[TowerTalk] And now for something completely different (True North) - was Re: Mast -- Drill or not?

[Robert Chudek - KØRC]

HEY!!! Did I hear someone asking how to determine "True North"?!?!?!?!?  It was kinda hard to hear over the S-9 Hoot Owl thread and +20 dB generator noise right now... :-)

As everyone knows, there's been enough threads regarding finding "True North" to weave a fine pair of socks... But that aside, you can use Goggle Earth to determine "that direction" using their tool to zoom into any location in question. The map defaults to N/S orientation.

I verified my antenna alignment by picking a known object a half mile away from my tower. In my case it happens to be the east side of a church down the road. Not all areas on earth have been mapped with high resolution yet, so this technique might not work for everyone.

Credit goes to my late father who taught me this "lining up" technique when we were fishing on Mille Lacs Lake (about 27 miles across) locating specific fishing spots. This in the 1950's, way before GPS.

73 de Bob - K0RC in MN


Message: 1
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:01:21 -0700
From: "Michael" <noddy1211 at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Mast -- Drill or not?
To: <wa3afs at inav.net>, <towertalk at contesting.com>
Message-ID: <000d01c6c85f$b62c9060$0f01a8c0 at Mikes2>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

http://www.thecompassstore.com/decvar.html#

Try the above link to work out your Declination, there is a link on the
site to a calculator.  I doubt you would be as much as 30 degrees off
true north, I am 18 degrees here by SFO.