NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Beginner
From: Gordon Talge
Date: 2005 Sep 16, 18:22 -0700
From: Gordon Talge
Date: 2005 Sep 16, 18:22 -0700
Couldn't help but put in my $0.02 worth. I have two metal sextants and a plastic one. A Friburger, an Astra IIIB, and a Davis plastic (el cheapo) one. The Davis plastic is by far harder to use and to read, than the others. The key word is read. It is a venier rather than a micro drum. The index error has to be checked at every sight with plastic sextants. They are subject to heat changes, way more than the metal ones. However, in the hands of a skilled navigator a $25.00 plastic sextant would be better than a $3,000 metal one in the hands of a person who doesn't know what they are doing. Moreover, I don't include myself in the "skilled navigator" crowd. But, I am smart enough to know that sights and calculations in my back yard are a lot different than on a pitching boat out in the ocean. I would be just as dumb as the next land lubber. It is just like when I was in college taking math. Kids would bring in $300 and $400 calculators thinking that would get them an A, and the smartest kid in the physics class (not me) had a $15 TI. This was back in the '79. "Doc, when my finger heals, will I be able to take sextant sights and find my position within 5 feet. "Don't see why not." "That's funny, never could before.". -- Gordon -- ,,, (. .) +-------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo------------------------+ | Gordon Talge WB6YKK mail: gtalge AT silcon DOT com | | (o- Debian / GNU / Linux | | //\ The Choice of the GNU Generation | | v_/_ .oooO | | - E Aho Laula - ( ) Oooo. - Wider is Better - | +-------------------------\ (---( )-------------------------+ \_) ) / (_/