NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Heath Hezzanith question
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Oct 23, 21:04 -0400
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Oct 23, 21:04 -0400
Gary, you wrote: "I use one of those little hand held dictaphones." And others are talking about using LED lights and, of course, many people work sights with calculators, etc. So I started thinking, 'what would be the ultimate modern device for traditional navigation enthusiasts?' Of course, making the sextant electronic in any way would break the fundamental rule of the game, so that's the one taboo. Everything else is fair game. So imagine this: your 'dictaphone' now has a smart little computer inside with a GPS receiver, too. You take your sextant sight, and at the right moment, say to the device, "Mark..." The device notes the exact time and waits. Then you tell it, "Sun Lower Limb... 22 degrees 14.7 minutes." The device does basic voice recognition (computationally difficult), and it also performs all the spherical trigonometry of every branch of celestial navigation (computationally easy compared to voice recognition). It works the sight up more or less instantly, compares it to the GPS position, and answers [in one of those tinny, computer-generated voices], "Sight yields Line of Position at distance 0.4 nautical miles towards azimuth 132.4... Excellent work." And if you're not doing as well maybe it could say, "Resulting Line of Position is 19.5 nautical miles away... Say, perhaps you should consider photography as a hobby? Do you know I am also a digital camera?" ;-) I would buy one. -FER --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---