Modern Solutions
Time signals were first broadcast by wireless telegraphy in 1904, by the US Navy from Navy Yard in Boston. Another regular broadcast began in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1907, and time signals that became more widely used were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower starting in 1910. As ships adopted radio telegraph sets for communication, such time signals were used to correct chronometers. This method drastically reduced the importance of lunars as a means of verifying chronometers.
Modern sailors have a number of choices for determining accurate positional information, including radar and the Global Positioning System, commonly known as GPS, a satellite navigation system. With technical refinements that make position fixes accurate to within meters, the radio-based LORAN system was used in the late 20th Century but has been discontinued in North America. Combining independent methods is used as a way to improve the accuracy of position fixes. Even with the availability of multiple modern methods of determining longitude, a marine chronometer and sextant are routinely carried as a backup system.
Read more about this topic: History Of Longitude
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