My main motivation for writing these pages is to let people have the same nice experiences I have had when I have been, well, nowhere… Places you see just by coincidence. The compass is an indispensable tool to find your way home, or to go nowhere.
The pages have moved!
As returning visitors may have noticed, these pages are now to be found at www.myopencountry.com. I ask all who have bookmarks or links to the old addresses to update as soon as possible (the address you now have is the new one). For now, you will find the interesting stuff from this page at the URL https://www.myopencountry.com/navigation/, but as the old
-word indicates, I have great plans to extend the scope of these tutorials, and when that happens, you will find everything from the main index page. For most of you, you will find the most interesting links from this page, so read on!
Foreword
This tutorial is intended for individuals and non-profit organizations, and may be printed out and used free of charge as long as my name is on it.
I hope these pages will help people enjoy and learn more about our beautiful earth.
When you are going to use this tutorial, it is essential that you have a compass in your hand. If you are teaching a class of kids, they should each have a compass, or at least have compasses with them.
Then you have to use it. First, go out in your backyard. Well, you’ll need a place covered by a map. Then try it out, on just a short distance, hundred meters or yards or so. Then go for greater and greater challenges, and soon, you’ll hopefully be able to travel safely in unfamiliar terrain.
Receive E-mail announcements!
As things are slowly progressing forward with my new plans for this site, a new mailing list is now online. It is intended for announcements only, so by signing up, you will not be overwhelmed by lots of e-mail. So do sign up!. You will be asked to enter your e-mail and write a password twice. Then, you will receive an e-mail asking for confirmation, that you must respond to. This is to prevent anybody from signing you up against your will.
And now, to the lessons:
Credibility on the Internet is a growing problem. Here’s a few words about the author of this tutorial.
There are a few people on the net I would like to thank, and in particular Denzil Broadhurst for helping me with my language.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to answer many questions these days, but if you have access to the USENET, you could try the newsgroup rec.sport.orienteering.
Other languages:
These pages has been translated to other languages:
- To German by Peter Gierlach of the DF3KT:
Links
The internet is full of pages that only contains links to other pages, that again contains links to other pages. These pages is intended to give you the information you are looking for, not the links. So read the above. Explaining how to read a map is a very complex issue, and none of the sites below explains it fully. Maybe you should try asking a human? Nevertheless, I have a few relevant links:
- Want to see where this knowledge about compasses took me? Check my Mountain picture gallery.
- Orienteering for the Young in USA.
- Heather Williams Orienteering page. Lots of good information.
- Chasetrek compass tutorial.
- How a Compass works. A nice page that explains pretty good how a compass works.
- Canadian National Geomagnetism Program has a good site with among other things, a declination calculator.
- Spider Canyon Maps & Navigation. A series of articles about land navigation.
- Using the moon to find north.
- Declination FAQ has a longer explanation about dealing with declination.
- Staying found in the Wilderness. A general description.
- Map Reading the Army Way covers some ground I have not covered here, such as using a lensatic compass.
- Jan Kocbach’s extensive orienteering directory.
