Anybody used a sun compass?

[Laurentius]

Ha! Sent me off down another rabbit hole about slide rules. My class must have been one of the last that had to buy and be taught how to use a slide rule. I still have it but have forgotten how to use it.

We also used Comptrollers - a desk-based mechanical add/subtract machine, based I think on the Cruk drum calculator Seagull refers to. Looked like a cross between shop till and a typewriter. Like typing pools, big firms had comptroller pools of girls (no boys allowed).
It seems when I was still at school history was being made, and there was a step change in methods of caclulating. Use of slide rules and Compt's went in the bin, with the invention of the Hewlett Packard scientific calculator and the Texas Instruments cheaper version. By the last year in school we all had bought cheap texas instruments pocket calculators.

Did a college course around 1980, stock control and double entry book keeping, this would have been on the very cusp of change I think, we learned how to use various accounting machines and commercial filing systems, but star of the show was a commodore pet. Shortly after that typewriters started to disappear and it was all wordstar on DOS, Lotus 123 and Dbase, all on dos loaded up from floppy discs which actually were floppy. Pity the poor sods who signed up to a course in typewriter maintenance.

 

[Pattree]

I clung on to my guessing pole aka slide rule and refused to have a computer in my desk For a long time. I knew what would happen: I would end up typing my own documents, handouts and letters and the typing pool would disappear.

I picked up a bit of the jargon and when nearly everyone challenged me I told them that I had a VAL interface. Val was the only audio typist and I commandeered the only dictaphone.

Ref Sun compass - why? Vastly too complicated to mess with. Presumably, in the absence of GPS you’d need a sextant to establish your latitude and a chronometer to calibrate your sextant.

Cut out the middle gubbins and use the hour hand of the chronometer to point at the sun; always provided that you’ve got any.

 

[Seagull]

On the other hand, one could just apply current longitude ,(in time), to the daily equation of time..and then you would have an absolute time of Transit of the Meridian. This would be either due North or due South, depending on hemisphere...and your hour hand is calibrated.

But, on yet another 'other hand', perhaps not.

regards
Ceeg

 

[Falstaff]

My Grandfather was born in 1900. I always thought that in his 89 years he'd seen a huge amount of change, from being a ploughboy to moon landings. But now, the pace of change and amount of it in our few years is truly staggering.
At the same time my grandfather and "crazy" country Uncle of the same age were spot on and very farsighted, in terms of predicting both climate/environmental change. This included the effects on our bodies from both resistance to new drugs, new diseases and pollution internally. (Bearing in mind that antibiotics and vaccines were relatively new things when they were young.)
We had many extended lectures from therm both on the dangers of these!

 

[Falstaff]

I was very suprised to find dictaphones are still around. I had to buy one recently at the request of my 10yr old granddaughter, who wanted to record her own lyrics and singing on the fly.

Ref Sun compass - why? Vastly too complicated to mess with. Presumably, in the absence of GPS you’d need a sextant to establish your latitude and a chronometer to calibrate your sextant.

It started as a fun idle steam punk device quest, but amazed to find something real and known about by members on here. The why is that it overcomes magnetic influences (incl. on ships apparently) and is more accurate. No sextant or chronometer required and gives a better route direction than using the watch hand method. Not much use I'd think in our little country, and too time consuming en route.

Yes, seems complicated to me too, but the desert version was used by squaddies, and I think, with the very simple book of tables that came with it, I could probably use it. The Dave Cantebury cloth version is an approximation but still reasonable accurate and very simple to use. Doesn't even need a watch, and seeing how modern battery powered ones fail at all the wrong times that's a positive. I wouldn't use it as a main means of navigating but in big countries as a back up it could be a life saver.

 

[ONE]

Wow! Have you still got it? Give it a whirl or see if someone like Seagull or Bearbait, who understand these things, can help or try it. Why did it have 6 sticks, was that to allow for losing/bending some?

It's probably still in the garage/attic along with most of the other bits & pieces that were attached to my ex-mil Land Rover when I had it!

 

[Falstaff]

Ha Ha, Looked at buying the Dave Cantebury sun compass cloth- cost $9.99 each, plus DHL delivery to uk $52.78.
Now why does Trump think we aren't buying US goods?

 

[SMARTY]

For a bit of fun I was looking for steam punk type devices that actually exist. There it was, a complicated looking thing in brass, a non magnetic navigation compass using the sun and latitude. Nothing to do with a nautical sextant.
I emerged from the internet rabbit hole a couple of hours later totally blown away, not only was it real and worked, but was a significant accurate Nav and mapping tool.

It was refined and used by the Long Range Desert Group to get SAS teams to where they needed to be. Also is/or was, the basis for a lot of USA mapping because it is more accurate and not affected by large iron deposits/mountains. Further down the rabbit hole, also showed how navigation and poor shipboard practices caused the position errors given when the Titanic sank.

So has anybody any experience of actually using one, or even seen it in use?

Yes. I have a collection of military sun compass from ww2. I used them quite a bit when I worked in the UAE, mostly for fun. Very accurate with the right offset data .

 

[SMARTY]

Links in my previous comments didn't go in:

Handheld Bagnold sun compass

https://www.livescience.com/16831-viking-sunstone-crystal-compass.html Portable new form of Sunstone compass.

I own this with Dave ( Basha). I also have a replica vehicle mounted Bagnold.

 

[Falstaff]

Yes. I have a collection of military sun compass from ww2. I used them quite a bit when I worked in the UAE, mostly for fun. Very accurate with the right offset data .

The range and depth of knowledge on this forum is amazing. A collection? Wow. Not that I'd understand it, but is the offset data still available/current ? or has it fallen by the wayside with the reliance on IT/Satellites etc etc.
I quite fancy a tickle with the Dave Canterbury Sun cloth just for fun, if I can get one. The simplicity of it appeals, and It's about as much as I can understand/manage. Presumably it would still work this side of the atlantic, provided its in the northern hemisphere?

 

[Le Loup]

I have a sundial compass.

 

[Nomad666]

After having several compasses fail for whatever reason I have just used my analog watch as a compass it works for me and has yet to fail me..

 

[Pattree]

Me too but not so useful in UK. We cannot depend on clear sight of the sun.

 

[Falstaff]

I have a sundial compass.

Very nice, Where did you get that from? I don't suppose it adjusts for latitude but if you align with true north it might give you a decent time approximation.

 

[Pattree]

This one does.
I wore it on my wrist at a steam punk convention. It was pouring with rain so I used a torch