BUYER/NEW USER TIPS Last updated: 17 November 2006

Subject:	Tip for your website
Sent:	Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:32:53
From:	RADCO In Main (dennis.webber@verizon.net)
How to compute the North Magnetic Declination angle for a specific
location

I needed to find the approximate magnetic declination angle to be able
to compensate for my "North" alignment. In my area, it's not
significate, but for other parts of the country, it can reach as high as
20 deg. or more. Figured there must be a site avalibale that had that
info and found a government site (NOAA) that had a clculator that told
the declination just be entering your zip code and date. (To be even
more acurate, you could also enter the actual lat and long.

Goto this site and enter your zip code & date.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/geomag/jsp/Declination.jsp

For example, I enter 46526, and todays date, click "Get Location" and
get "Latitude: 41.584484 (N) and Longitude: 85.837988 (W)". Next click
"Compute Declination" and the declination is reported as 4 deg, 33
minutes (W) ("changing by 0 deg. 4 minutes W each year.")

Therefore all I need to to do is align a north-pointing compass along
the lenght of the tube, point it to magnetic north and then add or
subtract the variance for the declination; and I should be pointing
almost at true north (without looking through the tube at all.) For the
example above, I need only move the tube about ~4-5 deg to the east and
I'm very close to "north aligned".

While this is only approxinate, you can enter your exact Latitude and
Longitude and get more accurate results (but I doubt it's actually
necessary.)

Simple as Pi
Dennis Webber

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