Tony Pan wrote: > Right now I want to know if a commercial WWVB receiver IC provides a > significantly better quality than a regular radio receiver circuit does. The Define 'regular'? There are specialized chips made specifically to receive 60 kHz signals. See Phillips & Temic's site. 60 kHz is basically 'audio' for most op-amps. > manufacturer that we design for will make tens of thousands boards. Now we have an important piece of information we were missing. 10k runs allow for a significant 'up front' engineering cost. But does the unit have to work outside the USA? In mountainous valley's where the WWVB signal doesn't reliably reach? What does your product do when it cannot get 'good' time? What happens when the government turns off WWVB for cost savings (because GPS is "better"? Remember Loran?). > Therefore every penny counts. If a regular radio receiver circuit is cheaper Not necessarily. Penny pinching can hurt you in the long run if it makes the product less reliable or narrows your reachable market. > and has comparable quality we will design from scratch without using a > receiver IC. Does anyone know? How much engineering time do you want to spend reinventing the wheel? What sort of product life are you expecting? IOW, will the RF chip still be available in a decade? (Anyone want to buy some 1702 EPROMs ?) Only you know the answer to those questions. Robert > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jim" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 4:12 PM > Subject: Re: [PIC]: How to obtain the official US time clock? > > > Tony, I'm digging into this a little 'cause I've got > > interest for a project using WWVB/US Time clock. > > > > I came across the following sites in doing a little > > search for a ferrite rod antenna: > > > > http://psn.quake.net/wwvbsdr.html > > > > http://users.argonet.co.uk/users/tudor/interface/rugby.htm > > > > http://lakeweb.com/rf/wwvb/ > > > > http://psn.quake.net/wwvbmail.txt > > > > > > Ferrite rod stock w/engineering info: > > > > http://www.bytemark.com/products/rod1.htm > > > > > > PIC Based WWVB Decoder > > http://www.geocities.com/hagtronics/wwvb.html > > http://www.geocities.com/hagtronics/vlf.html > > > > > > RF Jim > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Tony Pan" > > To: > > Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 12:52 PM > > Subject: Re: [PIC]: How to obtain the official US time clock? > > > > > > > Thank you everyone for the information. I now have an idea what comprise > a > > > radio clock receiver. > > > > > > I may at first attempt to design the whole circuit without using a > > > commercial receiver IC. > > > > > > Basically I need to design a radio receiver circuit that is tuned to > 60KHz > > > signals. I also need a ferrite antenna. > > > > > > Can you point me to some online resources about designing a radio > receiver > > > circuit? Also where to look for a ferrite antenna? -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu