[Acoustics] WH Sentinel

[John W Erbland]

Our office acquired a WH 1200 Sentinel in a horse trade. We would like to
use it as a vessel mounted bottom tracking ADCP, same as our Rio Grand.
Comparison discharge measurements versus the Rio Grand yielded results +/-
2%. My only concern is compass calibration. A field compass calibration
aboard the vessel to be used would be difficult. I have tried to load the
RG firmware into the Sentinel (I understand this has been done), but
the Sentinel would not take the RG firmware. It originally had version
16.12, which would not accept the firmware, and I then upgraded to the
16.27 version which would also not accept the RG firmware. My question
is...is the field compass calibration for loop method moving bottom so site
specific that  this instrument could not be used without figuring out a way
to calibrate in the boat at the site?..thanks in advance.