Thanks all , I must admit my question was a tad tongue in cheek really . I use clocks and do even own pocket watches and wrist watches it's just that I don't wear them after seeing an accident with a gin wheel and rope .
The last watch I brought was a Chinese jobbie with a picture of Mao waving his hand . Unfortunately the balance spring has gone so I couldn't wear it if I wanted . I also have one of those kinetic watches that dangerman mentioned , a Casio I think. It became known as my w.....watch ( rhymes with tank )
I was wearing a Casio Pro Trek 5500 with the Altimeter, Barometer and Compass features for everyday work use but I've recently switched to a Garmin Fenix 3. It has about two week's worth of battery before needing a recharge so it's impractical from a SHTF perspective but for my EDC it has the benefit of constantly nagging me to exercise and hit my current goal of walking 10k a day plus do an hour of constant aerobic activity. I got it for the heart monitor function because at my age, the ol' ticker is not what it was and I need to keep in trim within my boundaries.
I don't wear a watch normally either, one less thing to get snagged in something when working. That said I've got a Pepsi GMTmaster Rolex which to me does everything a watch should do and feels like a proper piece of engineering. Got to point out I didn't buy it myself but accepted it as a part payment years ago.....
If guns are outlawed then only the outlaws will have guns....
The mentality amongst us lot is interesting. The idea that a watch should only tell the time and maybe the date to me seems like such a waste to me, and yet seems only logical to a lot of you. As featherstick said, I'm from that kind of family too, getting my first watch, my Timex Indigo Ironman Triathlon, when I was about 12 was a big deal (to me). But all it really did that was useful was tell the time, date and wake me up in the mornings. But as @TRider said, everything has a clock on it nowadays and my phone is now what wakes me up in the morning.
For me, wearing a watch is an opportunity to have extra tools, extra ability, extra information and extra entertainment. Especially when out and about or when security means you can't have your phone... Or when your phone dies. I'm looking for something that is ultra reliable, and ultra useful. That should be doable in modern times. I'm 34 and that might explain why I'm so open minded to this new technology.
Remember when people were resistant to mobile phones having anything more than the capability to make a call? Then call and text? Then camera? Then MP3 capability? Then Internet access and GPS etc? Now they can do that and tons more, but we all accept it now don't we? I think the same about watches. They can be utilised and the more technology moves on, the more versatile and useful watches have the potential to become. Where do you fit in on the Douglas Adams rules?
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
I love motorcycles like a fat guy loves cake. I also love cake.
dangerman wrote:
Remember when people were resistant to mobile phones having anything more than the capability to make a call? Then call and text? Then camera? Then MP3 capability? Then Internet access and GPS etc? Now they can do that and tons more, but we all accept it now don't we? I think the same about watches. They can be utilised and the more technology moves on, the more versatile and useful watches have the potential to become. Where do you fit in on the Douglas Adams rules?
the wife still will not have a smart phone.
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” ― Edward R. Murrow
"Remember Politicians are like babies diapers they both need changing often for the very same reason" - Mark Twain
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
I also wear a Rolex day to day, (I did buy it, sorry....) incredibly well made, self winding, waterproof and long lasting, it's a 2001 model and still looks as good as the day it was made, it's also worth more now than I paid when I bought it.
That said I do wear a Casio when doing outdoorsy stuff or times when I don't want to be wearing a large amount of money around my wrist, has a ten year lithium battery and gives me the tides and moon phases, I'm often wearing it on my boat so the tides for my home port at a glance are handy, and the moon phases also help if I'm night shooting as it affects what gear I use. Having a rubber strap is also an advantage as if I get fish innards on it I can just scrub it under the tap, learned the hard way that metal bracelet straps trap things that smell bad!
I personally dislike a lot of modern watches, I think they're too big and clunky, even the Rolex Datejust is bigger now than it used to be, and the more features they have the bigger they tend to be.
One brand I really can't stand is breitling, I like the idea of the Breitling Emergency, but it's huge, and breitling, tag heuer, and omega now all have movements made by ETA rather than in house, (although some are heavily modified) so do swatch, and so do the more convincing fake rolexes, and for what Breitling charge that makes me angry.
It's a shame really, the omega seamaster was one of the all time classics when they still made their own movements.
I do quite like Tudor, don't know much about them now they've been relaunched, but the older ones were a Rolex movement cased in precious metals in Britain, very very nice watches, and not as expensive as you'd think.
Thing with the high end 100% mechanical watches is that although they are accurate, they're usually not as accurate as a cheap Quartz watch, they're finicky, run faster or slower depending on where your wrist is and need servicing, but I still love them thanks to the workmanship and just general money no object build quality, like Mercedes used to be.
Couple of Rolex watches that might be of interest from a prepper's point of view, one is the Milgauss, resistant to a magnetic field of a 1000 gauss, hence the name, next time you meet a radiologist they'll probably be wearing one, has a lightning bolt as a second hand, the other is a little known and long discontinued one called the Oysterquartz, that was also resistant to over 1000 gauss, and it's the only Rolex that I can think of that ticks once per second, the others all tick 5 times per second to give you the sweep on the second hand, so if it's an Oysterquartz and the second hand sweeps it's a fake!
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.
Yea, come the time when the SHTF I'll be the bloke pulling a grandfather clock along on a set of old pram wheels, I'll also be the bloke starting my fires with all the unneeded pages from my survivalist books, you know the ones about finding directions with just two hands of your watch !
All those multi-functions are the exact same reason I don't have any SDR radio stuff and I only use pure RF, the more complicated something is in being reliant on external input then the more it will become redundant when things which serve it go down.
I don't, from my point of view, see it as an adverse mentality, rather an issue of reliability and practicality.
Each to their own I suppose.
Wulfshead
Area 4 Coordinator
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack
One nice thing about being old is that you have lived long enough to wear out some good gear and know exactly what it is capable of doing and how long it will last. I have owned a couple of mid-grade automatic watches that lasted for 15-20 years before the actions wore out.
I have a cheap Timex Indiglo that is more than 10 years old and has not lost a minute of time in its history. Still on the original battery. It is used only on camping trips and outdoor activities and lives in the sock drawer for weeks without attention. It could just as easily live in a Faraday container if EMP is a concern.
I can live with a good quality "wind up" watch that loses a second or two every year. I will simply reset it based on the shadow of the burned out ruins at high noon once each decade. I keep two or three wind ups in the emergency gear to give to family if needed.
We are so ingrained in our fraction of a second accuracy standards that we often forget that it does not matter when the meet up was scheduled or if things have gone TU your wife/kids will still be 20 minutes late even when the clocks all work.
As a follow up to my last post I just looked up how much a replacement would be <gulp> I don't think I'll be wearing it anywhere outside the house again
If guns are outlawed then only the outlaws will have guns....
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