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Can you use a compass for geocaching


TheGreatHunter01

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Short answer.... no. Not effectively, IMHO. The level of accuracy you need just isn't there with map/compass.....

There is the odd cache where the hide is obvious looking at the satellite view, so for these you may get by without a phone or GPS.

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Short answer.... no. Not effectively, IMHO. The level of accuracy you need just isn't there with map/compass.....

There is the odd cache where the hide is obvious looking at the satellite view, so for these you may get by without a phone or GPS.

 

Now how can you say that when orienteering courses hit targets no larger than a cache from distances that are probably longer than the average cache is from a parking location. It's certainly going to be more challenging, but with a cache with a good description, it can be done.

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I've done orienteering for a few years and when people ask if geocaching is like orienteering I have to say no. Reason is pretty much as VP mentioned. How does one input coordinates to a compass? Coordinates don't come into it when orienteering. Some people geocache successfully just by downloading and printing out a map but that's not orienteering as no compass is needed.

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Can you use a compass to geocache?
Yes, I can. I found hundreds of geocaches with maps, satellite photos, and occasionally a compass (especially on multi-caches). The link provided by cerberus1 explains the basics of navigating without a GPS receiver.

 

And no, they weren't all urban/suburban traditional caches where you could see the bush/lamppost in the satellite image.

 

How does one input coordinates to a compass?
You don't. You enter bearings into a compass. But you knew that already, right?

 

To get coordinates from a map, you need reference points with known coordinates. Good maps can do that. Online satellite photos can do that. Sometimes the landmarks that are visible in the satellite images aren't at GZ. It isn't orienteering, but it isn't just walking up to the bush/lamppost indicated in the satellite image either.

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Can you use a compass to geocache?

One could. I personally would not. The whole point of geocaching is harnessing the power of GPS navigation to hide and find containers or locations. Yes, map navigation is still feasible, but it's like Morse code or semaphore: yeah, you can still do it the old way, but given that technology has given us an easier way, it's decidedly more convenient to put it to good use.

 

I say that even though one of the basic skills my employer requires of me and my approximately 1 million work colleagues is to navigate using a map, a compass, a pace count, and terrain analysis. Granted, I don't have many opportunities or requirements to execute land navigation during my day to day responsibilities running a base legal office. However, I wear camouflage to work every day, so it's part of the job. (And sure, if Charlie's coming through the wire or ambushing one's convoy, it's good to know such things.)

 

As to how, the second link might help. Or, Field Manual 3.25-26 is probably available in some corner of the interwebs.

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The longest currently-active cacher in North Carolina, david&diana, always has a compass with her. I usually cache with her on the weekend, so have plenty of opportunity to see her working with it. Her system works well. I don't think she trusts the GPS receiver's compass, and I can't blame her for that. I usually use the GPS receiver's compass while in motion, and that's fairly accurate. Her compass is handy on some letterboxes. (If I need anything specific, I can use the compass on my Tissot T-Touch watch, but I usually just project a waypoint.)

 

If you wanted to use gear other than a GPSr for caching, I'd suggest just looking at the cache's position on Google's satellite view and going from there. If you're trying to find something in a forest, you'd have to find a landmark on satellite view, get the coordinates from satellite view, and use the JavaScript Great Circle Calculator to get a distance and bearing between the landmark's and cache's coordinates. You could then go out in the field with only a compass, find the landmark, and then walk to the cache. Your dead reckoning might be good enough.

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I've done orienteering for a few years and when people ask if geocaching is like orienteering I have to say no. Reason is pretty much as VP mentioned. How does one input coordinates to a compass? Coordinates don't come into it when orienteering. Some people geocache successfully just by downloading and printing out a map but that's not orienteering as no compass is needed.

 

Eh, I have to disagree. I've done some orienteering where we were given coordinates to our destination and had to navigate to them with map and compass. Granted, the coordinates are usually given in UTM and we are carrying a map with a resolution better than 1:24000 and travelling not much more than a quarter mile or so, but it CAN be done. It's just that a GPS takes a lot of the manual work out of orienteering including giving you your location a bit more precisely than triangulation with known landmarks can, and calculating your bearing on the fly, updating it as you go. So, yes, geocaching is more suited for use with a GPS, but a well-placed hide with a good description could be pulled off with a good map and a compass.

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I've done orienteering for a few years and when people ask if geocaching is like orienteering I have to say no. Reason is pretty much as VP mentioned. How does one input coordinates to a compass? Coordinates don't come into it when orienteering. Some people geocache successfully just by downloading and printing out a map but that's not orienteering as no compass is needed.

 

Eh, I have to disagree. I've done some orienteering where we were given coordinates to our destination and had to navigate to them with map and compass. Granted, the coordinates are usually given in UTM and we are carrying a map with a resolution better than 1:24000 and travelling not much more than a quarter mile or so, but it CAN be done. It's just that a GPS takes a lot of the manual work out of orienteering including giving you your location a bit more precisely than triangulation with known landmarks can, and calculating your bearing on the fly, updating it as you go. So, yes, geocaching is more suited for use with a GPS, but a well-placed hide with a good description could be pulled off with a good map and a compass.

 

I'm with Mineral2. As above, I and a million of my coworkers are expected to be able to do this at the drop of a hat with a compass, topo map (1:25,000 is luxurious; usually it's 1:50,000), protractor, pace count, and pencil, and yes, it is not only possible, but Soldiers do it every day.

 

(That said, again, I prefer GPSr, as it is decidedly more convenient.)

Edited by hzoi
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I've done orienteering for a few years and when people ask if geocaching is like orienteering I have to say no. Reason is pretty much as VP mentioned. How does one input coordinates to a compass? Coordinates don't come into it when orienteering. Some people geocache successfully just by downloading and printing out a map but that's not orienteering as no compass is needed.

 

Eh, I have to disagree. I've done some orienteering where we were given coordinates to our destination and had to navigate to them with map and compass. Granted, the coordinates are usually given in UTM and we are carrying a map with a resolution better than 1:24000 and travelling not much more than a quarter mile or so, but it CAN be done. It's just that a GPS takes a lot of the manual work out of orienteering including giving you your location a bit more precisely than triangulation with known landmarks can, and calculating your bearing on the fly, updating it as you go. So, yes, geocaching is more suited for use with a GPS, but a well-placed hide with a good description could be pulled off with a good map and a compass.

 

I'm with Mineral2. As above, I and a million of my coworkers are expected to be able to do this at the drop of a hat with a compass, topo map (1:25,000 is luxurious; usually it's 1:50,000), protractor, pace count, and pencil, and yes, it is not only possible, but Soldiers do it every day.

 

(That said, again, I prefer GPSr, as it is decidedly more convenient.)

When I was doing orienteering there were no GPSrs and we never used coordinates. We were given a map then copied controls from a master map then off we went, map and compass in hand.

I was in the military many years ago and went through all the map reading/navigation/compass use and intervisibility determination using topographic maps and also worked with military surveyors so I am familiar with compass navigation.

OK, so compass use can/may come into geocaching but why would you - as per Morse code example given. (I also qualified as a military Morse operator).

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I've done orienteering for a few years and when people ask if geocaching is like orienteering I have to say no. Reason is pretty much as VP mentioned. How does one input coordinates to a compass? Coordinates don't come into it when orienteering. Some people geocache successfully just by downloading and printing out a map but that's not orienteering as no compass is needed.

 

Eh, I have to disagree. I've done some orienteering where we were given coordinates to our destination and had to navigate to them with map and compass. Granted, the coordinates are usually given in UTM and we are carrying a map with a resolution better than 1:24000 and travelling not much more than a quarter mile or so, but it CAN be done. It's just that a GPS takes a lot of the manual work out of orienteering including giving you your location a bit more precisely than triangulation with known landmarks can, and calculating your bearing on the fly, updating it as you go. So, yes, geocaching is more suited for use with a GPS, but a well-placed hide with a good description could be pulled off with a good map and a compass.

In the orienteering I did a couple of decades ago, the waypoints were clearly visible, usually orange flags tied up in trees, so you only had to get within maybe thirty or forty metres and start looking around. The most commonly available high resolution topographic maps here are 1:25000 so a millimetre on the page is 25 metres on the ground, which is a lot of territory to cover if you're looking for a small well-concealed container in bushland, even assuming your dead reckoning with the compass from whatever features are available got you close.

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I've done orienteering for a few years and when people ask if geocaching is like orienteering I have to say no. Reason is pretty much as VP mentioned. How does one input coordinates to a compass? Coordinates don't come into it when orienteering. Some people geocache successfully just by downloading and printing out a map but that's not orienteering as no compass is needed.

 

Eh, I have to disagree. I've done some orienteering where we were given coordinates to our destination and had to navigate to them with map and compass. Granted, the coordinates are usually given in UTM and we are carrying a map with a resolution better than 1:24000 and travelling not much more than a quarter mile or so, but it CAN be done. It's just that a GPS takes a lot of the manual work out of orienteering including giving you your location a bit more precisely than triangulation with known landmarks can, and calculating your bearing on the fly, updating it as you go. So, yes, geocaching is more suited for use with a GPS, but a well-placed hide with a good description could be pulled off with a good map and a compass.

In the orienteering I did a couple of decades ago, the waypoints were clearly visible, usually orange flags tied up in trees, so you only had to get within maybe thirty or forty metres and start looking around. The most commonly available high resolution topographic maps here are 1:25000 so a millimetre on the page is 25 metres on the ground, which is a lot of territory to cover if you're looking for a small well-concealed container in bushland, even assuming your dead reckoning with the compass from whatever features are available got you close.

 

I took a sea kayaking navigation class once where we had to navigate to a small bouy in open water with a chart and compass. The bouy was small enough that I didn't see it until I got about 100' away. In the open water one can't use the elevation lines like one can do with a good topo map. The course was taught by Nigel Dennis, the designer of Nigel Dennis Kayaks (NDK), probably the most popular kayaks used for expedition kayaking.

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I've done orienteering for a few years and when people ask if geocaching is like orienteering I have to say no. Reason is pretty much as VP mentioned. How does one input coordinates to a compass? Coordinates don't come into it when orienteering. Some people geocache successfully just by downloading and printing out a map but that's not orienteering as no compass is needed.

 

Eh, I have to disagree. I've done some orienteering where we were given coordinates to our destination and had to navigate to them with map and compass. Granted, the coordinates are usually given in UTM and we are carrying a map with a resolution better than 1:24000 and travelling not much more than a quarter mile or so, but it CAN be done. It's just that a GPS takes a lot of the manual work out of orienteering including giving you your location a bit more precisely than triangulation with known landmarks can, and calculating your bearing on the fly, updating it as you go. So, yes, geocaching is more suited for use with a GPS, but a well-placed hide with a good description could be pulled off with a good map and a compass.

In the orienteering I did a couple of decades ago, the waypoints were clearly visible, usually orange flags tied up in trees, so you only had to get within maybe thirty or forty metres and start looking around. The most commonly available high resolution topographic maps here are 1:25000 so a millimetre on the page is 25 metres on the ground, which is a lot of territory to cover if you're looking for a small well-concealed container in bushland, even assuming your dead reckoning with the compass from whatever features are available got you close.

 

I took a sea kayaking navigation class once where we had to navigate to a small bouy in open water with a chart and compass. The bouy was small enough that I didn't see it until I got about 100' away. In the open water one can't use the elevation lines like one can do with a good topo map. The course was taught by Nigel Dennis, the designer of Nigel Dennis Kayaks (NDK), probably the most popular kayaks used for expedition kayaking.

This reminded me of a SCUBA course I did about 5 years ago and, using compass, successfully navigated a 400m course underwater. That was fun.

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I find all my geocaches with a map and a compass. 

With a romer/ruler, you can locate on a 1:10 000 map any UTM coordinate within 1~2 meter. It's enough to find 95% caches. No compass nor GPS needed.
WIth the help of a basic baseplate compass (2° markings), I resolve the remaining 5% by resection of terrain features. At worst, I get an accuracy of less than 5m.

Don't forget to compensate for magnetic declination. You can print maps with free/paying services like CalTopo, BigMap2, Komoot, etc.

Example

To give an idea, this about the accuracy I get :

SSS.jpg.2c13aa58c0a686e02b1a25df43365a21.jpg
 

 

Edited by alain4s
YouTube video explanation of UTM grid
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16 hours ago, alain4s said:

I find all my geocaches with a map and a compass. 

You make it sound easy.  I mean no disrespect, but you've been caching with this account for 18 hours now and have done this a couple dozen times in an environment that overflows with easily identifiable landmarks.

I appreciate that caching with map and compass alone is pretty doable in an urban environment, and you provide a great illustration as to how it can be done, but it's still not going to translate as well to a cache that's hidden in the woods in a relatively flat area.  In other words, intersection and resection using a map and compass is all well and good when there are buildings and streets around for easy terrain analysis, but it gets much harder when it's just flat lands and trees for hundreds of meters in every direction.

If you're having fun with it, though, more power to you.  I reiterate that, while I could do it this way, I prefer that not all my finds be five star difficulty.

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I once used a compass to find a geocache ...

It was way back when I started caching , and I was looking for every and any cache near home, not having yet formed the caching tastes which would now mean I would probably totally ignore a magnetic nano up a road sign ...  it may well  have been my first ever magnetic nano.

The problem was the thing had a weak magnet and was barely within my reach, so when my fingertips just brushed it the little perisher fell off into the long grass below. Despite some time spent searching through the grass ( like a chimp grooming a good friend , I just couldn't see it.

Despair was replaced by a sudden thought ... I drove home, found my silva compass, went back, and used it like a metal detector, waving it slowly just above the vegetation. Sure enough the needle rotated crazily as it passed one spot, being affected by the magnetic field of the nano, enabling me to concentrate my search on the correct place, triumphantly find the nano and sign the log. Then put it back really carefully  Since then I've carried a button compass of the novelty type in my caching kit just in case the trick needs repeating !

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Sure you can use a compass in geocaching. I have a hide to do just that.

GPS coords to start and then compass bearing with footsteps to the next point.

North is zero degrees.

Then another bearing direction and count them steps. The final is now in hand. I would not use a GPS compass since most of the time you need to be moving for that to work. Also more degree markings on a traditional compass. The only issue with this has been foot steps are different for long legs vs short legs. But the beacon is quite noticeable.

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9 hours ago, hal-an-tow said:

I once used a compass to find a geocache ... used it like a metal detector ... sure enough the needle rotated crazily as it passed one spot, being affected by the magnetic field of the nano, enabling me to concentrate my search on the correct place, triumphantly find the nano and sign the log. 

Love this... !

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On 11/16/2017 at 2:57 PM, hal-an-tow said:

I once used a compass to find a geocache ...

It was way back when I started caching , and I was looking for every and any cache near home, not having yet formed the caching tastes which would now mean I would probably totally ignore a magnetic nano up a road sign ...  it may well  have been my first ever magnetic nano.

The problem was the thing had a weak magnet and was barely within my reach, so when my fingertips just brushed it the little perisher fell off into the long grass below. Despite some time spent searching through the grass ( like a chimp grooming a good friend , I just couldn't see it.

Despair was replaced by a sudden thought ... I drove home, found my silva compass, went back, and used it like a metal detector, waving it slowly just above the vegetation. Sure enough the needle rotated crazily as it passed one spot, being affected by the magnetic field of the nano, enabling me to concentrate my search on the correct place, triumphantly find the nano and sign the log. Then put it back really carefully  Since then I've carried a button compass of the novelty type in my caching kit just in case the trick needs repeating !

Great tool to add to a caching kit.

I also used a compass to find a magnetic hidden under the top fence plastic guard on a baseball field fence.

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