As a result, your best bet for learning basic land navigation is going to be to self-study with some of the many, many publicly-available military manuals and educational material available online. Unsurprisingly, the people who know the most about land navigation are probably the people spending a lot of time practicing it. Like anything else, knowing how to use your equipment is perhaps more important than the exact kind of equipment your using, and you can do pretty well with navigating without even a compass if you're good at terrain associating. I'll break it down into a couple points: Training You can apply the same concepts in both urban and rural areas to great effect. The bottom line is that land navigation is a useful but perishable skill, as others have said, and is helpful just in daily life on a basic level. I won't go into details into the "how" of navigating, but I'll throw in some tips and pointers to where you can learn. it makes your wallet thinner, but it definitely worth the money.So others have given good overviews of main considerations, but I've got time to blow and hopefully can provide some direct answers to all your points.
![military flat compass and protractor military flat compass and protractor](https://web.williams.edu/Biology/Faculty_Staff/hwilliams/Orienteering/Images/smbseplt.gif)
Cordura pouch (fleece on inside) and lanyard included. decent size, easy to use it with gloves or over-gloves fast needle settling (no liquid, no bubbles) Summarizing for those who don't like reading. thick marks placed on W and E sides of the needle, one below heading reading. thin marks placed on: heading arrow, bezel, and needle's N T suffix stands for tritium, meaning that for some years it will have self-illuminating marks for some years, making it a very good companion if the nightfall catches me still in some unknown area. However, I don't see that as a problem but it might be annoying for those used with a transparent base. Needle base is colored in white which eases readings, but it's opaque and you won't see the map beneath. For 180° of travel it only needs four seconds to revert and stabilize completely. The needle is magnetically dampened, leading to fast reaction and settling times. The base is made out of transparent, sturdy plastic, colored with a shade of green, light enough to see through it even with red light, but dark enough to see it if if falls in snow. It's a combination of a standard base plate compass and the core of a lensatic one. That's how I started to look on eBay for something and found this beauty: Cammenga D3-T. Closest matches were Hi-Vis versions of Silva Ranger CL which is liquid filled, and Silva Explorer Pro which is a colorless base plate and its indicator arrow isn't that obvious in bad weather. Of course, none of those I found had all the features I wanted. phosphorescent indicators for heading, bezel and north arrow. transparent, but colored base plate (green, yellow or orange) OR lensatic operating temperature range -25☌.+50☌ () large bezel ring to use it with gloves I studied a bit what was available on local stores in my area, looking for a compass which had all the following features: When the bubble came up on another reading, the needle tur ned to correct direction (eventually, as it's filled with oil instead of alcohol) and persuaded me to get a reliable compass.
![military flat compass and protractor military flat compass and protractor](https://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/5238815/il_570xN.335627686.jpg)
I didn't see it and went about 12° off the course. Because of the altitude and of the liquid fill, it developed a bubble below the needle.
![military flat compass and protractor military flat compass and protractor](https://bargainbabe.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/compass.jpg)
I had a lensatic clone for some years and used it every now and then, letting me down when I was needing it the most. Although I had my share of blizzards, fog and whiteouts during time, one of my previous hikes proved me that a good compass is essential during a whiteout, especially when it came with cold, strong wind as a bonus. The following describes my very personal opinion about this wonderful compass.Īfter about 20 years of hiking I have no problems to orient myself in the field with or without a compass in good weather. If you want an objective review, this is not the place to find it. One needs bad weather to get a proper compass