NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Chronometers after radio time signals
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Oct 23, 06:01 -0400
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Oct 23, 06:01 -0400
An interesting issue came up recently on Wikipedia... Before radio at sea (c.1905), chronometers were checked primarily by redundancy. One would carry three or four chronometers (or ten or even twenty), and they would verify each other. In an earlier period, up until the 1850s, when chronometers were prohibitively expensive, at least for some user communities, lunars provided the check on the chronometer. But what happened when radio time signals were introduced? Of course, it was the final nail in the coffin for the long obsolescent lunars, but there must also have been implications for the economics of chronometers. If you can check the chronometer by radio once or twice a day, then, first of all, you no longer need multiple chronometers, and second the chronometer you carry no longer needs to be reliable for weeks at a time. So did any chronometer manufacturers go under after about 1905?? Also, was there a sudden glut of used chronometers on the market at about the same time? Just food for thought... And, by the way, welcome aboard to any Wikipedians who are new to NavList. -FER http://www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
