Dear Tony, > As any diallist is painfully aware the most probable event for > dial installation is an obscured sun all day...
Indeed so! > ... we may be forced to do the diallistically unspeakable > viz. a temporary magnetic alignment... May I suggest that you equip yourself with a cheap handheld GPS station? The last time I was in Longyearbyen was before the days of GPS but several of my pals have been there more recently and confirm that GPS works perfectly well there. If there is a decent amount of space round your intended site you can simply walk northwards (or southwards) from the site of the sundial, checking that your longitude doesn't shift in the last decimal place. The further you can walk the better! Walking eastwards or westwards is just as good but holding any other course with cheap GPS kit is less easy. You should then obtain a true north-south line better than a magnetic compass will ever give you. Richard Langley has already explained why. He is right! If you want really good results with the GPS then you need to use very expensive kit that uses a master-slave system but that won't be necessary if you just want to be within a degree or so. Frank King University of Cambridge England -
