I have a Sharp atomic clock that does a great job of receiving WWVB when I place it in front of an east facing window of our house. I would prefer to place it 3 to 4 feet away along the wall that has the window, but it almost never syncs with the signal when I place it there. The clock has no provision for connecting an external antenna. Has anyone had success making any kind of passive coupler to extend reception in front of the window 3 or 4 ft away? When I’m sitting at my desk I face south and if I could place the clock 3 to 4 feet south from where it is now it would put the clock in an easier to glacé at position.
I've taken the ferrite bar antennas out of a few of these clocks and extended them with lengths of twisted pair wire about three feet and they always worked fine.
In my case, the walls I wanted the clocks on put the ferrite rod antenna in a position that it was nulling the 60kHz signals from WWVB so the clocks could never get a signal.
With the ferrite bar antenna now removed from the clocks, I was able to position it so it was aimed the proper direction so it would get the signal from Colorado.
The trick part was getting at the ferrite bar and then figuring out how to attach my extension wire to the very fine (32 gauge maybe) wire that they used for the antenna windings around the ferrite bar. I ended up opening the clock movement enough to where I could solder the extension wire directly to the movements antenna terminals. Some clock movements were pretty easy to modify and some were probably made to never be taken apart.
You can also buy WWVB 60 kHz ferrite bar antennas on Amazon and eBay but you'd still need to hack your clock movements to solder on hookup wire for mounting the antenna away from your clock(s). Search for WWVB or Atomic Clock antennas and you should find them. Make sure they are for WWVB though or state they are for 60 kHz.
I have no idea if any twisted pair wire will work or if I was just lucky, I was going to use some 450 ohm ladder line I have but it was pretty stiff and not easy to secure to the rear of the clock so I tried twisted pair stripped from a hunk of CAT6 ethernet cable. I was surprised but it worked just fine. Just be careful you are not running the extension wires near things that may cause 60 kHz interference. I don't know how well a single twisted pair from an ethernet cable shields unwanted noise around 60 kHz.
One of the clocks I relocated the ferrite bar antenna away from has been running just fine for several years now but it will start loosing accuracy if the relocated ferrite bar is knocked and turned back parallel with the wall. This causes the WWVB signal to be nulled out again.
A second clock was moved back to a wall that allows a good WWVB signal. I simply coiled up the twisted pair wire along with the ferrite bar antenna and tucked it all back in behind the clock. It's also been a happy clock.
Mine all sync at least once every six or eight hours.
Of you have a loop antenna and a receiver that will tune the 60 kHz WWVB signal, it's easy to figure out the best aim for a ferrite bar antenna when the signal is reaching your location.
