NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: CelNav without sextants
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Nov 2, 20:54 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Nov 2, 20:54 EST
Alex E wrote:
"In other words, I was proposing the following imaginary experiment: suppose your accidentally dropped your sextant in water:-) But your watch (and a simple radio to check it) and the almanac remain. How well can you do with that?"
You wouldn't need occultations since you've got the radio to check GMT. You could use sunrise/set to get LOPs accurate to 10 or 15 miles in typical cases. Could you do better with a carefully measured "kamal" card? I think you might be able to measure five or ten degree altitudes with a card and get better LOPs than from sunrise/set, but that's just a hunch.
You might enjoy my "Lunars Game" from last December. It's here:
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars/lungame.html
Frank R
[ ] Mystic, Connecticut
[X] Chicago, Illinois
"In other words, I was proposing the following imaginary experiment: suppose your accidentally dropped your sextant in water:-) But your watch (and a simple radio to check it) and the almanac remain. How well can you do with that?"
You wouldn't need occultations since you've got the radio to check GMT. You could use sunrise/set to get LOPs accurate to 10 or 15 miles in typical cases. Could you do better with a carefully measured "kamal" card? I think you might be able to measure five or ten degree altitudes with a card and get better LOPs than from sunrise/set, but that's just a hunch.
You might enjoy my "Lunars Game" from last December. It's here:
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars/lungame.html
Frank R
[ ] Mystic, Connecticut
[X] Chicago, Illinois
