Basics of Navigational Tools

[Music] if you've ever gotten lost navigating yeah I didn't hit that subscribe button guys like and comment thank you for coming up gun Meg warehouse is a big support of us as you guys know so it's worth monetarily get in there buy magazines from them get all that good stuff going for my California guys if we're still rolling on that train keep buying mags gun laws are stupid if you're looking to support the channel we have vertex and lax mo get plaid get outdoor wear all that kind of stuff and get ammo get out there and train gentlemen ladies how attack helicopters all that good stuff today we're gonna be talking about basic navigational tools or what do you need to navigate now this is going to be a part of a much larger series on navigation in general we have a lot of videos but if I were to put everything into one video it would probably be about like three or four hours long so this one's simply going to talk about the different tools that you need and that you can also have to make things a little easier on yourself to navigate we'll be talking about specifically how to employ these tools in a later video but I what I will give you in this video is some basic tips tricks things that I've seen and things that my buddies have seen I always consult with a bunch of buddies from a wide ranging you know swath of career fields to make sure that I'm not missing anything anyhow and they also give their input so let's go ahead let's talk about so to start off what do you absolutely need to navigate so you're going to need to absolutely bare essentials so it's going to be a compass it's going to be a map and then you're going to need a notepad of some type with a writing utensil that is what you need bare minimum to do any type of orienteering or actual map work I'm not talking about popping up and following a Rodon you know google maps writing like that I'm talking about bushwhacking off-trail so that is what we need so let's kind of get into this a little bit let's start with compasses there are a lot of different compasses out there if you're in the military you know what this is right here this is a lymphatic compass these are the compasses that I recommend I know a lot of people like the Silva's or whatever other type of crazy doohickey compass out there there's out there but I found that the Landsat 8 compass is very accurate very rugged and it is very precise so let's talk about why you might want to use the Landsat a compass first off it has a sighting wire this allows you to shoot very precise Asmus when you are navigating for very far distances this allows you to be much more precise so it is for that reason I stupidly recommend this now if you're in the military it has all that good stuff that you want when you are buying your Landsat a compass there are several different types out there make sure you get the one that has tritium inside of it for its illumination now I if you're not familiar with tritium is it's that stuff that the dr. octopus guy with the floating penises uses to make full sun and it like floats falls into the river and aspired me gets his face ok anyhow point is make sure you get the tritium one there's a one that uses phosphorescent paint and I think is complete [ __ ] don't use that so make sure you get the one that has tritium it has a half-life of like 10 years so for 10 years this thing is growing at full brightness and anyhow make sure you get the tritium one that is the correct one to get they sell these on military bases everywhere you will need it now on your land sighted compass it is highly highly recommended that you have this right here this is a lanyard so there are multiple reasons to have a lanyard on your compass the first reason is it allows you to attach it so usually a loop it through a belt loop pull back through the loop and then I have it just to make sure you don't lose it you'll be surprised how easily you can lose these things so that is one reason you need a lanyard the second reason you need a lanyard is to measure distance on maps this allows you to do it very quickly and very easily just take a string measure from the two distances put it out um on the map in order to get the correct it's just a much quicker way of doing it mm-hmm finally the last phrase you might want you to use a lanyard is to strangle the LT who gets you guys lost that way you can make sure he never gets you guys lost ever again now if you're not familiar with how a compass works a compass seeks magnetic north now it typically seeks magnetic north if you use this thing indoors it will you know seek whatever is the strongest magnet that might be a table might be anything now in nature it's typically the Earth's actual magnetic field it's gonna point north until those magnetic fields flip then we all die but until that point it's gonna seek that now it will seek some other things that will seek watches so if you put if you have this open and not lock down and what I mean by lock down is this is a magnet right here so when you place it against it it locks and keeps that compass needle from moving but anyhow if that is not locked down you put your cut your watch up against it it will deflect the needle other things that will deflect the needle is anything that's for a magnetic or that has electromagnetic interference things are gonna have you know all the stuff that people wear tinfoil hats for so things like belt buckles depending on the type of material used not on my belt though so all eyes are holding this down here and they're like oh and it's deflected in the needle towards our junk so not because junk is ferromagnetic hopefully but rather because you have Bell Buckle the big one is radios law I guess I'll have the radios and they're like talking into it and they have like the compass out and they're like yeah yeah yeah it's like deflecting the needle so watch out for that watch out for antennas off radios and the big one that a lot of people don't realize is power lines sort of depending on where you are power lines put off a strong enough magnetic signal depending on the size that it can get up to 50 meters they'd having deflection on the needle and again even minor deflections in the needle by a degree or two can really just screw the pooch when it comes to navigating you know a degree over kilometers I believe about 18 meters or so off your point depending on where you are and like thick vegetation that can might as well be lost point so realize that magnetic deflection from ferromagnetic things is a big deal when it comes to compasses so make sure you aren't protecting them now the cool thing about that is that you can detect some cool things like electric fences typically electric fence will deflect the needle of a compass so it's an easy way to check if it's on rather than putting the back of your hand against it don't go like that put the back your hand will reflexively pull away by the way I don't pee on them either but anyhow we have your compass make sure that after you shot your azmuth and you're walking to your points that you don't walk with your compass out you're walking point to point if you're walking with your compass open like this and trying to like walk off of it you're invariably trip you're gonna follow unique crap it's just not the way to do it so do not navigate off that way unless you absolutely have to and we'll talk about more about you know navigational methods but this is a quick note okay so we have compass I have a couple different compasses I have cracked them before I had one open I tripped I fell and I actually cracked this one was very sad very sad about it but they are very tough overall so now that we've talked about compasses let's talk about maps you need a map typically I like to navigate using mg RS which is a military grid reference system I think it's one of the simplest systems that use it was made for the army as we know the army is borderline mentally handicapped so that allows most other you know normally functioning human beings to use it fairly easily so I usually recommend that you use mg RS if you're not familiar with it that's ok there are a couple videos up already about it from other people that are very informational or I will also be putting up an mg RS video in the future when that video is up I'll put a link somewhere right there that'll be cool pop up but until that moment you might have to just read up on it as far as a scale scale is you know the size of the terrain all that type stuff I find that the 1 to 50,000 is a pretty good scale to work off of you are allowed to still see a good amount of detail and get fairly precise with it you know 1 to 24 is even better you know everything's much larger but I found that 1 in 50 is much more realistic as far as the amount of maps I need to carry I do recommend having a physical copy of a map I know and nowadays everyone wants to run it off of their GPS and all that kind of stuff but it's just a really good idea to have a physical copy of a map now with your Maps make sure that they are laminated so if you don't lanten let me if you don't laminate your maps water gets on them invariably water will get them on on them they're just are falling apart and disintegrating and then you're just screwed also even if there's no water in this dust that's gonna start eating the way of them they're gonna get dirty you're not gonna be able see where you're going bad news so make sure you laminate them if you don't laminate them make sure you have a map case before they make sure that you protect them now along with that make sure you have a pencil to mark it if you don't have it laminated if you do have it laminated make sure that you have some type of writing utensil that works on there I recommend nap markers those are literally made for it they work pretty well so we have our map so once we have it out of the way we need to have a notebook so usually me and literally everybody else in the military uses a right in the rain they come in sand colored or green or black I've gone through you know probably a solid 50 or 60 or 70 of these somewhere in there in my time in the military including the really big thick ones so the paper is waterproof it will still get wet and kind of a little bit weaker but it will survive as opposed to a non treated paper gel pens don't work very well in them so make sure you use a pencil they do make pens specifically from right in the rain that work on these and they're pretty awesome but they're also a great company a big support of the military so love right in the rain notebooks highly recommended you use them if you are out there navigating the boonies this will survive ok so everything that we've talked about to this point is all that you really need to navigate everything else that we're going to talk about past year he's a really good idea to have but technically you don't need it but I would highly recommend have some of these items around talk about after as they will either make your life far easier or they're just critically necessary in certain situations but technically speaking if you're out orienteering nap compass a notebook to write [ __ ] down you're good to go ok with those things being said the first thing that we're to talk about is a protractor a protractor is highly highly recommended if you don't know what a protractor is is essentially a clear police plastic with the string in the middle allows you to get Asmus and headings and bearings all that kind of crap much easier not of course those are on grid North not you're not off the magnetic so you do have to account for magnetic variation convert that over so for example being how you're washing your for Lois magnetic declination is around 17 degrees east he says lease that means we're gonna subtract that I know I'm kind of going fast right now but we'll be explaining in later videos when we talk about how to navigate off of maps but what that means is if I took a heading of 0 using a protractor I would need to make sure to account for that 7 degrees and declination on my compass because my compass is seeking magnetic north DCO navigation can get a little complicated it can so that means I have to take a heading of 3 4 3 so again things to think about the protractors are amazing you don't have to orient the map prior to shooting your headings and you know all that type of stuff so I'm a huge fan of protractors I think it is definitely the way to navigate so get a protractor and learn to use it and we'll talk more about how to use protractors here in the future ok before we get into the most obvious one i'm going to talk about another favorite of mine which is the sinto wrist compass so this thing is often overlooked I think and I understand why but I love this thing because if I'm doing a military movement or something like that it's just very nice to have this right on my wrist to where I'm able you hold it up like this and you look through the window where I can get a just a quick heading so if I'm heading on direction I'm like did I get kind of off kind of double-checking or if you got a guy leading and you're not sure if he's doing the right thing and you're kind of like you get out in his line that's kind of site and you're like you're kind of shooting that kind of weird it's just a good thing to have it's just a quick reference if you're calling in a helicopter off your bearing or something like that it's just an easy thing to do so I really do like the sinto risk compass now with a pseudo risk compass a lot of people freaked out and they're like oh you know the the wristwatch is gonna pull the needle off and interesting that if you put it right over it will definitely deflect it but on the typical watch so we're in the field which is a g-shock I don't get it any type of you know magnetic deflection in the needle unless I put the risk of us right on top when it's up on my wrist right there it's completely fine if you want you can wear on the other wrist but typically I wear a GPS on this hand right here just as a quick note I'm kind of a kind of a navigational tool [ __ ] like I just like having a lot like you know two is one one isn't none to have a guy anyhow Suunto risk compass really awesome they're very cheap they're like I think 25 bucks or something like that so I do use these a lot like guys put them on their packs and they can just kind of look at them off their packs Bulova bomb I've seen these all over so these are awesome get them okay GPS right I know that's what everyone's gonna talk about GPS is awesome GPS is amazing it gets your precise location you can you know plot points it will give you you know precise exact distance and precise exact bearing to that location and it's amazing and there's a lot of really good things if you said about GPS I was kind of give you a couple cautionary tales when it comes to GPS to make sure you don't rely on it too much because again we are trying to talk more about orienteering and kind of bringing that back a little bit because you know we never know what's gonna happen so first off GPS is very accurate GPS if you're not familiar as a global positioning system it is a array of satellites and they give you a position they are military there are government operated and owned and they can be very very accurate within plus or minus depending on the device you're using you know three maybe even closer more meters so that's incredibly precise so the GPS device I have right here is the one I use most often and this is a foretrex 401 there are other GPS from Garmin that are cheaper or more expensive that have less or more capabilities that are built just like this find out which one you you need I prefer this one for the activities that I typically perform so the GPS first off the GPS works by you know having clear line-of-sight to satellites so sometimes in your hiking you don't always have a clear line of sight so satellites which is why I don't vote and relied too much on GPS I was doing a navigational exercise maybe seven years ago and yeah I finished all my points at all my points leading my little squad around and all we had to do was hit my final point and so we're film kind of Joe Byul you know pretty happy we're done so I was like yeah here's your here's your heading you're gonna hit a you know 287 heading and just six hundred meters right down this mountain right here he's like got a boss so we started heading down and instead of shooting this points using his compass he got lazy and started is using his GPS and having it out of that so the problem was is that the area that we were in was going into a canyon so as we descended into the canyon the signal was not strong and the GPS was not getting accurate readings because of that he was using the compass on the GPS it was no longer accurate we got our heading and ended up walking right into a swamp which sounds stupid like how do you do that it's amazing how easily it can happen this was also when I was enlisted before I was an officer so before you guys make comments and jokes about that but anyhow we got in just swamped and we had to then you know we can reshoot lines of angulation and figure out where we were cuz we took away our GPS and we had to do it the old-fashioned way and we got out but the you know the thing I took for that from that was that make sure that you don't rely too much on GPS it is an excellent tool but understand its limitations now the reason I like the 401 is that it is very precise on tracing your steps so it doesn't have like a map per se in here it will show you kind of distance as you zoom in and out it has like basic stuff but you can easily retrace your steps easy in the 401 I find that very useful especially like in the civilian world like you drop like you leave gloves behind you leave something behind you can easily retrace your steps very precisely using the 401 and it's very cool it has very has other great things that I can do as well obviously gives you your exact position and that type of stuff and you can plot points and it will have those on the map you can see those in relation to you and that's cool so the 401 is awesome there are some really cool GPS is out there that actually a little bit cheaper than the 401 Garmin also has the etrex series which I'm a huge fan of those you can actually load GPS maps onto them they're actually free if you go online search free GPS map Garmin you're gonna find them Garmin charges you quite a bit you can download free turbo maps and they're very very accurate I've use them quite a bit so for like any country so that is a really cool thing about the e tracks is you just have a map right there and you can zoom in and it will get more detail and you can zoom out it'll get less detailed so they're awesome you can see precisely where you are you can correspond that to your physical map again it's a really cool feature but make sure you don't get to focus in on using that I know I've done that before where I just navigated off of that like I've gotten my points a puddle my points on my GPS and I haven't even touched a physical map and you know was that fine yeah I was but really you should be double-checking the GPS so I would highly recommend that if you're beginning you know navigating and that type of thing that you take the time to double-check all the information that your GPS is telling you not because you specifically distrust the GPS because they are very precise instruments but rather because you should get good at orienteering without the GPS and become a more well-rounded navigational person so that is all I will say about that so gentleman ladies we've talked about a lot of different tools that we can possibly use for navigation we've hit anything from the compass we've talked about maps make sure they're laminated we've gone over notebooks we've hit the center risk compass we've gone over protractors and then finally GPS units there's lots of different stuff out there start off the basics I would definitely include a protractor in there and start to learn what to do we have a lot more videos coming we're gonna be out there actually hiking around having fun and hopefully you guys can kind of understand why orienteering is both a fun thing to do and also a very crucial skill to know and I would argue a skill that has in recent times definitely fallen to the wayside for a lot of people as we become increasingly reliant on GPS systems if you guys have any questions about navigation I'll be answering those in future videos there are a lot of great subject matter experts on already online I don't claiming to be the best at all so go go out check those out get some more information and I appreciate you guys now if you guys are looking for training relating to survival bushcraft and that type of stuff we have some very cool stuff coming so stay tuned but as you guys know I'm a big fan of guys like fieldcraft survival their solutions Haylee strategic they do a lot of mountain survivor a lot of mountain problem-solver courses highly recommended they know what they're doing and I might be working on them a little bit coming in the future so check those out gentlemen make sure you look cool you look cool and you're not lost and as we know the LT is always a law so he's not cool take care gentlemen love you guys thank you for watching I've got nothing else for you last thing brushing your teeth brush your teeth make sure you take care of your teeth you know once you're an adult that's all you have you can get veneers all that stuff that's kind of weird when they pop out so take care your teeth brush um floss rinse you know it goes a long way oral hygiene matters you matter if you guys have gotten this far big daddy unlimited it's like Costco but for the firearm and tactical community where you can make all your wildest dreams come true if you have money that's pretty cheap for the most part sometimes you know some places might beat them out but overall they have the lowest prices to check them out I have a link right below guys love you thank you for watching we're done for real

Channel: Garand Thumb

Views: 230,933

Rating: 4.965342 out of 5

Keywords: garand, thumb, garand thumb, navigation, orienteering, compass, protractor, gps, rite in the rain, write in the rain, suunto wrist compass, map, map work, military navigation

Id: 3lxk8HIvjIU

Length: 21min 28sec (1288 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2019