Greetings fellow dialists, I smiled to see John Carmichael's discovery that you can discover the alignment of a wall by noting when the sun exactly lines up with it. Twenty years ago I had a small, not to say microscopic, business supplying wall sundials by post. My "Wall Sundials by Post" leaflet instructed clients to do exactly this, before informing me of the time and date. The client's address gave me his latitude and longitude.
For the maker, any method of finding the sun's azimuth will do, even old-fashioned tables. I used a pocket calculator to solve the spherical triangle (still do). The method works well except that there is often a problem with a rain gutter on the roof whose width you have to guess if it gets in the way. The dials I made that I know about have kept pretty good time since. The method works equally well for dials facing north of east-west and for both hemispheres. Interestingly, although I sold a reasonable number of dials by post the purchasers were all men. I had many enquiries from women but none came to anything. I wonder why? Frank -- Frank Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] -
