NavList:

Sunrise/Set and Longitude.
In the 50ty’s I was aboard the USS Outpost a liberty hull of the WWII. Outpost was a radar picket ship that station monitored for incoming air craft toward the United States. Any missile or craft that was not scheduled was contacted and did not respond was investigated by an armed jet.
Our Navigation was Loran A and the sextant. We laid to in good weather, we maintain our position, or steamed at 66 rpm or 11 kts underway.
Many times large sailboats would come close aboard and “where are we, give me a position or how far we are from land.”
This got me thinking about an easy Longitude by Sun/rise/set. I did write but never send a solution.
The idea was to have a radio station send a signal at sunrise/set so that a listener could time his Rise/set and the radio, for an easy Longitude. The radio original signal would be by an observer, observing the sun’s upper limb, this would correct for weather conditions. The radio would get this signal and announce the time. The seaman at sea would time his sunrise/set and the difference in time would be converted to time and arc and applied to the radio known position longitude. The radio station would gain listerns and maybe a sponsor: Example Radio known position Longitude, 71 20W (this is not the station, this is the observer position. The seaman starts his watch as his sun’s uL touches his horizon. The radio station gets the actual sunrise signal from their source and announce the time of sunrise at 71 20W the seaman at sea stops his watch reading 6 minutes 40 seconds and converts to time and arc of 1 degree 40 minutes. The seaman at sea Longitude is 69 40W.

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