otn, the info regarding KP and lunar distances came from a then recent graduate
of KP.

way before google, in fact before Sputnik I used to read encylopedias out of
curiosity.

as far as radios and knowing about required call sign frequency, I built a
genuine crystal set about the time the very first non-vacuum tube radios came
on the market.

the "time tick" did not come about, I believe, until about the same time as
commercial radio stations started broadcasting, in the early 1920's.

RDF can be problematic re accuracy when at great distances from the stations
(plural) Loran and Decca needed closer proximity. GPS was developed by the US
Navy to aid in military navigation at sea.

celestial navigation is pretty useless most of the time, simply because of
cloud cover much of the time.

I find that hard to believe in any context other than as a historical
side note. It is not required for a license. Please feel free to show
the course which includes full instruction on Lunar Distance and
requirements for a candidate for 3rd Mate to know this.

I didn't learn of chronometers or Lunar Distances by googling. I knew of
each
before google came into existence.

Ok, so before "Google" you used "Funknwaggle".

Chronometers were damned expensive until mid 19th century and still had
temperature compensation problems until well into the 20th century. These
problems were eventually solved with the introduction of consumer electric
watches. Lunars were still commonly used on commercial vessels (as opposed
to
military vessels) until about 150 years ago. The need for celestial nav at
all
started to go away by the early 1920's when radio navigation started to
come
online with commercial radio stations, which were required to give their
call
letters, the city of transmission and frequency every ten minutes.

BG Where do you find this stuff?

Mechanical chronometers will always have some degree of "compensation"
problems, but it wasn't a "problem", once the "time tick" became readily
available.
In some areas, I don't doubt you can find individuals using "Lunars",
into the last century as part of their celestial navigation.
Celestial did not start to disappear in use until the advent of Sat Nav,
which was in the 80's, not 20's.
The use of RDF, Loran, Decca, etc., preceded this, but because of
limited range, accuracy,reliability, etc., it did not really affect the
GLOBAL use of celestial which predominated until the late eighties,
early nineties.

otn