Deal Timeball, Maritime museum in Deal, England.
The Deal Timeball is a four-story tower on Victoria Parade that displays a working time signal system for ships. The exhibits explain the history of maritime timekeeping and how navigation techniques developed over time.
The tower was founded in 1855 by Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy and received electrical time signals from the Royal Observatory. This connection allowed sailors to synchronize their ships with accuracy.
The tower shows how sailors once received accurate time before ships carried their own chronometers. Visitors can see how critical time signals were for safe navigation at sea.
The tower is open during summer months from April to September, with the ball dropping hourly between 9 am and 5 pm. You can watch the drop at the scheduled times if you position yourself at the tower or nearby.
The system is now controlled by radio signals from the MSF transmitter in Cumbria and still works as originally intended. It is one of the last functioning time signal balls in Britain.
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