[Antennas] Using GeoClock To Find True North

[George, W5YR]

Another pragmatic approach is just to look at a city map and see what
direction your street runs. Using that as a reference, you can eyeball true
North as close as any ham's beam will require short of moonbounce work.

For example, the survey plat for my property shows that the house is
oriented 28 deg East of North. So, I can mentally look about 30 degrees CCW
from the side of the house and be looking very nearly due North. And the
North Star confirms that. It is a good thing because the street makes a
shallow arc in the front of my property.

My experience with yagis - and the largest I ever had have been 4-element
monobanders - has been that precise pointing is interesting to do but
seldom makes much difference in results. If can, of course, but you find
that by aiming for best signal or max rejection of QRM, not by using some
beam heading indicator.

72/73/oo, George W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas         
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe   
Amateur Radio W5YR, in the 56th year and it just keeps getting better!
QRP-L 1373 NETXQRP 6 SOC 262 COG 8 FPQRP 404 TEN-X 11771
Icom IC-756PRO #02121  Kachina #91900556  IC-765 #02437

All outgoing email virus-checked by Norton Anti-Virus 2002


Charles Greene wrote:
> 
> At 12:39 PM 2/18/2002 -0500, Merv Stump wrote:
> 
> Merv,
> 
> If you are in the Northern hemisphere, use the North star.  I line some
> local landmark up with it, then use the local land mark during the day.  If
> you actually want to use the sun, there are some nautical almanacs that
> give you the time of local apparent noon depending upon what your longitude
> is and what day it is.  Local apparent noon is when the sun is crossing
> your longitude line and is directly South.  Another way is that if you have
> a sextant or other means of measuring the sun's altitude, it is highest at
> local apparent noon.