US Navy Marathon Quartz Deck Chronometer

Saw this the other day on eBay. Was sold for parts was missing batteries so seller had no idea if it worked. Had make offer I offered 75 bucks it's mine now. Should get it next week. The batteries are tough to get LR50 1.5-volt batteries used in cameras and other equipment. Only place I found batteries was online no local stores carry them. So ordered a few batteries might work I can see why the seller did not test it too much trouble getting batteries. These were used by the US Navy for navigation and replaced the Hamilton Model 21 chronometers now these are probably gone from the Navy this is the second type quartz chronometer the Navy used the other was by Waltham I got one of those too. Bet the Navy don't use ether one today. Make me wonder what they use today as back up if an enemy takes out our GPS satellites we would be screwed.

Well received a few days ago, had to wait another day for the batteries there hard to get they were used in a lot of vintage cameras and some vintage electronics. The good news is the movement works and the hacking works. The bad news these have a long stem that screws into the movement. Well, the threaded part in the movement that the stem screws into snapped and part of it in the stem you can un-screw the broken part out of the stem. Going to have my watchmaker take a look at it. There are two work arounds to set the time 4 screws hold the dial remove those the dial comes out and move the hands by hand or hack it wait for that time un-hack it time is set. Still cheaper than 600-1000 some sell them for. When new the US Navy was charged 1000 - 1100 each for them think over 300 were sold to the US Navy.


See the hole with arrow there should be a threaded piece coming out so the stem could screw in the arrow the direction to turn hang you turn the other way you unscrew the stem.

You can see the broken part at the tip of the stem.

A pair of US Navy issued quartz chronometers. Just glad it works and tells time. Another member of the MWR forum got one from the same seller his had same problem the seller sells surplus parts seems each time he sells one he puts another up for sell so you know what to expect if you buy one even with the work around to change the time you only got to do that once a year when the time change happens.

Does the second hand jump once per second, or is it smooth running?

Jumps

Contacted Marathon about clock. Since the clock was discontinued no parts and they said they could not service it. Notice they had two versions of this clock the one I have with LR50 batteries and to set time you pull up on the stem and another where it used AA batteries and push in on the stem to change the time probably to fix the defects the AA batteries are easier to get and pushing down on the stem less breakage like what happen to mine when it was in use with the navy. Would like to see the second version movement looked like think it was German made quartz instead of Swiss and you pushed in to change the time and ran for three minutes when changing out the batteries and used AA batteries.