By: Blonde One
Copyright: Ordnance Survey 2017 and oscompass.com 2017
There’s one thing you can rely on teenagers for, and that’s finding tools online to help make life quicker and easier. The latest gadget that the Trinity Gold DofE team have introduced me to has saved them loads of time making their route cards and would have saved me hours and hours if I had known about it in the past.
It’s an online compass that will tell you the bearing from one point to another. As with all technology, it’s important to be able to use a compass the manual way, but when you know that you can, why not save yourself some time?
All you have to do with this compass is line up the baseplate between your 2 points and then read the bearing that’s displayed in the top right corner of the screen. Simple!
Beware though, it uses OS 1:50000 maps so the bearing is only accurate to a certain extent.
You must do some pretty intricate navigation with your desire for very accurate bearings. I see where I am on the map and look to where I want to go, usually a hidden stile across the other side of a large field, or higher up, a trig point. I then estimate to myself “it’s a bit east of north” then pick a relevant distant marker (hopefully not a sheep) by pointing the compass and march off. On rough terrain I find it almost impossible to walk on a very accurate compass bearing without a disproportionate number of stops and faffs , and my method seems to work, unless I have had the map upside down! BUT, you do right to train your charges properly.
DofE route cards require some precise details. I love your method too though!
That’s a very useful tool to work with at home, if you know where you intend to go, and it is probably more accurate than my home-made roamer, so thanks, B1. In the field I tend to change my plans and meander off to look at something more interesting on the next hill – – -. I used to be able to rely on K9 Shanty to take me back to the car. Her GPS was inbuilt and didn’t require a cantankerous machine. Sadly, none of my other K9s has been sufficiently interested in the car – they would only take me to rabbit holes.
I’ll pass your thanks on to my DofE group. Blonde Two and I often do the ‘meander’ off thing to find interesting looking things; it must be a family thing!