NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Andrew Corl
Date: 2004 Jan 19, 08:21 -0500
Greetings all,
Yesterday I was listening to the BBC through the web. A little bit before 3 p.m. EST I synced my computer clock with the U.S. Naval Observatory through the internet. I also set a watch I have to GMT. The BBC at the top of each hour has a series of tones that count down to the hour and the announcer comes on and says “The time is now ____ GMT” and then launches into the news. However, when listening yesterday I noticed that the BBC was a full 2 minutes late with announcing the hour.
Right now I am at work and we have a partial T-1 line which is quite a bit faster then the 56K connection I have at home. I am going to repeat the test here at my office and see what happens.
My questions are: Has anyone else noticed this? Is it possible for the USNO and the BBC to be off? Doesn’t the BBC sync with the Royal Observatory at Greenwich?
I know that the BBC broadcasts on shortwave around the world, do ships every use the BBC to check their chronometers? Wouldn’t this throw the ships off, or do ships not rely on the BBC for time corrections?
Thanks,
Andrew