I've been trying an experiment in basic navigation over the last week whilst staying at Coningsby, Lincolnshire. (53°06'33"N and 0°10'11"W)
Its the one where the television program
Rough Science used a protractor to measure the height of the pole star and a radio, watch, and sundial to work out your latitude.
The weather didn't help (poor sun, plenty of rain) but I eventually managed to set up a sundial and find solar midday.
By using the protractor and a bit of fishing line, I measured the angle to the north star.
Nearest I could get was 53°.
That's the easy part. The longitude is the hard bit.
In 1 minute the world turns 360º / 24hr x 60 mins or ¼ of a degree.
Once I had worked out solar midday with my sundial, all I did was count the number of seconds from solar noon till the long pip happened at 1 pm. (Remember because of British Summer time GMT is one hour behind)
57 seconds (I minute as near as damn it). So my longitude was 0 degrees, 15 minutes West (long pip came after solar noon).
So my Rough Science position was 53°N 0° 15' W
Using a thing called a great circle calculator at
http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html, I found that I was only 17 km (10 miles) off.
Not brilliant you're thinking but a heck of a lot better for a search team flying a box search to find you.
Go one, try it. It's a bit of fun.
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