This doesn't answer your questions (others already have), but if this interests you, you might also find WWVB's "sister" stations interesting: WWV (at the same site) and WWVH (in Hawaii). Those transmit a voice signal (but no carrier/time code) on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz. If you have an SDR that will tune that low (or a shortwave receiver), you should be able to receive at least one of them on at least frequency at any given time of the day.
As a teenager with the newly issued amateur radio call sign N9WWV, I used to set my wristwatch to WWV as I would constantly get asked, "What time is it?" anytime someone heard my call sign.
When I started reading the article, I assumed the author would be using the PPS signal from the GPS for synchronization. You can do this w/ cheap GPS receivers and a small embedded computer (i.e. Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, etc.) and synchronize your computer to it for extremely accurate time.
I can pretty much always receive WWV in New York on one frequency. Problem with WWV is that the propagation delay depends on how many hops the signal takes (it's skywave, unlike WWVB at night which is groundwave).
GPS time is much better, because you know exactly how far away you are from each satellite, so can subtract out the transit time reliably. WWV varies from day to day (and frequency to frequency).
See also "The Current Readability of the WWVB Time Code": http://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/wwvbmonitor_e.cgi
As a teenager with the newly issued amateur radio call sign N9WWV, I used to set my wristwatch to WWV as I would constantly get asked, "What time is it?" anytime someone heard my call sign.
It sounds like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WWV_time_signal_-_2009090... (.ogg, via Wikipedia).
When I started reading the article, I assumed the author would be using the PPS signal from the GPS for synchronization. You can do this w/ cheap GPS receivers and a small embedded computer (i.e. Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, etc.) and synchronize your computer to it for extremely accurate time.