On compasses as such

[rcaffin]

This is a summary of a recent quote from www.backpackinglight.com:

Grandpa (experienced walker) taking grandchildren bushwalking: boy 5 and girl 7. Trying to teach them how to use a conventional (magnetic) compass.
Boy: The compass isn't working!
Girl: of course not: there is no Internet here.

Cheers
Roger

[ChrisJHC]

[FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY]

[peregrinator]

This is a summary of a recent quote from http://www.backpackinglight.com:

Grandpa (experienced walker) taking grandchildren bushwalking: boy 5 and girl 7. Trying to teach them how to use a conventional (magnetic) compass.
Boy: The compass isn't working!
Girl: of course not: there is no Internet here.

Cheers
Roger

Alternate response: The battery must be flat.

[Lophophaps]

And there's no keyboard or screen. My first compass was prismatic, something like this:

FrancisBarkerM73Brass360.jpg (63.13 KiB) Viewed 10450 times

I then had a short Silva, a long Silva and finally around 1980 a Silva 15T, the one with a mirror and declination offset. The bubble is of no use for memory.

[rcaffin]

That looks a new one: very shiny.

I have an old one, genuinely ex WW II, with lots of brass tarnish. Not sure where I got it from, back in my Uni days. The thumb ring was broken on one side, there was a bubble in it, and the luminescent paint was faded, and a screw was missing somewhere. But the plate still worked, and it was still good to better than 0.5 degrees in field use. I had used it on several long exploratory SW Tassie walks.

I took it to work one day to see what I could do to restore it. That was a very smart move in hindsight. One of my staff (elderly toolmaker), saw it and exclaimed about its state. He offered to have it restored for me. It came back in most excellent condition: fully cleaned up, all optics polished, all broken bits fixed. How? I asked. Oh, he was ex-military from WW II and still had senior friends in the Army repair shop. He gave it to them for a favour. They had ALL the spares and the gear and the detailed knowledge!

That plus a 20 m surveyors tape and I surveyed our farm. I also surveyed a farm we did not buy: it turned out the salesman had it all wrong and was trying to sell us someone else's property! Amusing.

Cheers
Roger

[Lophophaps]

My prismatic compass was probably military, and not shiny at all. You did well to get the compass fixed. The Army repair shop probably enjoyed fixing the compass, taking it from broken to functional. I've never survey a property that I have bought as all were in built up areas. On farms and housing developments it's critical to survey as it's too easy to make a mistake. I read about one of the first houses built in a development. The builder put the house on the wrong block. Search for
House built in wrong place
and see the pain.

[slparker]

A genuine modern army brass prismatic is graduated in mils, not degrees, and they were painted over in olive drab or black. From memory the australian issue ones had the 'convict arrow' etched into them - denoting government issue and an NSN (nato stock number)

I am not sure how far back the use of mils (milliradians is) but I've read that the ADF adopted it post WW2 with NATO. WW2 were still in degrees I think so it is a handy rule of thumb to date an Army compass.

[Wollemi]

From my own facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... =680679306

A few years back I had an impending multi-day bushwalk coming up - but had busted my compass. Never mind, I shall be responsible and purchase another. I had a peek at eBay. Somebody had one for sale. I bid,... and nobody else did.

I said I lived in Sydney's north-west, and he said this was good as he lived in the north-west, too. I meant Richmond - he meant Terrey Hills.
I loaded a kayak onto my car due to the destination's proximity to water, and headed over to and along Mona Vale Rd. I parked where I was asked to and pressed the buzzer built into the tall brick wall of length. I walk down the bitumen driveway lined in yet-to-mature Grass Trees, some with their pretty spikes.

I am greeted well, into a very tall foyer, but quickly guided into a white, spotless, oversized shed constructed of painted besser blocks. I was in awe of the neat, long shelves of lightweight tents, mats, stoves and other accoutrements. Then my peripheral vision brought me to true wonder. I was standing by a recent model helicopter.

I was shown a photo of his prior rotary-winged craft at rest on a rock ledge by Federation Peak in snow. I was presented with a poster of the current aircraft. A well-known neighbour, from down the road, Dick, found the controls all too much of this machine designed and built by Europeans. Although I once held a fixed-wing pilots licence, I simply commented on the pretty livery of the three large, stylized Eucalyptus leaves on the body of the helicopter. Richard proudly told me that was his wife's design.

But now he had to leave me, presenting me with the compass, and me now feeling odd in giving him $35 cash to complete my only reason for being there. 'My wife, Carolyn, will show you out', bowed and clipped his heels.

By now I was somewhat fixed on the many pieces of large contemporary art, of oil on canvas, under a four-metre ceiling of the entrance hall to the house proper. A gnarled tree base of age, 1.5m in width sat at the bottom of a wall. I commented on the natural beauty, and was told it was collected in the Arnhem Land. A quick stop, and man-handling it onto the back seat, before zipping off. Just like the ephemeral shut-down in Tasmania's south-west World Heritage Area in winter.

Sitting in my car on my arrival home later that evening - the sighting mirror fell out and broke - but I continued to use the bezeled device anyway.

Not having heard of Richard Green previously, I later saw fold-out postcards for sale of the Nadgee Wilderness of New South Wales far-south coast, as taken for the South East Region Conservation Alliance, by Richard. These kinds of images certainly help with such regions preservation as presented to decision makers and the masses.

Interesting to think that the prominent image was taken while hovering, out over the sea, on auto-pilot... by a certain cool-headed man, highly organised and disciplined in his thinking.

Sadly, Richard and Carolyn Green died in their helicopter on the weekend [Edit; early November, 2015], along with a friend.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/thr ... kuq4u.html

http://www.richardgreen.net.au/photography