Pontius,
I will get slagged off for crawling ever closer to my 1000 by you know who, but thanks for an interesting post. Are you saying that standing still for so long has caused the compass to be unable to shed, if you like, some kind of built in memory?
Is not an retro fit commercial option suitable? Something simply bought off the shelf and put in?
Cheers.
PS:
TJ: Cheers for your reply about RAW - I'll give it a go.