HI ROy,

Roy Witt wrote in a message to Mark Lewis:

 ML> i thought that was what the big dipper was for? ;)

RW> According to the photo that Roger sent me; the North star is the
RW> last star in the Little Dipper's handle. The Big Dipper's two stars
RW> that form the end of the cup, form a straight line that points at
RW> that star. I can't see the Little Dipper because of the lights, but
RW> I can see the Big Dipper and find the North Star using the above.

THat trick was something my xyl (wife for the non-hams) knew.  Before we
moved into this small town I was starting to make arrangements to get my
tri-band directional antenna up on the tower. ONly trouble is, roads nor
anything else runs square with the cardinal directions out there, and we're
in the woods.  I had a fairly good idea of my cardinal directions, just
from the feeling of the sun on my body etc. sO the old blind man was
thinking about getting a compass and going that route.

THe wife went outside one clear night, found the dipper, pointed me to due
north toward the north star and I was able to then tie a stick onto the
tower which pointed away from the radio tower toward due north.

wIth any directional antenna on a rotator I"m real concerned with
directional accuracy.  WIth high frequency it's not as important as
beamwidths are fairly wide, but if you're doing vhf and uhf such as TV
signals a degree or two either side and it's no signal time.

Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+