NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Chronometers after radio time signals
From: Michael Daly
Date: 2007 Oct 23, 17:41 -0400
From: Michael Daly
Date: 2007 Oct 23, 17:41 -0400
frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.net wrote: > An interesting issue came up recently on Wikipedia... That's my fault :) I remember reading about this issue some years ago (10-15) and added the bit to the lunar distances page before finding the reference. I thought it was in Landes' "Revolution in Time" but I couldn't find it there. Then I went through all my other scientific instrument books with no luck. I'll be in town tomorrow, so will go to the reference library and look through several other books I've read in the past (but not likely too many issues of old instrument journals due to time constraints). I figure that if I find the reference I've misplaced, I'd further check that writer's references for details. > 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... Yesterday it occurred to me that there might have been a glut of used chronometers in the years after 1918 - the decommissioning of lots of navy and merchant marine ships after WWI (including the dismantling of most or all of Germany's navy as part of the terms of the armistice) would have freed up a lot of chronometers. I may have read about the chronometer "downfall" in an article on marine radio. Apparently radio became quite popular in shipping once it was proven for reasons beyond just time verification. It may be another myth, but ISTR this related to aftermath of the Titanic disaster and standardization of radio emergency procedures. If radio uptake was as quick as claimed, then many merchant marine folk might have been happy with one chronometer + radio rather than 3 chronometers. One thing I remember from the source I read was that the change in attitude towards chronometers was not found in the navies of the world - they mistrusted radio and kept their chronometers (just as sextant expertise is still mandatory on today's GPS equipped navy ships). Someone commented on the unreliability of older radio technology. While true, the operators were able to fix them, since they were relatively simple. As long as a reasonable supply of tubes (valves) and bits were on hand, those old-style operators could fix them with bubblegum and spit :) > And, by the way, welcome aboard to any Wikipedians who are new to NavList. I just joined the list after seeing a note on the lunar distance talk page. I've put up several articles on Wikipedia in the past couple of months after cringing at what was written on navigation (and other) )instruments. That's one area of interest for me - old scientific instruments. Pages I've added include: * Mariner's astrolabe * Quadrant (instrument) * Reflecting instrument as well as significant changes to other pages, especially the history sections: * Lunar distance (navigation) - history section * Octant (instrument) * Backstaff * Chip log I can't claim to be an expert, but I'm an enthusiastic hobbyist. I've got an 1840ish octant (Spencer, Browning & Co.) and a recent sextant (Heath ca. 1960). Photos of both are on some of the wikipedia pages I've fiddled with. Mike --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---