What's your favourite compass?

[Billy-o]

A while ago I bought a Garmin Oregon and put some maps on it. For a period, to all intents and purposes, I didn't need a compass anymore. Or, so I thought. The Garmin is an amazing thing. No complaints and I love it lots, but it is a lump. Also it runs on batteries, and so, in any case, I take along one of a half dozen cheap, old, flat Silvas that I have accumulated over a period of time and carelessness. That or a millie-style sighting compass, which I think possibly brings out the worst in me, though I love it to bits

Anyway, twice now I have been into the shop here and asked to play with a Suunto MC-2. It is not cheap thing. It is, however, a lovely thing. The needle whips round and sticks to north like a dart in a board, and the whole things feels, I don't know, whatever the opposite of directionless is.

The guilt of overspending, and already twice having resisted, means that I probably won't ever own this, but it did get me thinking about what people here use to find their way around.

 

[Alan De Enfield]

My Garmin GPS watch has a compass.
My SatMap GPS system has a compass**
I carry a 'Silva' (Summit copy of) for JIC

Somewhere in the bottom of the pack is a Paracord Bracelet, "with a Whistle, Striker and Ferro rod, and a 'button-compass' (which points in roughly the right direction) all built in"

** In fact it has two compass systems

The Active 10 has an electronic compass and
a GPS compass and switches between the
two at a pre-set speed (section 7.10). Having
both ensures you have the correct bearings
at all times whether you are moving or
stationary. It is important that the unit is held
level (like a regular magnetic compass) and is
calibrated correctly.

I also have a couple of Military compasses (one calibrated in degrees and one in Gradians) but they 'stop at home'.

I remember many years ago teaching an International meeting of Boy-Scouts orienteering.
After instruction, as each group set off, the next group came up to get the co-ordinates and initial bearing for the 1st way-point. This particular group went off in a very different direction to the previous groups and after calling them back a couple of times, realised they were Norwegians and were using the "Metric Compass" (as they called it) which has 400 degrees on the compass, East being 100, South 200, West 300 and North 400 / 0

So instead of heading (say) due West on a bearing of 270 degrees, they were heading off on (their bearing) of 270 which was well South of where they should have been heading (ie 300 on their compass)

Memories …………………….

 

[Billy-o]

I have a couple of button compasses. Drunk and blindfolded, I think I'd have a better chance of guessing north than them

 

[snappingturtle]

Ignore the knife but I like old school stuff, I mean if it lasted this long....

 

[Robson Valley]

Just two.
Summer of 1965: the original steel-case Recta Prospector.
Hudson's Bay Company Fur Trading Post in northern Canada.
Gigantic bubble in it now.

About 1990, I'd guess: the Brunton Eclipse 8099 which has a great array of functions to play with.
It was the #1 in the Field&Stream Magazine Best-of-the-Best Gear List. A growing bubble.

Just for nostalgia's sake, Id like to get them both fixed.

 

[The Lord Poncho]

Love my Silva type 4 (the military version in Mils and with the very bright Tritium illumination) - no frills compass with a base plate long enough to do decent bearings, rubber feet so it doesn't spin on the map, and tritium illumination so you don't need to use a torch at night - fabulous bit of kit.

 

[Tonyuk]

I use a mils compass from work, its a Silva.

I have a few of the smaller silva's spread throughout my kit.

 

[Riven]

Silva compasses are hard to beat for ease of use and reliability. Accumulated a fair few over the years and even found two Type 3s, but 30 years apart, both around Derbyshire.
However my all time favourite would have to be the Type 4/54 in degrees as the eyesight isn't what it used to be.

 

[C_Claycomb]

I have a Silva base plate, nothing fancy. It works okay. I did acquire a Suunto optical sighting compass which is very cool and takes bearings very accurately, but weighs a lot. I have yet to need it!

 

[santaman2000]

I started way back in the 1970s with a Boy Scout Silva Pathfinder and wish I still had it. It was just a basic baseplate orienteering compass but it was great.

Now I have an older Silva Explorer from the early 1980s. Old enough that it was still made by Silva (I think y'alls still are)

I also have a Cammenga USGI lensatic compass.

It'd be hard to pick a favorite from these three but I like them all. I suppose the USGI one would be the least fav because of the weight but it's also the one with a tritium faceplate.

 

[Nomad666]

OH Please let me know why one would need a compass living in the UK or the EU hell you just need to walk for 15 min and your at a pub and that was 40 years ago now..

Now in the middle of nowhere that's anyplace out of the UK or EU and you have seen a map of the area your going too you can then throw it away all you just need to know is the direction to go to a hwy city or road. learn how to tell north at night by stars or moon in daylight by the suns location you dont even have to put a darn stick in the ground to do it learn them skills and ditch the compass guys one less bit of junk you need to carry around with ya... you will learn dead reckoning fast...

 

[Alan De Enfield]

OH Please let me know why one would need a compass living in the UK or the EU hell you just need to walk for 15 min and your at a pub and that was 40 years ago now..

..

Its a sad fact that almost 25,000 pubs have closed in the last 40 years ( with11,000 pubs having closed down since the year 2000), the closure rate across the UK is still two-per-day.

That's a lot of 'waypoints' that have disappeared.

Drink-Driving laws, Smoking banned in buildings, Economy / disposable income down, brewery charging ridiculous rents etc etc. have all contributed.

 

[Riven]

Navigating by pub happens every Saturday night around our way.

 

[Billy-o]

It is true! The lager compass gets me home reliably. Well, most nights

Nomad666 ... you are a lucky soul. But seem to have missed much in life. I think everyone should enjoy the thrilling experience of getting turned around in the bush w/o a compass Should be a club you can join

I take your point like. But in BC where there's mountains and rivers everywhere maybe it isn't so confounding as over on the flatter east where, bushcrashing, or if you simply go off trail, suddenly everything looks the same.

The best part about rescue service on in the west of Canada is the crippling embarrassment one must feel if one has to get hauled out and the team discover you didn't have the right kit. Not an adventure I'd put myself through unnecessarily. You often go out compassless?

 

[woodsorrel]

Billy-o, I use an older Silva Ranger. It has a mirror, declination adjustment, works in both hemispheres, and the mirror folds down to cover the bezel. It looks very much like the Suunto in your picture. I like it a lot.

Pictures of my compass

- Woodsorrel

 

[Robson Valley]

The combination of visible mountains and logging roads (very few to follow) makes it really hard to get "lost" in British Columbia.
After all, less than 3% of this place is flat. Even if you step away 200m into a logged-off cut block. Assume nothing.
GPS needs power. GPS is blind in narrow mountain valleys.
Sudden snow storms can sweep through here like a fat paintbrush. Absolute silence.
Visibility is 20m, literally. How many times did I turn around? Which way is the road?
On the coast, the cloud may be hanging, literally, in the tree tops = it all looks the same.

A compass of any kind is a good thing to toss into the bag and leave it there.
Get away from metals, read it and trust it.
Hunt fewer places and get to know them, the odd details where trails meet and so on.
Carry a copy of the map. No moving parts, batteries not included.

 

[snappingturtle]

OH Please let me know why one would need a compass living in the UK or the EU hell you just need to walk for 15 min and your at a pub and that was 40 years ago now..

Now in the middle of nowhere that's anyplace out of the UK or EU and you have seen a map of the area your going too you can then throw it away all you just need to know is the direction to go to a hwy city or road. learn how to tell north at night by stars or moon in daylight by the suns location you dont even have to put a darn stick in the ground to do it learn them skills and ditch the compass guys one less bit of junk you need to carry around with ya... you will learn dead reckoning fast...

I have hiked the moors at night, map compass and a bearing is needed you have marsh land, mire's and floating carpets out that way and few places of habitation so no light pollution the nights can be black, utterly! So its good to know where you are, and a good skill be it needed or not.

 

[EdS]

OH Please let me know why one would need a compass living in the UK or the EU hell you just need to walk for 15 min and your at a pub and that was 40 years ago now..

Now in the middle of nowhere that's anyplace out of the UK or EU and you have seen a map of the area your going too you can then throw it away all you just need to know is the direction to go to a hwy city or road. learn how to tell north at night by stars or moon in daylight by the suns location you dont even have to put a darn stick in the ground to do it learn them skills and ditch the compass guys one less bit of junk you need to carry around with ya... you will learn dead reckoning fast...

Because none of them work in thick fog or whiteout.

Plenty of people have got in to serious trouble or worse due to not having them.

 

[Janne]

Nomad66, it is quite useful to be able to read a map, and navigate using one plus compass.
Lots of good info on maps.
Want to boil some water for a cuppa?
Chrck map, see what is upstreams. Maybe a farm with the septic emptying into the stream?
And one day you might want to venture into proper nature, maybe somewhere like the Swedish/Norwegian mountains...

 

[Robson Valley]

Buy a good compass. Silva, Suunto and Brunton are worth $50 - $100.
No batteries needed. Keep maps for magnetic declination.
My Recta was balanced for N hemisphere, no magnetic button like these days.
Next was 4 years of outback bush trips into the eastern mountains of Australia.
What a frustration but you soon understand what "Magnetic North" really means on the ground.

Just a couple of bits about the clinometer:
You don't need to do road lay-out at $1 million mile or forestry cut block lay out.
You mostly won't care about slope angle for avalanche risk.
Do it right and dig a snow pit for the layers.

Inside the rubber Brunton shock case (eraser for pencil marks on maps,)
is a stack of printed plastic cards of instructions. Fun to play with.
The Brunton 8099 booklet has 23 pages of explanations for the compass features.

Next compass for me? Probably the Silva Expedition.
I like the concept of a big & transparent base plate for mapping.
Don't ever blink at the price of a good compass.
It can put you back to the car in a blizzard better than any knife on earth.