Boy Scouts question

[Hawkmoon]

Back when I was a Boy Scout (shortly after the signing on the Magna Carta), the compass used for land navigation was (IIRC) a variant of a pocket lensatic compass. I'm fairly certain that the flat plastic, see-through compasses that are optimized for layin out a course on a paper map weren't even on the radar.

For anyone who is currently a troop advisor or who has a child who is active in scouting: do the Boy Scouts even teach land navigation (or "orienteering")these days? If so, is there an official or preferred compass, or type of compass?

[230RN]

I'm pretty sure my older brother had a see-through compass in the fifties.  He was interested in (helmet) diving and had all kinds of charts of the waters around New York City.  I think the compass thing grew out of that interest.

Nowadays, with the Poles shifting around the way they are ("40 km per year"), is magnetic orientation even relevant?

There are some interesting articles on the subject.  Here's one:

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml

Those maps kind of remind me of a top spinning down.

<wisecrack>
All we need as a final zinger from 2020 is for the poles to shift on us.
</wisecrack>

You heard it here first.

Terry, 230RN

[kgbsquirrel]

I'm pretty sure my older brother had a see-through compass in the fifties.  He was interested in (helmet) diving and had all kinds of charts of the waters around New York City.  I think the compass thing grew out of that interest.

Nowadays, with the Poles shifting around the way they are ("40 km per year"), is magnetic orientation even relevant?

There are some interesting articles on the subject.  Here's one:

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml

Those maps kind of remind me of a top spinning down.

<wisecrack>
All we need as a final zinger from 2020 is for the poles to shift on us.
</wisecrack>

You heard it here first.

Terry, 230RN

Well, on the flip side, after a pole reversal you would be able to sell your old compass as a vintage historical relic from the days Before. 

[230RN]

^ "Well, on the flip side, after a pole reversal... "

Very good. :)

[T.O.M.]

Yes, they still teach orienteering.  Still a merit badge.  They use the clear plastic compasses, mainly because they are cheap enough to buy in numbers, and good enough to get things done.

[Hawkmoon]

Does the American military still use the classic lensatic compass?

https://www.brunton.com/blogs/blog/how-to-use-a-lensatic-compass

[Andiron]

Does the American military still use the classic lensatic compass?

https://www.brunton.com/blogs/blog/how-to-use-a-lensatic-compass

We used that for land nav in MCT,  but that was a while ago and I never saw one in the fleet.  I did have an LT desperately trying to get signal on a DAGR holding it out the tiny little window of an up armored humvee one time.  lol.

[230RN]

For grins:

Small compass in endcap of handle of inexpensive Harbor Freight survival knife, see attachment below.

Actually works pretty good, very responsive.

Only problem is the handle itself happens to be strongly magnetic which throws the little compass off by almost 45° in this setup.  End of knife handle is on left, throwing off the little compass. The compass "pointer" is actually the whole compass face.  North is actually toward the bottom of the image.
  
I have no idea how come the handle itself got magnetized.  It also holds some fishing line, a couple of matches,  match-striking material, a fish hook and some differently-colored thread hanks.  I presume there's a needle in there, too, but I never looked since it's all in a transparent waterproof package.

I wonder if the Orienteering classes warn folks to be aware of other things on their person which might be magnetic.  Like hatchet heads, e.g.

Since it's a survival knife,  I also put a $20 bill in the handle.  With inflation, though, I'm thinking I ought to change that to a C-note.

The knife itself seems rather serviceable... nothing to brag about at around $10.00, but... serviceable, and if you drop it in the lake, you won't feel too bad about leaving it there.

Grins.

Terry, 230RN

REF:
https://www.harborfreight.com/8-in-survivalhunting-knife-61733.html

[Hawkmoon]

For grins:

Small compass in endcap of handle of inexpensive Harbor Freight survival knife, see attachment below.

Actually works pretty good, very responsive.

I had one of those. The compass was useless, and I eventually removed it and filled in the space with epoxy.

The knife itself seems rather serviceable... nothing to brag about at around $10.00, but... serviceable, and if you drop it in the lake, you won't feel too bad about leaving it there.

Except for the aforementioned C note ...

[Ben]

I did have an LT desperately trying to get signal on a DAGR holding it out the tiny little window of an up armored humvee one time.  lol.

I had to look that up. We used a PLGR on a few joint ops with the Navy in the late 90s, with a big scary briefing about what would happen to us if we talked about the tech in detail with unauthorized persons. I think my current Garmin watch outperforms the Plugger. 

Of course back then, Selective Availability was still active, and my civilian handheld GPS was +-100 meters without me doing some time consuming point collection and math to correct it down a little bit, and the one I had that got down to single digit PA was a big ass backpack unit. The Plugger capabilities down to single digits PA in a handheld at the time were pretty awesome. I think they're still used to some degree today.

[Andiron]

I had to look that up. We used a PLGR on a few joint ops with the Navy in the late 90s, with a big scary briefing about what would happen to us if we talked about the tech in detail with unauthorized persons. I think my current Garmin watch outperforms the Plugger. 

Of course back then, Selective Availability was still active, and my civilian handheld GPS was +-100 meters without me doing some time consuming point collection and math to correct it down a little bit, and the one I had that got down to single digit PA was a big ass backpack unit. The Plugger capabilities down to single digits PA in a handheld at the time were pretty awesome. I think they're still used to some degree today.

The progression of tech has been both awesome (in your case) and terrifying to watch.  The shrinking of something that was either vehicle or backpack mounted down to something you can wear on a wrist.. Just cool.

[T.O.M.]

When I was still working with the local Scout unit, there were several adult volunteers who were Army/Marine vets.  So teaching land navigation was done fairly often.  A few of us had the lensatic compasses.  And yes, we warned the kids to keep the compass away from magnetic/metallic items for accuracy.

As to military navigation these days, last summer I had beers with two of the troop's Eagle Scouts who were both freshly minted Army butter bars through Army ROTC.  Both indicated that land nav involved map and compass, and were thankful for the experience they gained in the Scout troop. 

[230RN]

About a year ago someone mentioned that the Navy was now giving special training on old fashioned navigation.  As in with chronographs and sextants and ephemerises and astronomical charts for both N and S hemispheres and all like that there stuff.

I thought they did that anyhow, but apparently this was a newish thing.

[Hawkmoon]

I bought a couple of cheap Lensatic compasses to keep in my get home bags. They seems to work.

I discovered that my late wife's old iPhone 4 has a compass app on it, and I've downloaded a couple of compass apps on my old Samsung Galaxy SIII phone and my ZTE "burner" phone. None of them are currently in service as phones, but I keep them around for messing with apps so I don't clog up the phone I actually carry as a phone. I'll head out today and see how they work.

The one on the burner phone will be especially interesting, since that phone doesn't have a magnetometer. So the compass can't work in magnetic mode, it's strictly going to be GPS. And that means it can only give a heading if I'm moving. The question will be whether walking is fast enough, or if I'll have to be in a vehicle to go fast enough.

All the apps I've installed also read out the latitude and longitude. I was a bit surprised, though, that when I called up the USGS quadrangle maps that include my street (my house sits almost exactly on the line between two quadrangles), the grids aren't marked in latitude and longitude. The grid is apparently some gummint standard grid system that must make sense to someone, but not to me. The military maps I recall from land navigation class during AIT were (IIRC) marked in degrees of latitude and longitude.

[dogmush]

About a year ago someone mentioned that the Navy was now giving special training on old fashioned navigation.  As in with chronographs and sextants and ephemerises and astronomical charts for both N and S hemispheres and all like that there stuff.

I thought they did that anyhow, but apparently this was a newish thing.

They had stopped for a while, but started back up.  The Army always included Celestial Navigation as part of their training to command ocean going vessels.  In addition to the tradition and "Good Seamanship" issues, between a bunch of the "GPS" sats being Russian now, and the thoughts of advanced cyper war knocking out or spoofing our GPS sats there's concern for quality of navigation during hostilities.

Most of the older radio navigation aids (ADF, LORAN and the like) don't exist to fall back on anymore, so if you loose GPS, and don't have an Inertial Nav System, the next step is mag compass, bearings and stars.

[Ron]

I'm pretty sure my older brother had a see-through compass in the fifties.  He was interested in (helmet) diving and had all kinds of charts of the waters around New York City.  I think the compass thing grew out of that interest.

Nowadays, with the Poles shifting around the way they are ("40 km per year"), is magnetic orientation even relevant?

There are some interesting articles on the subject.  Here's one:

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml

Those maps kind of remind me of a top spinning down.

<wisecrack>
All we need as a final zinger from 2020 is for the poles to shift on us.
</wisecrack>

You heard it here first.

Terry, 230RN

Just recently I was going out to scout out an off trail area on a dayhike. The area is notoriously overgrown with buckthorn and honeysuckle and it's easy to get turned around.

I pulled out my old Brunton type 15 compass to reset the declination. I assumed with the radical shifting of the magnetic north pole it would be off quite a bit. I don't think I've monkeyed with it for quite a while.

Surprisingly it was pretty much right where it was supposed to be within a degree. One degree isn't that big a deal if you aren't actually using it on a map and just holding it in your hand.  

[Hawkmoon]

All the apps I've installed also read out the latitude and longitude. I was a bit surprised, though, that when I called up the USGS quadrangle maps that include my street (my house sits almost exactly on the line between two quadrangles), the grids aren't marked in latitude and longitude. The grid is apparently some gummint standard grid system that must make sense to someone, but not to me. The military maps I recall from land navigation class during AIT were (IIRC) marked in degrees of latitude and longitude.

Found it. Apparently as of 1977 the USCGS folks went over to the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid system.

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-are-utm-coordinates-measured-usgs-topographic-maps?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

I'll have to see if any of these compass apps have an option to read out in UTM coordinates.

[230RN]

Just recently I was going out to scout out an off trail area on a dayhike. The area is notoriously overgrown with buckthorn and honeysuckle and it's easy to get turned around.

I pulled out my old Brunton type 15 compass to reset the declination. I assumed with the radical shifting of the magnetic north pole it would be off quite a bit. I don't think I've monkeyed with it for quite a while.

Surprisingly it was pretty much right where it was supposed to be within a degree. One degree isn't that big a deal if you aren't actually using it on a map and just holding it in your hand.  

The "inaccuracy" depends a lot on whether you are at right angles (or at some angle)  to the path the pole is taking.  If you are directly on the line it is taking or nearly so it doesn't matter that much.

When I first got out to Colorado, I recall checking the error (I don't know why they call it the declination) because of the vast untracked areas in the mountains and it was 8° --I forget which direction.  More recently it was 13°, and I think lately it has gone down again.

I think "declination" is probably inappropriate.  Declination to me means an up-down angle, as in "decline" or "incline."  I'd prefer "azimuthal error."  The "declination" (up-down angle) of the pole here is/was about 20° down IIRC.

Terry

[dogmush]

All the apps I've installed also read out the latitude and longitude. I was a bit surprised, though, that when I called up the USGS quadrangle maps that include my street (my house sits almost exactly on the line between two quadrangles), the grids aren't marked in latitude and longitude. The grid is apparently some gummint standard grid system that must make sense to someone, but not to me. The military maps I recall from land navigation class during AIT were (IIRC) marked in degrees of latitude and longitude.

Did you go to AIT with Alvin York?  We've use Military Grid Reference System (100,000 meter grids with up to 10 digits for location up to 1 sqm accuracy) for military maps since the late 40's or so. There was some messing about with the datums they are based on, but the MGRS maps have been standard for a long time.

FWIW I can make my Garmin Fenix 5 spit out MGRS, UTM, USNG*, or LAT/LONG depending on what map I have with me, so I'd be pretty surprised if any capable nav tool couldn't be configured to do so.  [Pretty much] All the coordinate systems are based on WGS 84 datum anyway.

*For that matter, are you sure it isn't United States National Grid (USNG)?  That's a (up to) 10 digit grid that overlays UTM in the US and is what I normally see on USGS maps.  A USGS 1 Meter location will look like this: 18S UJ 23371 06519 whereas a UTM Grid will look like this: 17N 630084 4833438

[charby]

I was a 1985-1992 Boyscout, we used a Silva compass similar to this one.



As our orienteering skills got better, where we would go bench mark to bench mark on public property, we graduated to a lensatic compass for point to point orienteering. I had a military one with tritium on the needle I picked up at a army surplus store, it was great for point to point and dead reckoning. The Silva was way easier with using a topo map.

[Ron]

Did you go to AIT with Alvin York?  We've use Military Grid Reference System (100,000 meter grids with up to 10 digits for location up to 1 sqm accuracy) for military maps since the late 40's or so. There was some messing about with the datums they are based on, but the MGRS maps have been standard for a long time.

FWIW I can make my Garmin Fenix 5 spit out MGRS, UTM, USNG*, or LAT/LONG depending on what map I have with me, so I'd be pretty surprised if any capable nav tool couldn't be configured to do so.  [Pretty much] All the coordinate systems are based on WGS 84 datum anyway.

*For that matter, are you sure it isn't United States National Grid (USNG)?  That's a (up to) 10 digit grid that overlays UTM in the US and is what I normally see on USGS maps.  A USGS 1 Meter location will look like this: 18S UJ 23371 06519 whereas a UTM Grid will look like this: 17N 630084 4833438

Are the grid lines the same on Military Grid Reference System maps as UTM maps?

I know they use a different numbering system but I never determined if the grid lines are the same.

[K Frame]

I have to admit... my scout troop was woefully unprepared with that stuff, which was really bad, because the Fathers of at least two, and possibly three, of the Scouts in our troop (my Father was one) were surveyors.

[Ben]

FWIW I can make my Garmin Fenix 5 spit out MGRS, UTM, USNG*, or LAT/LONG depending on what map I have with me, so I'd be pretty surprised if any capable nav tool couldn't be configured to do so.  [Pretty much] All the coordinate systems are based on WGS 84 datum anyway.

I've not seen any GPS app or device that wouldn't let you switch between at least several systems and LAT/LONG as Dd, DMS, and DMm.

[dogmush]

Are the grid lines the same on Military Grid Reference System maps as UTM maps?

I know they use a different numbering system but I never determined if the grid lines are the same.

I confess, I don't remember.  I haven't seen a map with the straight UTM grid in decades.  I *think* the longitude zones are the same, but MGRS uses latitude bands, and UTM uses......something else.  I don't remember.  I also remember that MGRS sometimes has grids that cross latitude bands for.....some NATO reason.

[Ron]

Looks like the grids are the same.

I looked at the grid reader cards and they reference that they are for both systems.