NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Measuring time in small boat CN: what devices do you recommend?
From: Rodney Myrvaagnes
Date: 2004 Jan 8, 11:11 -0500
From: Rodney Myrvaagnes
Date: 2004 Jan 8, 11:11 -0500
On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:34:31 -0800, Chuck Taylor wrote: > >> 2. For a chronometer to keep safe below decks as a >> reference for the comparing watch: The GPS? > >I prefer a shortwave radio tuned to WWV (2.5, 5, 10, >or 15 MHz). A GPS will suffice, but some older models >do not take into account leap seconds. Once you check >a GPS against an accurate time signal, it should be >fine. > A GPS that couldn't tell leap seconds couldn't function at all. But another problem is possible, and more likely with later than old ones. If the microprocessor is constructing a graphical display at the same time as keeping track of time, it may suffer a delay in writing the time to the screen, even though it has the correct time internally. The ongoing effort to improve battery life is an incentive to slow the basic clock rate of the microprocessor, and the displays get more complex. So check your GPS time display several times, while making it do different operations. Rodney Myrvaagnes Opinionated old geezer J36 Gjo/a The New Economics--- It's deja vu-du all over again.
