Hi,
I'm looking at relocating my satellite dish next weekend.
Just got out my trusty 30 year old SILVA compass to do a bit of surveying, and I've noticed the red (should be north) end of the needle is pointing south!!
By way of confirmation the needle still "dips" to the north...it's just the wrong end of the needle that is both pointing and "dipping" to the north.
Can anybody offer a plausible explanation for this? I'm mystified!
David
The Earth's magnetic poles have swapped places. Happens every few hundred thousand years. Didn't you notice the publicity?
(Seriously, though, has it been stored near something magnetic?)
What do you want a compass for? You can get close enough to the azimuth by seeing where the sun is at about 1020GMT every morning. The sun will be a slightly lower than the satellites used by Sky at this time of year.
I think the compass knows best, you might have got it wrong over which way is north. You could also try a GPS. Go and get yourself a cheap satellite locator instead, it will save hours of hit and miss work.
If you don't know the differenc ebetween north and south in your own home you are *very* lost! ;-)
I'd always get the direction spot on using an OS map.
Having just installed a satellite dish, unless you get a very expensive satellite locator it only tells you that you have located a satellite, not which one, as I found to my annoyance, ended up on Hotbird and wanted Astra2. In the end I mounted the dish on my workbench where I could see the TV, "tuned" it in using a Sky box to tell me which satellite, then made a careful record of direction and angle, moved the dish to the house, set it by my record, and heigh presto!
Vortex was thinking very hard :
It has been stored in a position with the needle unable to move and close to a magnet with an opposing polarity. In other words it has been remagnetised with the wrong polarity.
Or just moved up here from the southern hemisphere and expects the sun to track to the north rather than the south. It's surprising how disturbing that can be, even if you don't consciously navigate by the sun.
To be clear the compass works fine, it's just 180 degrees out...so I achieved my objective,
My dish location problem is caused by neighbouring trees which are much taller than they were 8 years ago...
Also at the new location I need clear horizon between 28.2 East (SKY), and
13.0 East to cover Astra 19.2 and Eutelsat..........I have a winter of HDTV "anorakking" ahead.
David
"Dave Liquorice" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.howhill.com:
I checked something on astronomy software once set to South Africa, and Orion was upside down!
It was a real shock, I don't know how they cope.
Also the Sun was below the horizon - that must be a downer
mike
I cannot come up with why the magnetization changed, but the dip I can explain. Compass capsules are made in North and South hemisphere types, possibly even equatorial. If a compass needle pointed direct to the North magnetic pole, it would point downwards at about 45 degrees in the UK. To counteract this, the needle is actually out of balance North to South, depending on which hemisphere it is made for. Perhaps it would be useful to a novice scout. Instead of joining the Reciprocal Club, he might actually get to his destination.
John Schmitt
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