Pilots, boaters adjust to shift in magnetic north

[..]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/fl-magnetic-north-shift-20110218,0,2819271.story

[alph]

this has to be george bush's fault, or the republicans, somehow......

[..]

this has to be george bush's fault, or the republicans, somehow......

Oh come on now be a good chap and admit it's all BLOODY GLOBAL WARMING 

[RedValk]

it's called Magnetic Declination. Those of us in the comm business (think radar, satellite, tropo, etc.) have been dealing with it FOREVER. we either use Mag Dec maps...or get the data...to figure mag dec for any given location. it varies ALL OVER the earth. Some areas, like Alabama...mag dec is so small it's almost irrelevant. other areas, it can be fairly significant. Oh, it varies in each location from year to year. And...it some areas...it swings back and forth over the decades from positive dec to negative dec.

when i did Tropo shots in my Tactical Comm days as a Comm Engineer for Combat comm in the Air Force, i had to deal with it VERY carefully. Forget mag dec...or get the wrong amount...and on a 200 mile tropo shot...your antenna aligment COULD be off enough the comm FAILED!

But again, for us who deal with this stuff...this is old news............


For most common day stuff for average folks...it probably doesn't come into play much. Even many hams are aware of it...but for the beamwidth of HF antennas, it just isn't critical. for shorter LOS shots, it doesn't matter.

[x]

this has to be george bush's fault, or the republicans, somehow......

In this day and age, I am sure the Tea Partyers have strong evidence that it is a communist, socialist, liberal, Democrat plot, on the agenda for a long time, to destabilize magnetic north, and put it under the control of a small band of despots who have no respect for America or its ideals.

[ricoman]

somehow, I expected this to be a more polarizing topic.
The runways at TPA were renumbered or are in the process to conform to the new science results.
I decline (magnetically,of course) to place blame until I hear what Rush has to say about it.

[thumper]

this has to be george bush's fault, or the republicans, somehow......

What's the best gun to have to defend against this?

[Moonshot_1]

This is simply the result of Santa Claus moving his base of operations. He is constantly on the move to avoid detection. The massive amount of toys and the energy it take to constantly move them causes shifts in the magnetic field.

I thought everyone knew that.

[9Ball]

this has to be george bush's fault, or the republicans, somehow......

In this day and age, I am sure the Tea Partyers have strong evidence that it is a communist, socialist, liberal, Democrat plot, on the agenda for a long time, to destabilize magnetic north, and put it under the control of a small band of despots who have no respect for America or its ideals.

yeah, what he said...

[Bobbo]

I am amazed how almost anything can be politicized here!   

[Serk]

I am amazed how almost anything can be politicized here!   

I'm amazed how (what appears to me to be) a joke about how everything gets politicized has been politicized itself...