NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: digital compass, etc
From: Aubrey O´Callaghan
Date: 2000 Sep 11, 9:52 AM
From: Aubrey O´Callaghan
Date: 2000 Sep 11, 9:52 AM
I've got a Furuno electronic compass on my boat (connected to the radar). This is swung by turning the boat slowly thru 360 degrees. I also have a autohelm 3000 autopilot this is swung in a similar manner. Except that in the autohelm it is necessary to then point the boat on a fixed bearing and remove any offset in the deviation. This is not necessary with the Furuno compass. How can the Furuno "know" any offset ? Aubrey. At 08:39 AM 07-09-00 -0700, Patrick McVey wrote: >I don't mind though slightly off subject. You're doing what's called, >"swinging the compass." The sensor (fluxgate I believe) and microprocessor >are testing the sensitivity of all 360 degrees and making a correction >table for each point of the compass (probably all 360 points). The >sensitivity varies due to large pieces of
