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What to listen to · Time signals
WWV 15 MHz: the daytime frequency of the Fort Collins time signal
The same ticks, tones and voice announcements as on 10 MHz, but on 15000 kHz, the frequency that carries WWV farthest while the sun is up. The one to try for daytime listening across America and from Europe.
What you hear
Exactly the programme described in the main article: a tick each second, a tone at the minute, the male voice announcing Coordinated Universal Time, the 500 and 600 Hz notes in alternate minutes and the alerts in their fixed minutes. On 15 MHz the signal usually sounds cleaner, because atmospheric static falls with frequency, but it fades more deeply when the path is marginal.
Who transmits and why
NIST, from the same site north of Fort Collins, Colorado. The 15 MHz outlet exists so that WWV stays usable in daylight, when 5 MHz is absorbed and 10 MHz covers only the middle distances. WWVH in Hawaii shares the frequency.
When and where to listen
Daytime and the hours around it, at the receiver's end: from the local morning to the early evening. For a listener using a European receiver the window is the European afternoon and early evening, while the Atlantic is still sunlit; in a deep winter at a solar minimum it may not open at all, near a solar maximum it opens most days. In the middle of the night 15 MHz goes quiet, and that is when the 5 MHz signal takes over.
In ShackDeck
Station catalogue → Time signals → WWV 15 MHz. The program picks a public receiver that covers 15000 kHz, tunes it in AM and shows the waterfall; no receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed.