h a l f b a k e r yRecalculations place it at 0.4999.
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Compasses... They fucking suck. To ensure even moderate accuracy, they must be liquid-filled, with a good hinge, and a nearly free-floating needle.
A good compass includes a fancy split mirror, an adjustment screw, and 360 degrees of markings around the edge.
Good compasses are used for going
into the moutains, and then heading back home. This produces pressure changes, which cause leaks to arise in the liquid-filled housing.
Any quality of compass will, within the first year of use outside of the plains, develop an air bubble. This allows oxygen, and moisture to get into the compass housing, and in a few years, the needles will begin to corrode.
You then have a fancy split mirror, 360 degree swiveling card, and an adjustment needle, but nothing but a pile of rust in the middle to tell you where to go.
One would think that a species which can travel to the moon would be able to make a simple piece of field equippment to last longer than a decade, but apparently there is something in the complexity of making a liquid-filled void with a needle in it that precludes this possibility.
Thankfully, Virtucom is proud to announce the next best thing: The replaceable ranger.
Our high-class compasses come in two parts: One contains all the bells and whistles. The other contains the needle in it's flimsy water-filled container. These two components fit together in only one position, the right one, so that when the liquid filled void inevitably craps out, you can just get a new one of those, instead of spending so much money for an all new high-end compass.
BTOutdoor Military Engineer Style Lensatic Compass
http://www.overstoc...944&ci_sku=10448825
[21 Quest, Jul 05 2009]
Review of electronic compass technologies
http://www.edn.com/...96/031496/06df2.htm
Fluxgate, etc. [csea, Jul 10 2009]
[link]
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I have a decent lensatic compass my grandpa got me for my 7th birthday, and it still works reliably and accurately after nearly 20 years. It's not even an expensive one, it's got a cheap plastic housing that just happens to be tougher than an old boot. Sorry mate, but you've proposed a solution to a problem that to my knowledge doesn't exist. |
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I don't believe this is an appropriate solution. In 2009, we
must be able to build a hand-held solid-state device which
can detect and indicate the direction of the Earth's magnetic
field, and which need not depend on GPS for that matter. |
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My (only) compass seems only to point south east, rather than north as it obviously should. I thought ... 'odd, but probably it's just crap'. |
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Then I watched a doccie on Earth potentially flipping magnetic poles which appeared to show a small region of reversed polarity already existing over where I live. |
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So maybe the compass isn't crap after all ... it's the planet?? |
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Sorry, I'm with 21Q, my mom is an avid hiker and I am a lesser one, but she gave me her compass which she used since the early sixties and I used it 5 years ago to climb Mount Washington. I'll have to dig it up to find the maker, but it is in perfect shape. Maybe you have bigger mountains where you are then here in the NE US, but if you start with a sturdy aluminum housing and seal on a good glass face I'll bet that would be good to the edge of space.
If not, See if TAG makes a compass, my watch is water tight everywhere. |
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For some reason I keep reading this as "Replaceable Anger". |
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It's not all compasses that are crap, it's just anything manufactured in the last twenty years or so. Everything seems designed to only last a season anymore. It disgusts me. |
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I dug my old compass out of my closet today. I don't know what brand it is, bit it's black and on the top of the cover it says "ENGINEER" above the front sight, and just below the front sight it says "LENSATIC COMPASS". After a Google search, however, it appears that "engineer" is a type of compass and not a brand. |
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Edit: I found one on overstock.com that looks identical to mine. WIll post a link. |
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//For some reason I keep reading this as "Replaceable Anger".// |
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It's probably because I wrote it that way. |
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Not meaning that I typed in "Replaceable anger," but that I had just started checking my gear, and the $40 compass I was told to get last year, because "It'll last you a lifetime" hasa bubble in it. I used the damned thing for exactly four weeks before neatly wrapping it's lanyard around it, and stashing it in an air conditioned room. |
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I've seen (what look to me like) "high-end" compasses, and always wondered what the whole mirror/split window thing was all about, could someone explain? |
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[zen_tom]: the mirror is for looking straight ahead, at some landmark,holding your compass straight out in front of you. Now this normally would preclude you from seeing the needle simultaneously, so there is a 45° mirror underneath it, enabling you to do that. Further fun features include additional mirrors for aquiring targets 90° to your current position simultaneously, sights, and much more. |
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[ye_river_xiv]: There are many good compasses with a bubble inside - the bubble achieves a modicum of pressure-buffer for changing outside temperatures. possibly a case of [problem widely known to not exist]... |
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I still don't see the advantage of a magnetic needle over an
electronic compass - is there one? |
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Your batteries wont run out? (Unless your solid-state compass can operate on ambient sources of energy) |
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It's the usual analog-over-digital. As soon as the digital technology has enough resolution, and the display of information has a comparable signal to noise ratio at an equal price, digital will rule. But it is not this day... |
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Hmm. The iPhone has a compass app that's good to maybe a
couple of degrees (subject to surrounding disturbances - as is
an analogue compass). I find it hard to believe that a custom
solid-state compass isn't as accurate as a needle, but maybe
you're right. |
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Also, this problem has surely been solved in light aircraft,
which have floaty compasses that go up and down with the
plane, no? |
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ye_river, what's wrong with the bubble? Mine has a bubble, and has had one for as long as I can remember, and it works great after nearly 20 years. |
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compass newbie here... why does it have to be in liquid ? |
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