Michael, thank you very much for taking the time to give me that excellent explanation. I have tried each of the four clock/data options available with my SPI port and all yield slightly different but similar shifted results. I spoke to the designer/programmer of the module this morning and he is looking into what is causing the shift I am seeing. He said he has had similar complaints from other customers in the past but because most people tend to use the UART output instead, it hasn't been a big enough problem for them to worry about.

I could be missing something but I don't believe the uC I am using has the ability to receive data on the first edge AND send data out on the second edge, at least using the built in SPI functions. I'm sure there is a way to do it but it's not something I have tried to do just yet...

The compass works just fine in UART mode. The reason I'm going through the trouble is to convert the current heading to a 24VDC high speed pulse that can be fed into a Siemens PLC and read using a high speed counter. I have no RS-232 ports and only have one RS-485 port available and it's tied up for Modbus so barring a PLC upgrade and the addition of a 232-485 converter, doing it this way made more financial sense. The heading data is received in two bytes which could just be dumped directly into a 16 bit timer configured as an external event counter to be pulsed out to the PLC. It's a unique setup that's required for this application.

I will post the results when I hear back from Honeywell.

Thanks again,
Brian