How To Use An Orienteering Compass

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How to Employ an
Orienteering Compass

An orienteering compass, sometimes called a base plate compass, has the reward of beingness a compass and a protractor combined. What this ways to yous is that a protractor is 1 less piece of equipment you'll need to bear.

Parts of An Orienteering Compass

Fixed Sight – Use the stock-still sight whenever you demand direction measurements as accurate every bit 2 degrees.

Direction of Travel Indicator – When the spinning dial is gear up to your intended course, and when the needle is within the luminous northward box, this indicator points the way.

Sighting Mirror — Used in conjunction with the fixed sight to accept bearings of distant objects, or to "shoot" an azimuth, meaning to determine a specific compass direction.

Spinning Dial – A big dial that is not too hard to spin and is marked from 0 to 360 degrees is most useful. There are dials formatted in ways other than 0 to 360. They serve some specific purpose, I suppose, only for our purposes hither the 0-to-360 degree dial makes the most sense.

Luminous Needle – A luminous needle is useful for night navigation. When charged with a flashlight or other light source, it glows for x or 15 minutes, allowing yous to navigate without a lite.

Luminous Due north Box – This is the dial's indicator used to box the needle. To "box the needle" means to hold the compass horizontally and rotate it until the needle'southward north end comes to rest inside the luminous north box. Being luminous makes the compass usable in the dark.

Base Plate – Utilize the base of operations plate every bit a ruler for measuring distances, or in combination with the spinning dial, every bit a protractor for measuring map angles.

Finding Direction with an Orienteering Compass

There are 360 degrees in a circle. At whatsoever given spot on the earth, you lot can--as the terrain allows--proceed in whatsoever one of these 360 directions. The direction you choose naturally depends on where you lot want to get.

To decide that direction:

1. Identify your compass's baseplate with mirror open on the map with i edge of the baseplate—it doesn't thing which border—touching:

the spot where you are now

and

the spot where you want to get.

If these two map spots are farther apart than the combined length of your base of operations plate and mirror, identify a ruler on each spot, and so, place your base plate along the ruler'southward edge.

You lot are, for case, at Cat Gap and you want to get directly to John Rock. (In many instances when navigating over country, you'll normally want to choose the nearly sensible—non necessarily the nigh direct—road to your destination.)

Place one edge of the compass's baseplate on Cat Gap and John Rock, as shown in the next picture, making sure the Direction of Travel indicator is pointing in your intended direction.

2. Next, with the orienteering compass properly placed on the map as described above, turn the dial and so that its direction lines are aligned with the north-s lines on the map, making certain luminous north box—sometimes known as the red "shed"—is pointing to northward on the map.

For purposes of this task, you can totally ignore the needle. Right now, you're using the orienteering compass as a protractor to measure out a map bending, Non equally a compass. What the needle is doing doesn't matter.

Once the punch's direction lines are properly aligned with the map's north-south lines, your compass is prepare—without regard to magnetic declination—to the proper number of degrees (in this example, 005 degrees) for your intended class.

3. Now, hold your orienteering compass level and squarely in front of you with the direction of travel indicator facing ahead. So, rotate your entire body until the cherry-red northward-indicating compass needle is squarely within the carmine luminous north box. One way, I've heard this explained is to:

Put Cerise Fred (i.eastward. the cherry end of the compass needle) in the shed (i.e. the red luminous north box).

With Red Fred snugly within his shed, the direction of travel indicator is now pointing the style you lot should get—that is, the way you should go without regard to magnetic declination, something we normally should non disregard. If you haven't read the page but hyperlinked, may I suggest y'all read it now.

Using the Fixed Sight to Determine a Bearing to a Distant Object

1. Angle the mirror so that you can plainly run into the compass dial in the mirror.

two. Put the distant object in the sight's notches, making sure the line running down the mirror's centre is lined upward with the needle's pin point.

3. Now, while maintaining the distant object inside your sight's notches, and while standing to await at the punch in the mirror, adjusting the mirror as necessary to get the best view of the dial, and maintaining the mirror'due south eye line lined up with the needle's pivot point, rotate the dial until you box the needle, that is, until you put Red Fred in the Shed.

The number in degrees now dialed into your compass is the magnetic bearing to the distant object.

Using the Fixed Sight to "Shoot" an Azimuth

1. Dial your intended azimuth (i.e. compass direction) into the compass.

2. Angle the mirror so that you lot can plainly see the compass dial in the mirror. Make sure the line in the mirror's center is lined upwardly with the needle'southward pivot betoken.

3. Property the compass squarely in front of your face, turn your body as a unit until y'all've boxed the needle, that is, until Red Fred is in the Shed.

4. Find some distant object lying in your sight's notches. That object lies along your intended azimuth. If you practice information technology right, this method is accurate to most ii degrees, which is enough accurate for near recreational land navigation purposes.

five. To follow the course indicated by your azimuth, proceed toward the distant object yous identified in your sights.

6. Repeat the whole procedure as necessary.

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