Declination kills me until i do it in the field. I cant teach it well but i can show it... make sense?
Declination kills me until i do it in the field. I cant teach it well but i can show it... make sense?
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you there.Originally Posted by cellis
And "East is least and west is best" has to be about the most unhelpful mnemonic ever coined.
Instead of approaching it as a matter of "doing math", as it were, what worked for me was to just too study and absorb a map like this...
DeclinationMap_US.jpg
The map lets me see how declination works, and I can always picture how my needle is naturally going to veer east or west, depending on which side of the agonic line I'm on. Once you've got this in your head, when you're out in the field actually doing it -- like Schnick says -- you can fairly easily correct for declination by a thought process like "OK, I know declination is 7 degrees... I'm east of the agonic line, so my compass needle is veering <--- that way, toward the agonic line. I'll compensate by adding 7 degrees ---> that way."
Last edited by BradGad; 12-06-2012 at 10:52 AM.
Eschew obfuscation!
This site will give you you're current declination. Helpful if you're using an old topo.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/Declination.jsp
Last edited by AnthonySmithXR; 12-06-2012 at 11:40 AM.
I thought 'east least, west best' had to do with converting grid north to magnetic north or vise versa. If the you want magnetic north on the map and it's east of grid north, subtract, if it's west, add. I may be way off though, I'm very new to navigation.
Last edited by AnthonySmithXR; 12-06-2012 at 11:53 AM.
It's interesting to compare the 2010 map to one made in the 90's.
Back then the agonic line passed thru the NW tip of Florida and passed thru NE Minnesota. It's shifted some in the years...
Yeah.. If I dont have a compass in front of me, I'm confused. E
asy for me though, instead of 5 degrees east, in a few weeks I'll be 5 degrees west! LOL
Watch me get it wrong the first time out... HEH HEH!
Looks like I know what I am doing on my Three day weekend. Thanks for all the videos
Declination
...
Last edited by BradGad; 12-12-2012 at 01:04 PM.
Keep the good info coming folks!
Last edited by Shnick; 12-12-2012 at 03:20 PM.
Iz a trick I read in a book (could not find it but will edit so they get the credit) for a back azimuth is too just box the south end of the needle as north. I had not heard the LARS rule before that is way easier to remember then the "East is least and West is best" thing. Thanks for your videos.
Great thread, Shnick. I'll give a +1 to Kellstrom's book as well. Most compass and orienteering folk I know wax poetic about the book .... and it was a useful primer for me as well.
A good addition to this thread would be smartphone navigation apps (for iPhone and Droid). I wish I had the time to go into detail about my fave iPhone apps. But that will have to wait for another day.
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