compasses

Myakka

Myakka

Joined
Feb 9, 2004
Messages
1,447
A compass is a very important piece of gear. Is there anyone here besides me into compasses.

 
Myakka - you may be just the person I am looking for. Could you recomend a quality compass that would fit into the handle of a CRK Mountaineer II, and perhaps a source for it? There is so much junk out there.

Thanks

Andy
 
Yes! I have several Silva Rangers, which I used to use at work. And for what I did, they were the best. Mirror sighting, declination adjustment, and 1/20 scale for mapping. I have a smaller version of the Ranger (can't remember the model) that I like when I need more accuracy and want something smaller than the Ranger.

I also have a Brunton for my wrist I use sometimes and a couple of the small Suuntos with the thermometer on my pack. Always have one on my keyring too.

I have been looking for something reliable and very small to wear as a necklace or smaller to replace the one on my keyring. Please provide any suggestions. Thanks
 
i have one of the brunton ones on my watch band, but they always get a bubble in them. i am currently looking to get a silva or a suunto one.
 
I love compasses as well. Silva, Nexus, Brunton, Tru-Nord (to name a few I own)... a good compass is an excellent companion in the field.
 
Blues said:
I love compasses as well. Silva, Nexus, Brunton, Tru-Nord (to name a few I own)... a good compass is an excellent companion in the field.
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20+ year old Silva Ranger is all I ever needed.

Learning how to use it and a map before you go will help if and when you get lost as a compass is near useless once completely lost.

Skam
 
One knife is all I usually "need" but I wasn't addressing "need".

One compass (at a time) with the appropriate topos has gotten me through the Wrangells of Alaska, the Canadian Rockies, the Wind River Range and many other wilderness areas.
 
cleaner145 said : Myakka - you may be just the person I am looking for. Could you recomend a quality compass that would fit into the handle of a CRK Mountaineer II, and perhaps a source for it? There is so much junk out there.
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Thanks


I think most people use the Marbels button compass. I asume you file off the attachment part.

Picture and link to i-tactical

MB01147.jpg
 
im kinda surprised compasses dont get as much regognition as knives, flashlights, and multi tools do. When your out in the wilderness they can be a very helpful tool.
 
A couple weeks ago a coworker and I were trying to find survey monuments.
We had a 10k dollar GPS unit, but in the end it was my 3 dollar compass/thermometer/whistle that saved the day.

Its amazing how easy it is to get turned around in unfamiliar territory and having even the cheapest compass will be valuable, even if its just to help you orient yourself.
 
anomad said:
A couple weeks ago a coworker and I were trying to find survey monuments.
[We had a 10k dollar GPS unit, but in the end it was my 3 dollar compass/thermometer/whistle that saved the day.]

Its amazing how easy it is to get turned around in unfamiliar territory and having even the cheapest compass will be valuable, even if its just to help you orient yourself.
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I gotta ask What unit you using. I use GPS every day at work and at play and have Never seen a 10 thousand dollar unit.
 
While I have and use a GPS I go nowhere with out a compass. Silva Ranger provided many years of good service till I lost it in Maryland a year ago in June. Since then I`ve been using a Suunto MC-2 and M-9 with good results. I`ve seen several Brutons I`d like to try some day.
 
yans said:
I gotta ask What unit you using. I use GPS every day at work and at play and have Never seen a 10 thousand dollar unit.
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I see 80k dollar differential units at work.

These systems consist of a base station and a mobile unit - both rather large.

Will
 
Will the only reason that I asked it of him, is that I teach Map compass and survival in my state for all the enviro cops ,staties, sar, and hunters edd. I also use in this a cheap Etrex to show that the GPS over distance is way more accurate than a walker with a compass.

We keep all gps on utm and use a plotter to coordinate with the map and compass. I njust never met anyone better over distance than a charged up GPS. I guess however there is allways a first.
 
yans said:
I gotta ask What unit you using. I use GPS every day at work and at play and have Never seen a 10 thousand dollar unit.
Click to expand...

http://trimble.com

10 grand will get you a good "resource grade" 1-3 meter accuracy units. We were using a handheld GeoXM with some extra goodies.

Like Will said, once you get into survey accuracy base stations and all the fancy stuff prices go out the roof. Trimble is even cheaper than their competitor Leica geosystems.

Prices on these have really gotten stupidly high, now that the Garmin code has been hacked a lot of people are using them (etrex flavors) to collect data that will eventually live in a Geographic Information System (GIS).

ETA: we werent' measuring distance, you are correct that any GPS would be highly effective for that task.
 
I have wandered around the bush for many years, and the best compass I have have used is a British Army prismatic compass. Can be used as a simple marching compass, day or night, shoot bearings and triangulate and plot your position with a very great deal of accuracy.

Since the entry on the market of inexpensive GPS, I now use GPS almost exclusively, but I still carry map and the Army compass as a backup (No data loss or power failures).

I also carry a Marbles button in the PSK, and a Suunto wrist compass on occasion.

If you are only an occasional hiker, the Silva (Brunton in the US?) baseplate compasses are a very good and inexpensive option.

A simple little $5 button is better than nothing, but there are ways of determining direction even if you do not have this. A very good skill to learn if you travel in wild country.
 
still toting my army compas i got in nam. still knows where north is.
im not sure about a compas on a knife,,, i would think the steel would threow it off. i know i went threw hell negating all the magnetic interference on my boat.
 
The following question: Do you often find that Silva Ranger has significnt advantages?

I have Silva with thermometre on my keychain and find that it is much more convenient than Ranger - when I was on military training, yes, as an officer in artillery, I had to have a compass similar to Ranger that I could find directions precisely, but as a civilian tourist I found that +-5 degrees in precision of compasses is good enough. And compasses which you can attach to the shoulder of your backpack are the most convenient - easy to carry, you can have at look at the direction quickly, they do not hang and annoy you on the neck. So, I stopped carrying Ranger.

By the way, I also found that thermometres are not particularly useful on compact compases - if it is cold, it does not matter what degree thermometre shows, it is still cold! Thermometre does not show temperature correctly, even if it is Silva, there is still some degree of error. And if it is a compass-keyring, the liquid in thermometre breaks in a few separate groups after you drop your keys several times, so it becomes difficult to read it. What do you think about this?

Regards,
 
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