Flying at different location

[rput]

Hi all,

I will be flying a few thousand km's from my normal location. Any idea if there is a fast procedure that I can do to avoid having to do a full calibration at the site?

Thanks,
Richard

[SuperSharpShooter]

I think you would just change the inclination and declination to what it should be for the new location.

[kinderkram]

Yep, nothing else needed than a "relocation" of the magnetic values.

[rput]

Ok, that sounds great. What does that mean for my inclination that was significantly changed by the calibration process (from -68 to -54)?

[bn999]

If you have determined that your local inclination is -68 and the calibration process changed that to -54, then there is something significantly wrong with one or the other.

[rput]

I was wondering about that.... I redid the calibrations several times and it was fairly consistent, even with a different dynamic log file. I thought it must be some magnetic interference from my setup. The MAE also did not go below 0.3 in Step 3. You think the dynamic calibration is not correct?

[bn999]

If you can repeat it, then I'd double check your local magnetic data. Either that or you're situated on a big deposit of iron

[rput]

Ok thanks for the tip, I'll dig into it (sorry couldn't resist it...)

[hogster]

Just curious and sorry to hijack your thread, but how far can one travel before having to repeat this calibration process? I realise it's not a fixed distance and the further you go the less accurate the magnetometer will become ...

Many thanks, David

[kinderkram]

Calibration doesn´t need to be repeated - only the mag incl&decl will change when traveling.

Depends on which direction you are traveling:
- if you travel South -> North (or vice versa) the mag declination will change most while inclination stays similar
- if you travel East -> West the inclination will change while declination stays similar

You can play around at http://magnetic-declination.com/ to watch the effect.

We had reports of users traveling 1500km without having to change their values. Last year some team members drove distances of 600-700km to the Maker Faire in Germany. Afaik nobody had to change anything...