Customer Reviews

Basic Essentials Map & Compass, 2nd (rev) (Basic Essentials Series)

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This book is a good source of information for people interested in learning how to use a map and compass. It is easy to read, simple to follow, and contains accurate information. As a search and rescue instructor, I've used the concepts in this book to teach map and compass skills to hundreds of teen-aged students.

Basic Essentials is just that--the basics. It's a nice book to get started. You can easily go out and naviagate after reading this book and practicing with your map and compass. I used this book as a reference in teaching Boy Scouts how to navigate in the wilderness. I was disappointed it didn't have more about the sport of Orienteering.

After searching for many years on the Internet, of incomplete information on how to use a compass (this book was 1 of the searches), apparently there are 5 ways to use a compass: The functions of a compass are;
1. to maintain a straight line of travel, such as following a bearing;
2. to orient a map, which is just lining up the map with the land to make landmark identification easier;
3. to tell direction, such as taking a bearing from a map;
4. to locate your position by taking several bearings and plotting them on a map;
5. to plan a route, by using your compass as a protractor.

This book does not even tell you that. I wished it would have, because after reading other books (that did not tell you either), it was very confusing (which function of a compass are they trying to teach?).

THIS book only tells you how to take a bearing, then only how to take a bearing (1) with a map, & how to use a compass as a protractor.

But both those methods are only cursory (ie: 2 sentences), & are too vague.

Another downfall of this book (& others), is that it does not have a labelled picture of a compass with the parts of it labelled, also.

The reason this is important as people/books use different terms for the same compass part (ie: orienteering arrow = fixed arrow; or Line of Sight = Bearing Direction Indicator, etc).

This is very confusing & a mistake many books/ webpages make (not having a labelled picture of a compass with the parts named the way they are using).

So this is just a run of the mill book, that you could get the same information for free on the Internet.