What's up with this compass?

[fourfive8]

Wow! instructions for using a strip of magnesium for burning and activating the phosphorescent material! Actually very cool! Yep, all that James Bond stuff sounds cool but in reality??? Noneltheless great for making conversation.

Forester's or staff compasses look something like this and maybe range in diameter from 4-8 or 10 inches. The old ones IIRC are usually brass. I used one on a job many moons ago They still make them but they are north of $500-600.

This lensatic pocket compass is the one I carry in my day pack when hunting. It is about 3" x 2 1/2". It is a milsurp repro of high quality. IIRC, I paid about $60 for it 30 or so years ago. Most of these run between $20 and $250 depending on if they are real gov contract or repro. The real ones currently have tritium dots/illumination and are in that $250 range. IMO a late 60s early 70s real milsurp gov contract lensatic pocket compass in good shape would be both very usable and have collector value at the same time.

BTW, this compass accounted for navigating through about 2 miles of scrub spruce and willow choked tundra to a very nice moose.

 

[fourfive8]

By using this simple calculator, https://www.magnetic-declination.com, you can find the declination from any location. Canada is in charge of continually updating the magnetic north pole location and field strength information. Other calculators may use lat-lon or UTM coordinates.

So if out in the field orienteering on a map, find the closest town to the center of the map (or lat-lon or UTM, whichever the case) enter into the calculator and add the declination and date to the margin on the map. Many maps already have that info noted in the margin but chances are it is out of date. IIRC the magnetic north pole has been wandering around at about 50 km per year.

For example- the current magnetic declination if in Fairbanks AK is: 16 deg,19 min +East.

 

[CBeck]

Its an aiming compass which is used to show your direction of travel by having the rose reversed.

When you are sighting directly North, the compass needle will point to North. If you turn 90 degrees to your right, you will be sighting due East, but the compass needle rotated 90 degrees to the left, which reads E on a Reversed rose but on a standard compass the needle points to W when you are faced East.

Clear as mud…..I’m a forester and I use a standard Silva Ranger model compas

 

[norfolk shooter]

You chaps have it all tied up. I have come too late to the party once again. We once used a sextant (pre GPS system) to navigate on an exercise in the Jordanian desert. Took a bit of getting your head around but once you did the are bloody accurate. Coupled with a marching compass and away we went for 2 months of manoeuvres.