Motorola Droid :: Compass In Phone Is Not Only Off / But Virtually Broken

i've been a (mostly) happy user of the milestone, as it is called over here, but in the past few days i noticed a problem.the compass in the phone is not only off, but virtually broken. it detects a constant reading "to the upper left", which simply overrides the earth's magnetic field. so, no matter how i turn the phone, north is always between one and two o'clock. by using the amazin tricorder app, i was able to find out that the magnitude of the reading differs significantly depending on the orientation of the phone, reaching almost "100" in the max, and about "65" when the phone is 18o turned. so i cleverly deduced that the magnetic flux sensors are still somehow active; but still, they turn out to be useless to me if they show a constant reading no matter.