The driver requires an audio codec or sound card with sampling rate 8 kHz and m-law companding to demodulate the data. This is the same standard as used by the telephone industry and is supported by most hardware and operating systems, including Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux, among others. In this implementation only one audio driver and codec can be supported on a single machine. In order to assure reliable signal capture, the codec frequency error must be less than 187 PPM (.0187 percent). If necessary, the tinker codec configuration command can be used to bracket the codec frequency to this range.
In general and without calibration, the driver is accurate within 1 ms relative to the broadcast time when tracking a station. However, variations up to 0.3 ms can be expected due to diurnal variations in ionospheric layer height and ray geometry. In Newark DE, 2479 km from the transmitter, the predicted two-hop propagation delay varies from 9.3 ms in sunlight to 9.0 ms in moonlight. When not tracking the station the accuracy depends on the computer clock oscillator stability, ordinarily better than 0.5 PPM.
After calibration relative to the PPS signal from a GPS receiver, the mean offset with a 2.4-GHz P4 running FreeBSD 6.1 is generally within 0.1 ms short-term with 0.4 ms jitter. The long-term mean offset varies up to 0.3 ms due to propagation path geometry variations. The processor load due to the driver is 0.4 percent on the P4.
The driver performs a number of error checks to protect against overdriven or underdriven input signal levels, incorrect signal format or improper hardware configuration. The specific checks are detailed later in this page. Note that additional checks are done elsewhere in the reference clock interface routines.
This driver incorporates several features in common with other audio drivers such as described in the Radio CHU Audio Demodulator/Decoder and the IRIG Audio Decoder pages. They include automatic gain control (AGC), selectable audio codec port and signal monitoring capabilities. For a discussion of these common features, as well as a guide to hookup, debugging and monitoring, see the Reference Clock Audio Drivers page.
The driver processes 8-kHz m-law companded codec samples using maximum-likelihood techniques which exploit the considerable degree of redundancy available in the broadcast signal. The WWV signal format is described in NIST Special Publication 432 (Revised 1990) and also available on the WWV/H web site. It consists of three elements, a 5-ms, 1000-Hz pulse, which occurs at the beginning of each second, a 800-ms, 1000-Hz pulse, which occurs at the beginning of each minute, and a pulse-width modulated 100-Hz subcarrier for the data bits, one bit per second. The WWVH format is identical, except that the 1000-Hz pulses are sent at 1200 Hz. Each minute encodes nine BCD digits for the time of century plus seven bits for the daylight savings time (DST) indicator, leap warning indicator and DUT1 correction.
The demodulation and decoding algorithms used by this driver are based on a machine language program developed for the TAPR DSP93 DSP unit, which uses the TI 320C25 DSP chip. The analysis, design and performance of the program for this unit is described in: Mills, D.L. A precision radio clock for WWV transmissions. Electrical Engineering Report 97-8-1, University of Delaware, August 1997, 25 pp. Available from www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/reports.htm. For use in this driver, the original program was rebuilt in the C language and adapted to the NTP driver interface. The algorithms have been modified to improve performance, especially under weak signal conditions and to provide an automatic frequency and station selection feature.
As in the original program, the clock discipline is modelled as a Markov process, with probabilistic state transitions corresponding to a conventional clock and the probabilities of received decimal digits. The result is a performance level with very high accuracy and reliability, even under conditions when the minute beep of the signal, normally its most prominent feature, can barely be detected by ear using a communications receiver.
The 1000/1200-Hz pulses and 100-Hz subcarrier are first separated using a 600-Hz bandpass filter centered on 1100 Hz and a 150-Hz lowpass filter. The minute pulse is extracted using an 800-ms synchronous matched filter and pulse grooming logic which discriminates between WWV and WWVH signals and noise. The second pulse is extracted using a 5-ms FIR matched filter for each station and a single 8000-stage comb filter.
The phase of the 100-Hz subcarrier relative to the second pulse is fixed at the transmitter; however, the audio stage in many radios affects the phase response at 100 Hz in unpredictable ways. The driver adjusts for each radio using two 170-ms synchronous matched filters. The I (in-phase) filter is used to demodulate the subcarrier envelope, while the Q (quadrature-phase) filter is used in a type-1 phase-lock loop (PLL) to discipline the demodulator phase.
A bipolar data signal is determined from the matched filter subcarrier envelope using a pulse-width discriminator. The discriminator samples the I channel at 15 ms (n), 200 ms (s0) and 500 ms (s1), and the envelope (RMS I and Q channels) at 200 ms (e1) and the end of the second (e0). The bipolar data signal is expressed 2s1 - s0 - n, where positive values correspond to data 1 and negative values correspond to data 0. Note that, since the signals s0 and s1 include the noise n, the noise component cancels out. The data bit SNR is calculated as 20 log10(e1 / e0). If the driver has not synchronized to the minute pulse, or if the data bit amplitude e1 or SNR are below thresholds, the bit is considered invalid and the bipolar signal is forced to zero.
The bipolar signal is exponentially averaged in a set of 60 accumulators, one for each second, to determine the semi-static miscellaneous bits, such as DST indicator, leap second warning and DUT1 correction. In this design a data average value larger than a positive threshold is interpreted as +1 (hit) and a value smaller than a negative threshold as a -1 (miss). Values between the two thresholds, which can occur due to signal fades, are interpreted as an erasure and result in no change of indication.
The BCD digit in each digit position of the timecode is represented as four data bits. The bits are correlated with the bits corresponding to each of the valid decimal digits in this position. If any of the four bits are invalid, the correlated value for all digits in this position is assumed zero. In either case, the values for all digits are exponentially averaged in a likelihood vector associated with this position. The digit associated with the maximum over all averaged values then becomes the maximum-likelihood candidate for this position and the ratio of the maximum over the next lower value represents the digit SNR.
The decoding matrix contains nine row vectors, one for each digit position. Each row vector includes the maximum-likelihood digit, likelihood vector and other related data. The maximum-likelihood digit for each of the nine digit positions becomes the maximum-likelihood time of the century. A built-in transition function implements a conventional clock with decimal digits that count the minutes, hours, days and years, as corrected for leap seconds and leap years. The counting operation also rotates the likelihood vector corresponding to each digit as it advances. Thus, once the clock is set, each clock digit should correspond to the maximum-likelihood digit as transmitted.
Each row of the decoding matrix also includes a compare counter and the most recently determined maximum-likelihood digit. If a digit likelihood exceeds the decision level and compares with previous digits for a number of successive minutes in any row, the maximum-likelihood digit replaces the clock digit in that row. When this condition is true for all rows and the second epoch has been reliably determined, the clock is set (or verified if it has already been set) and delivers correct time to the integral second. The fraction within the second is derived from the logical master clock, which runs at 8000 Hz and drives all system timing functions.
The logical master clock is derived from the audio codec clock. Its frequency is disciplined by a frequency-lock loop (FLL) which operates independently of the data recovery functions. The maximum value of the 5-ms pulse after the comb filter represents the on-time epoch of the second. At averaging intervals determined by the measured jitter, the frequency error is calculated as the difference between the epoches over the interval divided by the interval itself. The sample clock frequency is then corrected by this amount divided by a time constant of 8.
When first started, the frequency averaging interval is 8 seconds, in order to compensate for intrinsic codec clock frequency offsets up to 125 PPM. Under most conditions, the averaging interval doubles in stages from the initial value to 1024 s, which results in an ultimate frequency resolution of 0.125 PPM, or about 11 ms/day.
The data demodulation functions operate using the subcarrier clock, which is independent of the epoch. However, the data decoding functions are driven by the epoch. The decoder is phase-locked to the epoch in such a way that, when the clock state machine has reliably decoded the broadcast time to the second, the epoch timestamp of that second becomes a candidate to set the system clock.
The comb filter can have a long memory and is vulnerable to noise and stale data, especially when coming up after a long fade. Therefore, a candidate is considered valid only if the 5-ms signal amplitude and SNR are above thresholds. In addition, the system clock is not set until after one complete averaging interval has passed with valid candidates.
It is important that the logical clock frequency is stable and accurately determined, since in many applications the shortwave radio will be tuned to a fixed frequency where WWV or WWVH signals are not available throughout the day. In addition, in some parts of the US, especially on the west coast, signals from either or both WWV and WWVH may be available at different times or even at the same time. Since the propagation times from either station are almost always different, each station must be reliably identified before attempting to set the clock.
Reliable station identification requires accurate discrimination between very weak signals in noise and noise alone. The driver very aggressively soaks up every scrap of signal information, but has to be careful to avoid making pseudo-sense of noise alone. The signal quality metric depends on the minute pulse amplitude and SNR measured in second 0 of the minute, together with the data subcarrier amplitude and SNR measured in second 1. If all four values are above defined thresholds a hit is declared, otherwise a miss. In principle, the data pulse in second 58 is usable, but the AGC in most radios is not fast enough for a reliable measurement.
The number of hits declared in the last 6 minutes for each station represents the high order bits of the metric, while the current minute pulse amplitude represents the low order bits. Only if the metric is above a defined threshold is the station signal considered acceptable. The metric is also used by the autotune function described below and reported in the timecode string.
It is the intent of the design that the accuracy and stability of the indicated time be limited only by the characteristics of the ionospheric propagation medium. Conventional wisdom is that manual synchronization via oscilloscope and HF medium is good only to a millisecond under the best propagation conditions. The performance of the NTP daemon disciplined by this driver is clearly better than this, even under marginal conditions.
The figure below shows the measured offsets over a typical day near the bottom of the sunspot cycle ending in October, 2006. Variations up to ±0.4 ms can be expected due to changing ionospheric layer height and ray geometry over the day and night.
The figure was constructed using a 2.4-GHz P4 running FreeBSD 6.1. For these measurements the computer clock was disciplined within a few microseconds of UTC using a PPS signal and GPS receiver and the measured offsets determined from the filegen peerstats data.
The predicted propagation delay from the WWV transmitter at Boulder, CO, to the receiver at Newark, DE, varies over 9.0-9.3 ms. In addition, the receiver contributes 4.7 ms and the 600-Hz bandpass filter 0.9 ms. With these values, the mean error is less than 0.1 ms and varies ±0.3 ms over the day as the result of changing ionospheric height and ray geometry.
While this is going on the the driver acquires second synch, which can take up to several minutes, depending on signal quality. When minute synch has been acquired, the driver accumulates likelihood values for the unit (seconds) digit of the nine timecode digits, plus the seven miscellaneous bits included in the WWV/H transmission format. When a good unit digit has been found, the driver accumulated likelihood values for the remaining eight digits of the timecode. When three repetitions of all nine digits have decoded correctly, which normally takes 15 minutes with good signals, and up to 40 minutes when buried in noise, and the second synch has been acquired, the clock is set (or verified) and is selectable to discipline the system clock.
Once the clock is set, it continues to provide correct timecodes as long as the signal metric is above threshold, as described in the previous section. As long as the clock is correctly set or verified, the system clock offsets are provided once each minute to the reference clock interface, where they are processed using the same algorithms as with other reference clocks and remote servers.
It may happen as the hours progress around the clock that WWV and WWVH signals may appear alone, together or not at all. When the driver has mitigated which station and frequency is best, it sets the reference identifier to the string WVf for WWV and WHf for WWVH, where f is the frequency in megahertz. If the propagation delays have been properly set with the fudge time1 (WWV) and fudge time2 (WWVH) commands in the configuration file, handover from one station to the other is seamless.
Operation continues as long as the signal metric from at least one station on at least one frequency is acceptable. A consequence of this design is that, once the clock is set, the time and frequency are disciplined only by the second synch pulse and the clock digits themselves are driven by the clock state machine. If for some reason the state machine drifts to the wrong second, it would never resynchronize. To protect against this most unlikely situation, if after two days with no signals, the clock is considered unset and resumes the synchronization procedure from the beginning.
Once the system clock been set correctly it will continue to read correctly even during the holdover interval, but with increasing dispersion. Assuming the system clock frequency can be disciplined within 1 PPM, it can coast without signals for several days without exceeding the NTP step threshold of 128 ms. During such periods the root distance increases at 15 ms per second, which makes the driver appear less likely for selection as time goes on. Eventually, when the distance due all causes exceeds 1 s, it is no longer suitable for synchronization. Ordinarily, this happens after about 18 hours with no signals. The tinker maxdist configuration command can be used to change this value.
The driver includes provisions to automatically tune the radio in response to changing radio propagation conditions throughout the day and night. The radio interface is compatible with the ICOM CI-V standard, which is a bidirectional serial bus operating at TTL levels. The bus can be connected to a standard serial port using a level converter such as the CT-17. Further details are on the Reference Clock Audio Drivers page.
If specified, the driver will attempt to open the device /dev/icom and, if successful will activate the autotune function and tune the radio to each operating frequency in turn while attempting to acquire minute synch from either WWV or WWVH. However, the driver is liberal in what it assumes of the configuration. If the /dev/icom link is not present or the open fails or the CI-V bus is inoperative, the driver quietly gives up with no harm done.
Once acquiring minute synch, the driver operates as described above to set the clock. However, during seconds 59, 0 and 1 of each minute it tunes the radio to one of the five broadcast frequencies to measure the signal metric as described above. Each of the five frequencies are probed in a five-minute rotation to build a database of current propagation conditions for all signals that can be heard at the time. At the end of each probe a mitigation procedure scans the database and retunes the radio to the best frequency and station found. For this to work well, the radio should be set for a fast AGC recovery time. This is most important while tracking a strong signal, which is normally the case, and then probing another frequency, which may have much weaker signals.
The mitigation procedure selects the frequency and station with the highest valid metric, ties going first to the highest frequency and then to WWV in order. A station is considered valid only if the metric is above a specified threshold; if no station is above the metric, the rotating probes continue until a valid station is found.
The behavior of the autotune function over a typical day is shown in the figure below.
As expected, the lower frequencies prevail when the ray path is in moonlight (0100-1300 UTC) and the higher frequencies when the path is in sunlight (1300-0100 UTC). Note three periods in the figure show zero frequency when signals are below the minimum for all frequencies and stations.
The most convenient way to track the driver status is using the ntpq program and the clockvar command. This displays the last determined timecode and related status and error counters, even when the driver is not disciplining the system clock. If the debugging trace feature (-d on the ntpd command line) is enabled, the driver produces detailed status messages as it operates. If the fudge flag 4 is set, these messages are written to the clockstats file. All messages produced by this driver have the prefix wwv for convenient filtering with the Unix grep command.
The autotune process produces diagnostic information along with the timecode. This is very useful for evaluating the performance of the algorithms, as well as radio propagation conditions in general. The message is produced once each minute for each frequency in turn after minute synch has been acquired.
wwv5 status agc epoch secamp/secsnr datamp/datsnr wwv wwvh
where the fields after the wwv5 identifier are: status contains status bits, agc audio gain, epoch second epoch, secamp/secsnr second pulse amplitude/SNR, and wwv and wwvh are two sets of fields, one each for WWV and WWVH. Each of the two fields has the format
ident score metric minamp/minsnr
where ident encodes the station (WV for WWV, WH for WWVH) and frequency (2, 5, 10, 15 or 20), score 32-bit shift register recording the hits (1) and misses (0) of the last 32 probes (hits and misses enter from the right), metric is described above, and minamp/minsnr is the minute pulse ampliture/SNR. An example is:
wwv5 000d 111 5753 3967/20.1 3523/10.2 WV20 bdeff 100 8348/30.0 WH20 0000 1 22/-12.4
There are several other messages that can occur; these are documented in the source listing.
sq yyyy ddd hh:mm:ss l d du lset agc ident metric errs freq avg
An example timecode is:
0 2000 006 22:36:00 S +3 1 115 WV20 86 5 66.4 1024
Here the clock has been set and no alarms are raised. The year, day and time are displayed along with no leap warning, standard time and DUT +0.3 s. The clock was set on the last minute, the AGC is safely in the middle ot the range 0-255, and the receiver is tracking WWV on 20 MHz. Good receiving conditions prevail, as indicated by the metric 86 and 5 bit errors during the last minute. The current frequency is 66.4 PPM and the averaging interval is 1024 s, indicating the maximum precision available.
Author: David L. Mills (mills@@udel.edu)
Last updage:
15-Nov-2012 06:42
UTC
The driver requires an audio codec or sound card with sampling rate 8 kHz and μ-law companding to demodulate the data. This is the same standard as used by the telephone industry and is supported by most hardware and operating systems, including Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux, among others. In this implementation only one audio driver and codec can be supported on a single machine. In order to assure reliable signal capture, the codec frequency error must be less than 187 PPM (.0187 percent). If necessary, the tinker codec configuration command can be used to bracket the codec frequency to this range.
In general and without calibration, the driver is accurate within 1 ms relative to the broadcast time when tracking a station. However, variations up to 0.3 ms can be expected due to diurnal variations in ionospheric layer height and ray geometry. In Newark DE, 2479 km from the transmitter, the predicted two-hop propagation delay varies from 9.3 ms in sunlight to 9.0 ms in moonlight. When not tracking the station the accuracy depends on the computer clock oscillator stability, ordinarily better than 0.5 PPM.
After calibration relative to the PPS signal from a GPS receiver, the mean offset with a 2.4-GHz P4 running FreeBSD 6.1 is generally within 0.1 ms short-term with 0.4 ms jitter. The long-term mean offset varies up to 0.3 ms due to propagation path geometry variations. The processor load due to the driver is 0.4 percent on the P4.
The driver performs a number of error checks to protect against overdriven or underdriven input signal levels, incorrect signal format or improper hardware configuration. The specific checks are detailed later in this page. Note that additional checks are done elsewhere in the reference clock interface routines.
This driver incorporates several features in common with other audio drivers such as described in the Radio CHU Audio Demodulator/Decoder and the IRIG Audio Decoder pages. They include automatic gain control (AGC), selectable audio codec port and signal monitoring capabilities. For a discussion of these common features, as well as a guide to hookup, debugging and monitoring, see the Reference Clock Audio Drivers page.
The driver processes 8-kHz μ-law companded codec samples using maximum-likelihood techniques which exploit the considerable degree of redundancy available in the broadcast signal. The WWV signal format is described in NIST Special Publication 432 (Revised 1990) and also available on the WWV/H web site. It consists of three elements, a 5-ms, 1000-Hz pulse, which occurs at the beginning of each second, a 800-ms, 1000-Hz pulse, which occurs at the beginning of each minute, and a pulse-width modulated 100-Hz subcarrier for the data bits, one bit per second. The WWVH format is identical, except that the 1000-Hz pulses are sent at 1200 Hz. Each minute encodes nine BCD digits for the time of century plus seven bits for the daylight savings time (DST) indicator, leap warning indicator and DUT1 correction.
The demodulation and decoding algorithms used by this driver are based on a machine language program developed for the TAPR DSP93 DSP unit, which uses the TI 320C25 DSP chip. The analysis, design and performance of the program for this unit is described in: Mills, D.L. A precision radio clock for WWV transmissions. Electrical Engineering Report 97-8-1, University of Delaware, August 1997, 25 pp. Available from www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/reports.htm. For use in this driver, the original program was rebuilt in the C language and adapted to the NTP driver interface. The algorithms have been modified to improve performance, especially under weak signal conditions and to provide an automatic frequency and station selection feature.
As in the original program, the clock discipline is modelled as a Markov process, with probabilistic state transitions corresponding to a conventional clock and the probabilities of received decimal digits. The result is a performance level with very high accuracy and reliability, even under conditions when the minute beep of the signal, normally its most prominent feature, can barely be detected by ear using a communications receiver.
The 1000/1200-Hz pulses and 100-Hz subcarrier are first separated using a 600-Hz bandpass filter centered on 1100 Hz and a 150-Hz lowpass filter. The minute pulse is extracted using an 800-ms synchronous matched filter and pulse grooming logic which discriminates between WWV and WWVH signals and noise. The second pulse is extracted using a 5-ms FIR matched filter for each station and a single 8000-stage comb filter.
The phase of the 100-Hz subcarrier relative to the second pulse is fixed at the transmitter; however, the audio stage in many radios affects the phase response at 100 Hz in unpredictable ways. The driver adjusts for each radio using two 170-ms synchronous matched filters. The I (in-phase) filter is used to demodulate the subcarrier envelope, while the Q (quadrature-phase) filter is used in a type-1 phase-lock loop (PLL) to discipline the demodulator phase.
A bipolar data signal is determined from the matched filter subcarrier envelope using a pulse-width discriminator. The discriminator samples the I channel at 15 ms (n), 200 ms (s0) and 500 ms (s1), and the envelope (RMS I and Q channels) at 200 ms (e1) and the end of the second (e0). The bipolar data signal is expressed 2s1 - s0 - n, where positive values correspond to data 1 and negative values correspond to data 0. Note that, since the signals s0 and s1 include the noise n, the noise component cancels out. The data bit SNR is calculated as 20 log10(e1 / e0). If the driver has not synchronized to the minute pulse, or if the data bit amplitude e1 or SNR are below thresholds, the bit is considered invalid and the bipolar signal is forced to zero.
The bipolar signal is exponentially averaged in a set of 60 accumulators, one for each second, to determine the semi-static miscellaneous bits, such as DST indicator, leap second warning and DUT1 correction. In this design a data average value larger than a positive threshold is interpreted as +1 (hit) and a value smaller than a negative threshold as a -1 (miss). Values between the two thresholds, which can occur due to signal fades, are interpreted as an erasure and result in no change of indication.
The BCD digit in each digit position of the timecode is represented as four data bits. The bits are correlated with the bits corresponding to each of the valid decimal digits in this position. If any of the four bits are invalid, the correlated value for all digits in this position is assumed zero. In either case, the values for all digits are exponentially averaged in a likelihood vector associated with this position. The digit associated with the maximum over all averaged values then becomes the maximum-likelihood candidate for this position and the ratio of the maximum over the next lower value represents the digit SNR.
The decoding matrix contains nine row vectors, one for each digit position. Each row vector includes the maximum-likelihood digit, likelihood vector and other related data. The maximum-likelihood digit for each of the nine digit positions becomes the maximum-likelihood time of the century. A built-in transition function implements a conventional clock with decimal digits that count the minutes, hours, days and years, as corrected for leap seconds and leap years. The counting operation also rotates the likelihood vector corresponding to each digit as it advances. Thus, once the clock is set, each clock digit should correspond to the maximum-likelihood digit as transmitted.
Each row of the decoding matrix also includes a compare counter and the most recently determined maximum-likelihood digit. If a digit likelihood exceeds the decision level and compares with previous digits for a number of successive minutes in any row, the maximum-likelihood digit replaces the clock digit in that row. When this condition is true for all rows and the second epoch has been reliably determined, the clock is set (or verified if it has already been set) and delivers correct time to the integral second. The fraction within the second is derived from the logical master clock, which runs at 8000 Hz and drives all system timing functions.
The logical master clock is derived from the audio codec clock. Its frequency is disciplined by a frequency-lock loop (FLL) which operates independently of the data recovery functions. The maximum value of the 5-ms pulse after the comb filter represents the on-time epoch of the second. At averaging intervals determined by the measured jitter, the frequency error is calculated as the difference between the epoches over the interval divided by the interval itself. The sample clock frequency is then corrected by this amount divided by a time constant of 8.
When first started, the frequency averaging interval is 8 seconds, in order to compensate for intrinsic codec clock frequency offsets up to 125 PPM. Under most conditions, the averaging interval doubles in stages from the initial value to 1024 s, which results in an ultimate frequency resolution of 0.125 PPM, or about 11 ms/day.
The data demodulation functions operate using the subcarrier clock, which is independent of the epoch. However, the data decoding functions are driven by the epoch. The decoder is phase-locked to the epoch in such a way that, when the clock state machine has reliably decoded the broadcast time to the second, the epoch timestamp of that second becomes a candidate to set the system clock.
The comb filter can have a long memory and is vulnerable to noise and stale data, especially when coming up after a long fade. Therefore, a candidate is considered valid only if the 5-ms signal amplitude and SNR are above thresholds. In addition, the system clock is not set until after one complete averaging interval has passed with valid candidates.
It is important that the logical clock frequency is stable and accurately determined, since in many applications the shortwave radio will be tuned to a fixed frequency where WWV or WWVH signals are not available throughout the day. In addition, in some parts of the US, especially on the west coast, signals from either or both WWV and WWVH may be available at different times or even at the same time. Since the propagation times from either station are almost always different, each station must be reliably identified before attempting to set the clock.
Reliable station identification requires accurate discrimination between very weak signals in noise and noise alone. The driver very aggressively soaks up every scrap of signal information, but has to be careful to avoid making pseudo-sense of noise alone. The signal quality metric depends on the minute pulse amplitude and SNR measured in second 0 of the minute, together with the data subcarrier amplitude and SNR measured in second 1. If all four values are above defined thresholds a hit is declared, otherwise a miss. In principle, the data pulse in second 58 is usable, but the AGC in most radios is not fast enough for a reliable measurement.
The number of hits declared in the last 6 minutes for each station represents the high order bits of the metric, while the current minute pulse amplitude represents the low order bits. Only if the metric is above a defined threshold is the station signal considered acceptable. The metric is also used by the autotune function described below and reported in the timecode string.
It is the intent of the design that the accuracy and stability of the indicated time be limited only by the characteristics of the ionospheric propagation medium. Conventional wisdom is that manual synchronization via oscilloscope and HF medium is good only to a millisecond under the best propagation conditions. The performance of the NTP daemon disciplined by this driver is clearly better than this, even under marginal conditions.
The figure below shows the measured offsets over a typical day near the bottom of the sunspot cycle ending in October, 2006. Variations up to ±0.4 ms can be expected due to changing ionospheric layer height and ray geometry over the day and night.
The figure was constructed using a 2.4-GHz P4 running FreeBSD 6.1. For these measurements the computer clock was disciplined within a few microseconds of UTC using a PPS signal and GPS receiver and the measured offsets determined from the filegen peerstats data.
The predicted propagation delay from the WWV transmitter at Boulder, CO, to the receiver at Newark, DE, varies over 9.0-9.3 ms. In addition, the receiver contributes 4.7 ms and the 600-Hz bandpass filter 0.9 ms. With these values, the mean error is less than 0.1 ms and varies ±0.3 ms over the day as the result of changing ionospheric height and ray geometry.
While this is going on the the driver acquires second synch, which can take up to several minutes, depending on signal quality. When minute synch has been acquired, the driver accumulates likelihood values for the unit (seconds) digit of the nine timecode digits, plus the seven miscellaneous bits included in the WWV/H transmission format. When a good unit digit has been found, the driver accumulated likelihood values for the remaining eight digits of the timecode. When three repetitions of all nine digits have decoded correctly, which normally takes 15 minutes with good signals, and up to 40 minutes when buried in noise, and the second synch has been acquired, the clock is set (or verified) and is selectable to discipline the system clock.
Once the clock is set, it continues to provide correct timecodes as long as the signal metric is above threshold, as described in the previous section. As long as the clock is correctly set or verified, the system clock offsets are provided once each minute to the reference clock interface, where they are processed using the same algorithms as with other reference clocks and remote servers.
It may happen as the hours progress around the clock that WWV and WWVH signals may appear alone, together or not at all. When the driver has mitigated which station and frequency is best, it sets the reference identifier to the string WVf for WWV and WHf for WWVH, where f is the frequency in megahertz. If the propagation delays have been properly set with the fudge time1 (WWV) and fudge time2 (WWVH) commands in the configuration file, handover from one station to the other is seamless.
Operation continues as long as the signal metric from at least one station on at least one frequency is acceptable. A consequence of this design is that, once the clock is set, the time and frequency are disciplined only by the second synch pulse and the clock digits themselves are driven by the clock state machine. If for some reason the state machine drifts to the wrong second, it would never resynchronize. To protect against this most unlikely situation, if after two days with no signals, the clock is considered unset and resumes the synchronization procedure from the beginning.
Once the system clock been set correctly it will continue to read correctly even during the holdover interval, but with increasing dispersion. Assuming the system clock frequency can be disciplined within 1 PPM, it can coast without signals for several days without exceeding the NTP step threshold of 128 ms. During such periods the root distance increases at 15 μs per second, which makes the driver appear less likely for selection as time goes on. Eventually, when the distance due all causes exceeds 1 s, it is no longer suitable for synchronization. Ordinarily, this happens after about 18 hours with no signals. The tinker maxdist configuration command can be used to change this value.
The driver includes provisions to automatically tune the radio in response to changing radio propagation conditions throughout the day and night. The radio interface is compatible with the ICOM CI-V standard, which is a bidirectional serial bus operating at TTL levels. The bus can be connected to a standard serial port using a level converter such as the CT-17. Further details are on the Reference Clock Audio Drivers page.
If specified, the driver will attempt to open the device /dev/icom and, if successful will activate the autotune function and tune the radio to each operating frequency in turn while attempting to acquire minute synch from either WWV or WWVH. However, the driver is liberal in what it assumes of the configuration. If the /dev/icom link is not present or the open fails or the CI-V bus is inoperative, the driver quietly gives up with no harm done.
Once acquiring minute synch, the driver operates as described above to set the clock. However, during seconds 59, 0 and 1 of each minute it tunes the radio to one of the five broadcast frequencies to measure the signal metric as described above. Each of the five frequencies are probed in a five-minute rotation to build a database of current propagation conditions for all signals that can be heard at the time. At the end of each probe a mitigation procedure scans the database and retunes the radio to the best frequency and station found. For this to work well, the radio should be set for a fast AGC recovery time. This is most important while tracking a strong signal, which is normally the case, and then probing another frequency, which may have much weaker signals.
The mitigation procedure selects the frequency and station with the highest valid metric, ties going first to the highest frequency and then to WWV in order. A station is considered valid only if the metric is above a specified threshold; if no station is above the metric, the rotating probes continue until a valid station is found.
The behavior of the autotune function over a typical day is shown in the figure below.
As expected, the lower frequencies prevail when the ray path is in moonlight (0100-1300 UTC) and the higher frequencies when the path is in sunlight (1300-0100 UTC). Note three periods in the figure show zero frequency when signals are below the minimum for all frequencies and stations.
The most convenient way to track the driver status is using the ntpq program and the clockvar command. This displays the last determined timecode and related status and error counters, even when the driver is not disciplining the system clock. If the debugging trace feature (-d on the ntpd command line) is enabled, the driver produces detailed status messages as it operates. If the fudge flag 4 is set, these messages are written to the clockstats file. All messages produced by this driver have the prefix wwv for convenient filtering with the Unix grep command.
The autotune process produces diagnostic information along with the timecode. This is very useful for evaluating the performance of the algorithms, as well as radio propagation conditions in general. The message is produced once each minute for each frequency in turn after minute synch has been acquired.
wwv5 status agc epoch secamp/secsnr datamp/datsnr wwv wwvh
where the fields after the wwv5 identifier are: status contains status bits, agc audio gain, epoch second epoch, secamp/secsnr second pulse amplitude/SNR, and wwv and wwvh are two sets of fields, one each for WWV and WWVH. Each of the two fields has the format
ident score metric minamp/minsnr
where ident encodes the station (WV for WWV, WH for WWVH) and frequency (2, 5, 10, 15 or 20), score 32-bit shift register recording the hits (1) and misses (0) of the last 32 probes (hits and misses enter from the right), metric is described above, and minamp/minsnr is the minute pulse ampliture/SNR. An example is:
wwv5 000d 111 5753 3967/20.1 3523/10.2 WV20 bdeff 100 8348/30.0 WH20 0000 1 22/-12.4
There are several other messages that can occur; these are documented in the source listing.
sq yyyy ddd hh:mm:ss l d du lset agc ident metric errs freq avg
An example timecode is:
0 2000 006 22:36:00 S +3 1 115 WV20 86 5 66.4 1024
Here the clock has been set and no alarms are raised. The year, day and time are displayed along with no leap warning, standard time and DUT +0.3 s. The clock was set on the last minute, the AGC is safely in the middle ot the range 0-255, and the receiver is tracking WWV on 20 MHz. Good receiving conditions prevail, as indicated by the metric 86 and 5 bit errors during the last minute. The current frequency is 66.4 PPM and the averaging interval is 1024 s, indicating the maximum precision available.