<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (29Palms @ Sep 6 2009, 10:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
A compass with a built in inclometer. The inclometer measures heights of things or steep slopes in degrees. A compass is for direction and bearing. Let us suppose that you woke up one day on an island. You have nothing except this device. A compass with an inclometer. You have food for thirty days. You have shelter. But noone knows where you are and neither do you. All you know is that you are on some island somewhere. Let us suppose that you can send out one TELEX to the people that are searching for you. ONLY ONE TELEX. So what information would you gather up to send to these people utilizing this compass with built in inclometer??? What kind of information could you write down in a log to transfer to a telex to send off in helping these search parties in finding your whereabouts? You have at least 30 days before you have to start fishing for food or growing crops or gathering your own food. Or to be found. A wonderful thing about travel is knowing your geography but what if? Just what if???[/b]
I&#39;m assuming that a TELEX is a standard message, not sure if there is a limit to the length. If there is, I&#39;ll rethink this a bit more.

That said,, I suppose that your latitude can be determined with the declination of the noon sun angle fairly easily. I&#39;m not sure about how to do longitude with that, though (if I remember right, that&#39;s always been a complicated issue for sailors. Maybe it&#39;d be a good idea to log the weather, including precipitation, wind speeds/direction, and approximate relative temperatures? A week&#39;s worth of data may help a bit, especially if you can focus along a certain latitude.