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Topographic maps of Australia may be available on-line (they are for the
USA), in which case you could get your elevation fairly precisely from
them.   Here's another idea:  Contact your local government's surveying
team (don't know what you'd call them down under, in fact I'm not sure
what we call them up here); I'll bet they would enjoy the challenge of
telling you your altitude.

BTW, for all:  one neat web site for mapping L/Lo into maps is
http://boulter.com/gps/.   The owner of the site (friend of a friend of
a friend) is an avid geo-cacher and figured out the (often undocumented)
L/Lo input formats for many mapping programs and developed this site to
allow one to access these sites from a single entry of L/Lo.
Unfortunately, given his interest in land-based pursuits in the USA, it
starts breaking down the further one gets from the USA.

But some of the mapping sites he links to do contain world-wide data (I
did find your location south of Perth, Roger).

I have some friends who took early retirement, bought a 42' ketch, and
two years ago sailed out of the Golden Gate and turned left.  They've
now just cleared the bottom of Mexico and are in El Salvador.   They
take great delight in sending their L/Lo to friends back here and asking
"where are we?"   One of the best was when they were in the Gulf of
California.  I not only found a reasonable chart of the area, but great
aerial photos.  Then I Googled the name of the town they were near and
found the hotel/marina they were at.  So I could write to them "you are
anchored in 16' of water approximately 1/4 mile east of [forgot the
name] Island, two miles south of the [forgot the name] lighthouse, and
by the way, does the hotel really have a nude beach like they advertise?"

Lu Abel


Roger Puttman wrote:

> The first question I have is: I live on a hill overlooking the ocean but
> dont know my elevation to set the dip. Given I know where I am and can
> see some islands offshore is there a way I can determine my altitude? I
> have a chart and can accurately place my house and the islands so there
> must be a way....I just cant figure it out. I can get off my bum and go
> down the beach and take sights but it is kind of fun to be able to do it
> from the backyard...

   

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