NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Wolfgang Köberer
Date: 2004 May 10, 14:27 +0200
Contrary to what Fred H
suggests radio time signals were not the final nail in the coffin of lunars. How
could they: lunars were dropped from the US Nautical Almanac in 1912, whereas
the US Navy station radio time signal did not come on the air until February
1913 – and how many ships were equipped to receive these signals?
By that time Lunars had
long been buried by the advent of cheaper chronometers and easier sight
reduction methods – especially the St.Hilaire intercept method.
Wolfgang Koeberer
Von:
Gesendet: Sonntag, 9. Mai 2004
20:35
An:
NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM
Betreff: Re: Wharton & Field's
Hydrographical Surveying
Fred H wrote:
"but before radio, made me realize that the radio probably was what done
the lunar in."
While lunars were effectively dead for half a century before radio was common
at sea, the corpse was not yet buried. Most professional navigators were still
required to learn lunars "just in case" they needed to re-set their
chronometers. Radio was the final nail in the coffin. A radio time signal could
be heard almost anywhere around the world and enabled quick and easy
chronometer checks at any time. That's usually cited as the immediate reason
that tabulated lunars were at long last dropped from the almanacs by 1912.
Frank R
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois