How to use a Compass Bezel - Watch and Learn #17

hi this is mark from Long Island watch calm and welcome to another episode of watch and learn today we're going to focus on bezels we'll be talking about the compass bezel that you see on a bunch of watches I've got to say close here I'm going to use for my examples I've got a new prospects and another one with an external rotating compass bezel you may have noticed on the slide rule video that I did the Seiko flight master had the compas bezel so again you could use that also anything with a compass bezel will work but you really don't even need a compass bezel it can be any watch and you watch can be used to find north south east and west and we'll get into that in the video this is really all based on what's usually coined is the Boy Scout trick of how to find north south east and west if you are lost using nothing but the hour-hand on your watch and it really works it's pretty cool so before we get into the video we'll do a quick wrist check let's see on this wrist today I'm wearing an orient duo the cool watch it's got a little mechanical movement on one side and the quartz on the other I also like the way the time is displayed on the automatic side it's like a series of Windows almost like an analog digital kind of thing and the other watch I'm still wearing my Scrooge McDuck time is money I guess I had a rebound interest with it since I strapped it on for one of the other videos like I said I will do a video on this and the history of it but anyway let's get let's get cracking about kompis bezels and see what they're all about ok so here I've got two Seiko compás bezel watches I'm using two of them just because this one on the left has an external bezel that you can rotate with your hand and the one on the right has an internal bezel that you rotate via the crown at the 4 o'clock position the model numbers if you're interested this is Seiko srp six six nine and then the one the right this is a new prospects release for 2017 it wasn't in my other video SRPA 71 this is a USA model oh and something else you may have noticed I got these cool gloves with the company logo monogrammed on them so if I put it over here you probably see the logo on the logo that's pretty cool so both of these watches serve the same purpose as far as a bezel is concerned a compass bezel so what I'm going to say for one really applies to the other is just in the message that you rotate the bezel so the first thing you'll notice with a compass bezel is it always spins both ways contrary to a dive bezel which usually just spins counterclockwise and it ratchets it clicks into place every second or every half second this is a smooth moving bezel you know the dive bezel you don't want to rotate clockwise because it can inadvertently links in your dive time but on a compass bezel obviously you don't have that concern and then on the other guy I'll just show you this crown over here at the bottom right I rotate it and I can i can move the north-south east-west so the other thing you'll obviously notice if you know your compas directions is it they're numbered you know north would be zero degrees east is ninety degrees so it's got the five and fifteen degree markings around the periphery and then also the SRPA twenty-one gives the added benefit of actually spelling out NNE for north north east any for north east east northeast etc around the dial now do you really need a compass bezel on your watch probably not you probably have a few things that can tell direction and everyone points to their cell phone of course but you know when the when the crap hits the fan and you and you lose all electronics for any reason if you have a watch and it's got a compass bezel on it you can tell direction actually you don't even need the compass bezel the compás bezel is good for really just telling you the four cardinal directions the trick that i'm going to show you this popular boy scout trick as its called gets you the main cardinal direction north or south and then you work everything else from there but you know you never know when something bad is going to happen so it's good to know these little things Mariners still carry sextant and star charts and marine chronometer zat cetera because you never know when electronics are going to go to pot so how do you use the compass bezel well first we're going obviously assume that the time is correct good thing to know the other thing you have to know is that the watch must be in regular time it cannot be in daylight savings time so if you live in a part of the world where they celebrate the lovely tradition of daylight savings time you do need to back the watch up about an hour to get out of daylight savings time and back into normal time and that's because of where the Sun is positioned in the sky throughout the day you at noon technically it's directly overhead but during daylight savings time the moon is not at its Venus anymore it has it's an hour off you know to account for that shift to lighter hours later in the day there is something I wanted to show you which unfortunately I cannot because it's broken I have a Geo cron that is currently in disrepair or it needs repair now if you're on a Geo cron is head online to geo Cronk honest I remember I'll put a link down below I usually don't advertise for other people but I'll put a link down below I it's such a nifty gadget again it's another gadget that's totally superseded by technology you can get the same thing out of a free screen saver but they make these big wall map clocks that map the sunlight curve where the Sun is pointing at that point on the earth the sun's test as it goes between the 23rd parallels and left-right for the equation of time all great stuff and it's a great talking point it wanted to use it I move 2 years ago and the geo cron apparently the glass broke so I do need to get it repaired so we'll go off to the repair center soon and get fixed up anyway so you set the time you make sure you're on standard time so next thing you had to do is find the Sun so here's our Sun it's a little red today it's gone supernova you'll find the Sun in the sky you know hold the watch level obviously for the camera I'm going to hold it up this and then when I got to do the directions I'll flatten it out you want to point the hour hand towards where the Sun is in the sky and I can point it up at the sky you just find where the Sun is and basically just drop it down so let's say the Sun was up here in the sky you just pretend like the Sun which dropped down to the ground and you point the hour hand at the Sun so I'm doing that now you can see my hour hand is pointing at the Sun then if you're in the northern hemisphere which quite surprisingly most people do live in the north northern hemisphere if we have a look at a map the southern hemisphere sorry Australia and the Lower South America most people do live in the northern hemisphere you just rotate the s4 south just right here halfway between the hour hand and the 12 o'clock position so I'm just going to do what you can see for the camera so s is halfway between the hour hand the white hand and the 12 o'clock position so now when I hold this out believe it or not that is South right here so you don't need a compass bezel you use with any watch it works for any watch did this so-called Boy Scout trick but what this does now is that if you hold the watch flat you can tell which direction you're walking north south east west and what degree marking it's not the most accurate thing in the world but then again when they were navigating by the Stars that wasn't the most accurate thing in the world either but it works if you know you have to go south to hit a freeway I guess you could just keep walking south and you will get there obviously when the Sun is down it does not work you need to send in this guy to get this to work and then every hour or so you just want to readjust as a time moves you want to readjust where the south is but as time moves the Sun moves the directions that the watch is showing you are going to move so it's going to show you really quick with this watch again so let's say well now it's 11:00 so we're going to point the hour hand at 11:00 and I'm going to rotate with this crown then you get the South in between halfway in between the hour hand and the 12:00 and now that direction is south and it works and again the Geo crown was going to really help me with this it works because when you're in the northern hemisphere or really know that 23rd parallel the Sun is always south of you because it never really it never gets above the Tropic of Cancer I for you people in the southern hemisphere you do the same exact thing up to instead of putting south between the hour hand and the 12 you just move the north and then that position is north and you can really see how it works again my geo crimes not here but let's say it was noon so I will just change the time to noon so obviously there is no halfway distance between the hour hand and the s but we really are just pointing the hour hand now directly at the Sun so if the Sun was at is Venus in the sky at noon which is we know that that direction is south again the only difference between the two watches internal bezel external bezel so as it gets later in the day and the Sun moves on its path around the sky let's say it's going to go set and now let's say it's three o'clock again this all happens with the passing of the time I'm just advancing it so we can really see what's going on we're going to put the s halfway between the hour hand and the 12:00 so up sorry it's difficult for you to the angles I'm pointing the hour hand now directly at the Sun our red dot and I'm putting myself halfway between the one the two so now that direction itself so it continues to work as the Sun moves through the sky and again this is going to be your handy method to tell north-south east-west using a compass bezel you don't necessarily need the compass bezel all it does for you is it really gets the four cardinal directions down for you so this has been Mark from Long Island watch comm with watch and learn showing you how to use a compass bezel if your watch happens to have one external bezel internal bezel if you liked this video please like it if you have not subscribed to our channel please do so at this time if you have any questions or comments or want to share maybe a story you were lost in the woods and my goodness this helps you get out please put them down below and we'll be sure to address them I do read all the comments and I do try to address every single one thank you for watching bye bye

Channel: Long Island Watch

Views: 307,335

Keywords: compass, compass bezel, automatic watch

Id: PWCxsk0hZRM

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2017