i'm so freaking bored!
 

i have been sitting at my house by myself for the last four days. shit you not, the only people i've seen in this time is my sister and her husband! they stopped by for like two minutes! normally i would like the quite but after this long i'm starting to talk to myself and answer myself! am i going fuckin crazy!?

No you're not, that's actually a sign of intelligence or so I keep telling myself. :p

Yes you are crazy - welcome to my world... mwah-ha-ha-ha

haha! well that makes me feel better!

the first sign of being crazy is hair on your palms.

The second sign of being crazy is looking for it!

I like that! I was always told that if you are crazy, you can draw a perfect circle. I tried it once, but apparently using a compass doesn't count. Oh well, at least the voices don't judge me. :p

What about a dinner plate?

I don't have voices, which makes me feel lonely sometimes, but that could be because I always wear tinfoil on my head to stop the govt from infiltrating my thoughts :p

I don't have to worry about our government messing with my mind, the whole lot couldn't find their arse with a map and compass.

voices in my head? check! hair on my palms? check! shitty government? double check! yep i'm screwed!

You are a silly person.... it is spelled "quiet", not "quite".

If you're unable to entertain yourself when bored, it's likely because you tend towards being boring. Most people with even a little spark are able to distract theselves from the silence between their ears BEFORE it becomes a howling vaccuum.

Just sayin'.

*giggle*

Can I use this one?

Of course, after all it's only fair. You gave me a good quote now I've given you one. Pleasure doing business with you. :)

i usually can entertain myself but after awhile it becomes to much to bare!

By the way, land navigation takes more equipment then a map and compass.

use the stars!

Thanks hun. The pleasure is all mine.


Versus, what else is used in land navigation - i've only ever used landmarks, map and compass.

What if you had to tell someone exactly where you were? "I'm east of this", "I'm that far this way from that" doesn't tell them, it just narrows down their search pattern. If someone had to know exactly where you are because they can't spend time or resources looking for you, they would not be able to with just the things you have been using.

A protractor lets you plot your exact coordinates on a map, so you could say it turns guess work into a science.

Does that help answer your question?

That's just complicating things, you don't need a protractor to navigate (unless you're at sea). Telling people where you are isn't navigation, it's simply relaying information. Besides, I don't fancy the idea of standing in a field with a map in one hand and a protractor in the other, where would the compass go? My mouth? All you really need is a map for landmarks and obstacles and a compass for direction.

Knowing exactly where you are, or something else is on a map is complicating things? That's retarded. Being able to communicate that information is a practical application of knowing where you are.

I'll try again, though. I want you to meet me at this building, but it's not marked on a map. Mission impossible? Obviously not. But how would you do it without a protractor?

Also, I find that carrying a map and protractor in the same hand is not a burden. However, I would recommend tying the compass to your person. And stuff.

I took courses on map reading and navigation in high school (ROTC) and I enjoy the fact that I am one of few (POSSIBLY) who could get practically anywhere with the right tools. One typical problem people need to be aware of when using maps and compasses are Magnetic North (MN) and True North (TN). Often this is what other students would mess up on when we had tests.
Most people use GPS but that only goes for so long, batteries die, connections get lost, technology fails. Crazy.

You're thinking Grid North, not True North. But yes, It's a perishable skill, for sure. This is a big part of my job, so it's pretty important that I know it well. I've seen a lot of people remember there is a point to the declination diagram, but not be able to remember when you add or subtract the difference. I know in places like Alaska the difference is 30 degrees or more, so it's fundamental to remember.

A GPS is essentially a form of Intersection/Resection, where you find the coordinates to an unknown point by taking two or more known points (satellites instead of known land marks), shoot an azimuth from those points to the unknown (or from the unknown to the known points, in the case of Resection), and where they intersect on the map is unknown grid coordinate, which is relayed to you via the GPS. The same thing a protractor and compass do.

Have you been to Alaska?:)

Oh fuck, I wish! It looks so beautiful there.

Why do you carry a protractor separately from a compass (if that's what you were saying)? I've always used a baseplate compass, then you don't need a separate protractor.

I'm pretty bad with compasses, which is why I'd always have to carry an eperb if I did any serious hiking/boating etc.

Must be my magnetic personality - yeah that was meant to be bad.

I laughed anyway. >_> I was reminded of those jokes on popsicle sticks.

But Raptor, this is what I was talking about.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...wL._SS500_.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA280_.jpg

I meant do they have any advantage over something like this:

http://www.motorcycle-uk.com/acatalog/expedition4.jpg

(or a more expensive model)

It looks like that compass you linked to has the same function as what I linked to. I don't understand the need for having two separate things, is it just more accurate or something?

On the compass side of things, you can't get as accurate an Azimuth with the one you linked because there isn't a peek hole (or is there? I can't tell), and it only has degrees. On the protractor, there isn't either degrees or mils on it, so every time you want to use it you need to orient your map to the compass... which is just silly. But aside from that, no, there is not missing functionality from having them combined.

No, there's no peek hole. There are similar compasses that do have them though. I'm not sure if the second one I linked to is one of them but it claims it has "precision sighting system, which allows for bearings accurate to +/- 0.5 degrees to be taken". That's a pretty high end baseplate compass too, and probably your type even beats that. They're cheaper though, at least they are here, and they look smaller and lighter judging by the pictures.

You don't have to line the map up with magnetic north each time to use it if that's what you meant, so you don't have to stand there spinning the map around. And turning the compass around on the map takes pretty much no time at all.

As far as the peek hole, there is a difference between holding it, and actually looking at whatever you're aiming at as well as the direction at the same time.+/- 0.5 may make a difference, depending on your start and end point. Obviously accuracy degrades over distance. That's why some like to use mils, because there are 17.5 mils in 1 degree. And if you were wondering, that compass and protractor I linked combined are about 16 USD combined. That's a lot cheaper.

Not exactly what I meant. You're right in that it takes the same time to turn a map to match a compass as it does to match a protractor with degrees on it. I meant that it would be a little more difficult to get that azimuth accuracy because you have to use a separate edge to connect the two points, which I think is a little bit of a hassle and a greater chance to slip from human error. Like when you mark distance on a piece of paper from the scale and place it on a map, it's easier to just use the protractor for most common distances. Anyway though, the one I linked has a hole in the center for a piece of string or wire so that you can plot the azimuth and at the same time have an edge to draw it. It's not essential, but it's very convenient.

Yeah you don't get the hole and wire with the baseplate type.

I think you're looking at some imitation compasses. The internet tells me that the US military use Cammenga brand, is that right? They sell them to the public for $95, or for $55 for the version without tritium. Maybe you can get them a bit cheaper elsewhere but I wouldn't have thought the price would be much different unless you're looking at second hand stuff. As for the +/- 0.5 deg, it looks like that's better than the military spec which Cammenga have to follow (+/- 40 mils). It's likely they do better than 40 mils but they don't give an actual error value on their website. That compass with +/-0.5 deg is pretty much $95 though so they're fairly similar.

I'd probably get the compass in my first link, it doesn't have a sighting system but that would still be accurate enough for me going hiking and it's the equivalent of $30. There are even cheaper variants but they're lacking in markings.