NavList:

Many good comments have been made.  I will add a little more.

As a radio amateur I use WWV's signal (together will several other tools and tricks) as a way of understanding the quality of propagation.  Even from my station (QTH) with full sized antennae, there are days when the preferred frequency for a given time of day is weak, and other days when it booms in.  This is the nature of propagation and we could write pages about it - but many others have, in books and online.  My station is in a rural area and is quiet (in terms of radio frequency interference) and even then it waxes and wanes. 

Comments have been made about prefered frequencies at different times of the day and I echo that.  But even then we have good days and bad days.

The NOAA has very useful information available in real time.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/radio-communications

I agree with other comments about RFI (radio frequency interference).  It is especially problematic in an urban environment.  If on your property it is identifiable and solvable.  If sourced from a neighnors property you may be out of luck when the cause of the interference is powered up.  For example, in my "shack" (my garage) I have a couple of light bulbs tha will kill reception below 8 MHz, but do not harm at higher frequencies.  So if I am working low frequencies those lights are off and benigh incandescent bulns are on.  If on your property it is a pocess of turning things off one at a time and checking the result.  Computer transformers and battery chargers are frequent offenders.

So the best test, as others have mentioned, is to get outdoors.  If that is still yeilding poor results over several days, take a trip to a park or some other space away from builidngs and try again.  That will tell you wheher the problem is local RFI or something else.

As for an antenna - for receiveing it does not need to be high nor does it need to be tuned to the frequency - though it can be with very good improvement.  But it does need to be long for best results.  90 feet of wire outside would make a big difference  - especially at 5MHz. 45 feet would be great at 10MHz.  It need not be straight - a wire running along the endge of a wooden fence around a property would work for receiving.  Shorter wires work, but with diminishing benefit.

One issue with such simple wire antennas is that if the problem is RFI external to your home, the antenna may just pick up the RFI better so you will still hear static, only louder.  But you don't know until you check it out.

For cheap wire that works for these antennas consider speaker wire.  18 gauge is more that heavy enough.  50 feet of speaker wire is a few dollars at the big stores and is doubled up - so pull it apart and you have 100 feet.  I use it for transmission antennae too.

There is much more - but WWV should be heard with a wire antenna, standard propagation, the best frequency for the time of day, and no overpowering RFI.

Murray