF.

--
Crazy George
The attglobal.net address is a SPAM trap. Please change that part to: attdotbiz properly formatted.
"Bill Ogden" wrote in message ...
I have one of the MFJ "atomic" clocks in my basement shack (in New York) It
will not pick up the WWV signal in the basement, but does fine when upstairs
and placed in a vertical position. There is no external antenna
connector---that would make things too easy. Is there an accepted way to
connect an external antenna? Any experience with external antennas on these
things? (This should be a very common problem!)

I have not taken it apart yet -- sometimes such things are easier to take
apart than to put back together. I am quite willing to take it apart if
there is a good reason for doing so.

Bill
W2WO

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:35:30 -0500, "Bill Ogden"
wrote:

I have one of the MFJ "atomic" clocks in my basement shack (in New York) It
will not pick up the WWV signal in the basement, but does fine when upstairs
and placed in a vertical position. There is no external antenna
connector---that would make things too easy. Is there an accepted way to
connect an external antenna? Any experience with external antennas on these
things? (This should be a very common problem!)

I have not taken it apart yet -- sometimes such things are easier to take
apart than to put back together. I am quite willing to take it apart if
there is a good reason for doing so.

Bill
W2WO


Below are some tips from the Ramsey Electronics site on improving
atomic clock reception

bob
k5qwg


If you have a desk top unit, try rotating it 90 degrees. If
you have a wall clock try mounting it on a wall perpendicular to the
one it is currently on (e.g. if it is on a north-south wall try a
east-west wall). The antennas are directional and you might be able
to improve the signal strength by turning the antenna.

Place the clock along a wall or near a window that faces
Colorado.

Locate the clock at least 1 or 2 meters away from any computer
monitors, which can cause interference (some monitors have a scan
frequency at or near the WWVB carrier frequency of 60 kHz).

If you are in a strong interference area, or in a highly
shielded location you might not be able to receive the 60 kHz signal
from WWVB.

I read your original message with great interest, I'm working on a
modified WWVB clock myself, although it will be used for a 20 Khz
receiver for a different purpose.

I do not know which chip is inside yours, but they are pretty similar.
They all have 3 wires needed to control the receiver. These are dc
input (switched on and off when the receiver isn't needed), a ground,
a signal output wire. The signal output wire is fed to the
microprocessor, which does the actual decoding.

If you are having interference, this signal output will look very bad.
Rather than look at it with a scope, you can learn more about it by
probing it with a software spectrum analyzer.

The Radio Shack unit I have runs the receiver part time, so as to
minimize battery drain. But, you can force it to attempt to receive
WWVB just by taking the battery out and putting it back in.

To look for interference, download spectrum lab and install it in your
computer. Set the bandwidth to display DC to 1 Khz. Connect the
soundcard input to the output of your receiver chip. You should see
clean signals from DC to 5 Hz, these are the normal output frequencies
from the receiver. If this waveform looks clean, search for hash in
the 5 to 1 Khz range using spectrum lab. Use an attenuator as the
software will display alot of garbage if it is overloaded. I use a 3
meg series resistor for small signals (input to the mic level) or a 10
meg ohm series resistor to look at logic level signals.

If there is no interference, you will see an empty spectrum except for
the dc to 5 HZ range.

The wwvb chips use crystal filters for selectivity, so the spectral
output will be very narrow. There is no need to look for frequencies
higher than 1 Khz at the output of the chip.

emmail me directly if you like.

K Y 1 K att pivot ddott nnett

GL

A

PS: If you do find interference, it will probably be wideband and easy
to track. Put a short antenna on a laptop running spectrum lab and use
it to trace the noise. Select one of spectrum labs vlf receiver macros
and have fun.


Find some way to listen to 60 kHz. I'll bet your problem is not lack of signal, but excess of noise. Computers, any
device with a switching regulator or power supply can wipe out LF.