Your navigation questions answered

[@simongee8928]

The great thing about your videos Wayne is that you are an expert in the field of land navigation, but you never pretend to be 'the expert'. 😊

[@davespain7716]

Love this channel, I thought I knew enough about navigation to enjoy the hills, but this guy ( sorry, I don’t know your name) makes the navigation as enjoyable as the scenery around you. More videos please

[@bushcraftbasics2036]

I like the running fix explanation. Very much like a single point resection on land when you only have one identifiable reference object, often in featureless terrain like the Canadian prairie. Shoot your bearing off the radio tower or whatever you see and draw it on the map. You are somewhere on the line but not sure where. Turn 90 degrees and walk 100 m. Shoot the bearing again and draw on your map. Where the two lines are 100 m apart is your location on the second line.

[@stehume]

Cool Tip, thanks for sharing

[@danflowers8584]

You’re only the 3 rd person in my life who I have seen who knows this, I’m impressed for sure.

[@trevormegson7583]

I watched your 35.19 min video from end to end (apart from a comfort break). Which is remarkable to myself with an admitted 12 minute attention span. (Thanks KZbin) It was very interesting to see the questions and answers. Thank You.

[@josephluptak299]

When navigating through dense forest, Mors Kochanski recommended using a long stick (10’) to help keep your bearing… push the stick through the forest in the direction you want to go… walk to the end of the stick and then feed the stick forward again and repeat. He claimed it would help keep you from walking in circles in dense vegetation. I would imagine you couldn’t maintain that strategy for long distances, but it might get you through a dense patch of the forest.

[@geoffmatthews2353]

Compasses are made (generally) in controlled environments, moving the compass to an uncontrolled environment, ie, up a mountain… pressure and temperature differences will cause bubbles. Better made compasses can have bubbles removed, for instance a Francis-Barker compass can be sent back to the manufacturer, or a competent instrument repair shop to have bubbles removed. Good marine compasses have the facility to use a syringe and fine hypodermic needle to withdraw a bubble and top up with purified kerosene, I’ve done this myself on board a sailing boat in the Caribbean. Great video! Thank you.

[@kenchilton]

On the distance question, I think the answer might also include a stadimeter. If you know the height of an object, or the distance between two objects on a map, you can estimate the distance to them with a stadimeter. One example of this device is (was) the Davis Ranger. For instance, if you see a mountain off in the distance, from the contour lines on the map you can determine the elevation from a point you see horizontally from you near the base and the peak. Using that distance set on the device, you then sight the mountain and adjust the device for the angle of the bottom to top, then read off the distance to the mountain in the same units as the elevation. I have used a clinometer to do the same thing. When I learned navigation, we used slide rules to find the arctangent of the angle of an object’s base to peak and then calculate the distance. Certainly, for distances on a map, if you already know your position, you can use the scaled rulers printed on a baseplate compass or on the map itself. I assume the question is considering distance to an object without a fix. It is a lot easier to fix your position first, then you can measure. The only time I have not been able to do that was at sea, or to find the distance to an object of somewhat known size that was not on the map.

[@doughobbs7706]

great tips and hints - love your delivery, none of the needless jazzed up guff so many others put in videos

[@nazaninnaderi3783]

Sir, thank you so much for allowing this opportunity to ask questions. Looking forward to another Q&A session. Love your channel.

[@oregonlogger9775]

For learning how to use a map and compass, there once was a sport called orienteering that involved navigating from one point to another with map and compass and punching a card to show you’d been there. I don’t know if people still do that, but it would be a great way to learn.

[@CristiNeagu]

They do. Quite a lot of forests have orienteering courses set up and provide orienteering maps and courses. You can look it up online.

[@brucefay5126]

Our son had an orienteering class when he was in the 5th grade. A great experience.

[@drazenskrinjaric4286]

That sport is still alive and well and there are orienteering clubs in many cities of every country, I suppose... :). I don't play games on my PC but the only game I have installed and like to play is "Catching Features". It's an almost two decades old game which simulates the orienteering sport You are mentioning. By playing it one can really learn a lot about terrain features, map reading, various orienteering techniques, attack points, handrails, map symbols etc. I use it like a "fun practice tool" when I for whatever reason cannot go hiking to the real forest in real life... Because the game is so old, graphics are not very sophisticated, modern or detailed by today's standards but I really don't mind... The game community is very active and to this day dozens of new maps are getting created and published weekly to be used within the game. Of course, I prefer actually going out and walking through the woods but You can check it out if interested. For use and practice in winter or rainy days... :)

[@roysoutdoorlife]

Thanks for answering my running fix question. I'm going to try it on Dartmoor just out of curiosity! When on the water it's easy to work out how much distance you've covered between fixes, as long as you know your speed and the time taken. That's possibly a little harder to achieve on land, but as long as you have obvious map features to use I reckon it'll work. 😊 Whether it gains anything over back bearings and fixes is another matter!

[@CorvusNumber6]

Hello Wayne - Thanks for answering my question! (I asked because I've had a couple of compasses reverse their polarity in storage).

[@01cthompson]

I had this happen as well. I had four or five on display on a shelf spaced about 6 inches apart. Two of them reversed polarity. Luckily, I was able to fix them with a magnet. I remember years ago that the BBC Scotland Outdoors radio show had a segment about this happening. They interviewed one of the manufacturer's (Suunto?) reps that claimed it was due to electromagnetic fields produced by phones. They also use a magnet to fix them.

[@CorvusNumber6]

@@01cthompson Glad I wasn't the only one 😄 Yep, I think I'll try the magnet fix too. Thanks for the reply!

[@BCVS777]

Great sense of humor! Very helpful and thanks for keeping it practical.

[@xionix4]

6:35 with hour hand pointed at sun, half way between the hour hand and 12 on the watch face* (not sun) is south, and only in the Northern hemisphere, if I remember correctly.

[@cab8188]

Just found your channel , Excellent Thank you from the USA

[@keeblem1]

Great info. Thanks for taking the time to do this

[@paulwalsham1300]

Hi, can you do a video on “how to fold an OS map to get it into a map case?

[@TheMapReadingCompany]

Yes

[@TheXeroid]

It's quite easy to fix the bubble issue; you just need to go to your supplier and request they send you a new bubble.😉 I love your videos and have started binge watching them.

[@Βόρειο_Σέλας]

Great video and thank you sharing. Very informative especially compass storage. I have a question on route cards. I have been hiking and hunting for many years but I tend to use route cards for hiking only. Over the years I kept on adding extra columns and now I realised a lot of the columns are no use to me. In your experience what are the main things that you need have for planning and following a route? Maybe a short video will be great, as I have seen a few videos but you seem to have more effective methods of presenting your videos.

[@zembalu]

AFAIK, Ethanol is also used, sometimes in a mixture with kerosine or other oils. There are two types of rangefinders. One is with lasers. They are very accurate, sometimes in the mm range, but the target must reflect the laser, and they work for some hundred meters maximum. The second type are streak plates inside a monocular or binocular. My monocular addtionally has a built in compass, by the way. This is (aside from the military usage) mainly for maritimal navigation. You can measure the distance between two adjacent objects, or the height of something in 'sreaks'. If, and only if, you know the height or width, you can determine the distance to the objects, a simple application of trgonometry, only a division. Adjacent means, the objects fit into the field of sight of the monocular.

[@donaldburton6869]

I’ve noticed that in your neck of the woods you use ordinance survey maps. Those maps are 1:25000 scale. In the USA we use 1:24000 scale maps which are USGS maps. Silva compasses have a grid reader that is 1:25000 scale same as the maps. The same goes for Suunto compasses. They have a 1:24000 scale grid reader on them. To me that is a good reason to choose one compass over the other. Other than that they are quite similar in appearance and quality in my opinion.

[@Seamus3051]

Many thanks❤❤

[@alanlancashire6784]

If you are using the UK Ordnance Survey maps, the grid is formed by lines parallel and perpendicular to the 2° W meridian. Near to this baseline, the deviation between grid north and true north is insignificant, but becomes larger the further east or west you are. The deviation for any given OS map is given in the marginal information, as well as the longitude being shown on the edge of the map.

[@royblackburn1163]

Using running fixes is not limited to marine navigation its far more useful than you think particularly if you don't have a map, doing a back bearing is good for marking the location of your car for example.

[@joshuanorthey2026]

Great answer to first question.

[@TheMapReadingCompany]

Glad you think so!

[@joshuanorthey2026]

@@TheMapReadingCompany Your channel is great, it is so nice to listen to such a positive enthusiastic person. And I am sure you hear this a lot but I love the waffle. I would even love a separate channel/series that was just "Map Reading Company rambles about history/whatever in a pleasant background". Not that I don't value the navigation content. Keep up the great work!

[@apollosauce]

at 6:32 , "You point the hour hand of your watch at the sun, half-way between the hour hand and the sun is approximately south." I think you meant to say "half-way between the hour hand(A) and the number "12" dial on your analogue watch(B) is approximately south." I think it would also help to remind ourselves the basics that the sun generally rises from the East direction and generally sets to the West direction when we use this method. I love your videos by the way. They are very instructive and I am learning a lot from this channel, thank you.

[@TheMapReadingCompany]

Yeah you're right about my error. It's been pointed out by others - sorry about that. Here is a video I did about this topic which explains it correctly: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2Swn6NreN6coqM

[@MaxBruch76]

Thanks for the great answers!

[@patrickkelley3408]

Good talk. Thanks !

[@TonysTrails]

I might be missing something, but if you take declination as + or - rather that E or W, then surely 'Mag to grid, get rid & grid to mag, add' will always work, because if you subtract a negative number you add it, and if you add a negative number you subtract it, etc? 🤔

[@CristiNeagu]

About storing a compass: My Cammenga came in its green bag which had a pretty beefy metal belt loop attached. So it seems to me that Cammenga think it's ok to store their compasses in very close proximity to metal.

[@MDyna32]

The Cammenga M1950 has a sighting arm (lens holder) which actually locks the magnetic card and keeps it immobile while the case is closed. Yes, you are right. There is no effect on your stored, closed compass from a ferrous metal unless perhaps you stored the compass next to an electromagnet or other strong magnetic force.

[@Uns_Maps_8]

Range finders can be very accurate but the distances it measures are quite short. Another “empirical” approximation is the use of the rule of thumb with trigonometry. It is an approximation because you need to estimate the height of the distant object you want to calculate the distance to.

[@TheMapReadingCompany]

I did a video a while back on "the rule of thumb" - kzbin.info/www/bejne/fHLTZJ5-n9Gra5o

[@Uns_Maps_8]

@@TheMapReadingCompany thanks! I watched your video and it is another “rule” 😄I didn’t know it but now I added it to my catalog. The one I mean is using the thumb (better horizontal) to fully cover the distant object getting it closer or farther away from your open eye. Then you use the formula d = a * (h/t) d is the distance you want to find a is the distance between your open eye and the thumb h is your best guess of the height of the distant object t is your thumb width

[@tonyscott395]

There seems to be a problem at 6min33. Shouldn't you check the distance halfway between the hour hand and the 12 o'clock mark on the watch, not the sun?

[@RossFairclough]

It's unrelated to this video but I'd love your opinion on the NNAS syllabus. In the syllabus that I've been shown people are taught to plan & implement a route before being taught about bearings. Do you think a route trace or similar is adequate in place of a bearing? Your videos are excellent by the way.

[@TheMapReadingCompany]

Hi Ross, I teach and assess all grades of NNAS awards. I agree that planning a route and following it are the best way for novices to start to learn to navigate. For many people the whole idea of learning to navigate is to get from somewhere to somewhere else safely and enjoy it. The use of a compass can be a little overwhelming for someone with no navigation experience at all. So the best way forward is to start just using a map and then progress on to learning to use a compass. I have done a series of 6 videos to show how to start to learning navigation without using a compass. See here: kzbin.info/aero/PLtmTvvlTrlahCoV4mgSzG6s_gF4xLLUU_&feature=shared

[@thatsthewayitgoes9]

Camenga has compass models designated for South and Northern Hemispheres. Why? What’s the difference?

[@inky4763]

You can get globally balanced needles but cammenga don't do one. The trouble is that a compass balanced for the northern hemisphere will try and point downwards if used in the south and get stuck...if you get what I mean

[@paulhenry85]

As the previous person has said the compass needle is weighted according to your magnetic zone, there are 3 magnetic zones. Magnetic North (MN) Magnetic Equator (ME) and Magnetic South (MS) on a silva compass its printed on the orienteering arrow (North arrow) so its always worth checking you’ve the correct one especially if ordering online.

[@robinkennedy9974]

the dip angle. Pain in the arse when i moved from nz to the uk. My compass no longer worked.

[@kwilson5832]

I understand the explanation of the difference between 'true' North and 'grid' North being being so slight that 'walking 5 miles towards 'true' north is no different to walking 5 miles towards 'grid' North, but does this vary according to how close to one of the Poles you are? In my mind, the nearer the North Pole you are, the bigger the deviation.

[@inky4763]

You'd have to be very very near the north pole for that to make a difference. The actual difference is printed in ordinance survey maps in the UK. The reason it's irrelevant is that you are using a map (grid north) and a compass (magnetic north). You don't use true north for land navigation with a map and compass, so you don't need to think about it.

[@bbhrdzaz]

my bubble was caused by altitude. at 1200ft elevation, no bubble, at 9000ft, bubble. Atmospheric pressure is less and the compass bubble was actually a vacuum space.

[@emersonmsd]

Im sure you would get Francis Barker M73 fixed or serviced if you got a bubble.😢 Im not happy that my tritium is dead, but its just a cabinet queen.

[@TheMapReadingCompany]

As far as I know - I may be wrong - Pyser will fix any part of the M73 which needs fixing and that includes replacing the tritium. Contact them and ask - what have you got to lose.

[@emersonmsd]

@@TheMapReadingCompany I have a ex military Stanley G 150. I did find a guy but he talked me out of it as he wanted £250 or something like that. I don't live in the UK and nobody wants the cross border hassle. Thanks for your tip anyway. As I'm not advancing with a Squadron of tanks. I'll just use my baseplate Silva and Suunto.

[@bushcraftbasics2036]

Instead of lost I like the term "geographically embarrassed"

[@SteffenRoller]

We say „temporarily disoriented“

[@bushcraftbasics2036]

@@SteffenRoller heard one instructor use the term "deferred success" when a student didn't pass. I have used that ever since.

[@BCVS777]

The American frontiersman Daniel Boone is credited with saying: “I have never been lost but I have wandered around in the woods in a state of confusion for days”.😂

[@dieffe4427]

😂

[@mihailvormittag6211]

👍

[@TonysTrails]

On the subject of distance and bearing, if you have Microsoft Office you can use the following formulae to calculate them: DISTANCE (KM) =6378.8*ACOS(COS(RADIANS(90-LAS))*COS(RADIANS(90-LAE))+SIN(RADIANS(90-LAS))*SIN(RADIANS(90-LAE))*COS(RADIANS(LOS-LOE))) BEARING (°) =DEGREES(ATAN2(COS(RADIANS(LAS))*SIN(RADIANS(LAE))-SIN(RADIANS(LAS))*COS(RADIANS(LAE))*COS(RADIANS(LOE-LOS)),SIN(RADIANS(LOE-LOS))*COS(RADIANS(LAE)))) WHERE LAS = LATITUDE OF START POINT (OR REFERENCE TO CELL CONTAINING IT) LOS = LONGITUDE OF START POINT (OR REFERENCE TO CELL CONTAINING IT) LAE = LATITUDE OF END POINT (OR REFERENCE TO CELL CONTAINING IT) LOE = LONGITUDE OF END POINT (OR REFERENCE TO CELL CONTAINING IT) I have designed a complete route card that will generate results based on location and date, including declination, sunrise/sunset. It currently works with daylight saving countries in Europe, N. America & Australasia. If anyone would like further details, please drop me a message on the channel.

[@BillSaltbush]

🤣🤣🤣

[@viktorsteins]

Good talk . Thanks !