Simple Navigation

In a world with GPS and smart phones, nobody even uses maps anymore. What will you do if you can't rely on these things anymore? For example, In the Northeast this past weekend we had a pretty severe storm for the month of October. It caused widespread power outages, and one thing in particular, a loss of cell service in many areas. I must admit it was unnerving. Especially since I, like many of my generation, don't have a home phone. So I pose the question. If you were in a situation where you were in an unfamiliar area, with no cell service, how would you get to safety?

There are hundreds of techniques for finding your direction of travel, some simple, some more complex. The simplest of all is using the sun. Everybody knows the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Using this combined with landmarks can be all you need if you're careful enough. But there are much more effective ways of using it with a little common sense.

Sometime in the morning or afternoon is best for this technique, at noon the sun may be too high in the sky, but anytime of day can be effective as long as you can get a good shadow. Take as straight a stick as you can find, maybe a few feet long. the longer it is the faster the reading. Drive it into the ground and mark the tip of the shadow with a rock. Sit back and wait awhile, as the sun moves across the southern sky, the shadow will move. Once the tip of the shadow has moved a couple feet, mark it with another rock. The line between the two rocks is an East West line. The first reading is always West. Now make an X across it starting with the pole. the pole is South, The first rock is West, the second rock is East and the line points North. It should be noted that North and South points are reversed in the Southern hemisphere as the sun travels in the Northern sky.



Probably the easiest way to use the sun is via wristwatch. I'm sure you've all seen Bear Grylles do it. Point the hour hand at the sun, and halfway between 12 and the hour hand is South. Make sure to compensate if its daylight savings, just use the 1 o'clock position. If you have a digital watch, you can employ this technique by drawing the face of a clock reflecting the current time on a piece of paper.

Now what to do if traveling at night? The North star of course makes things much easier for those of us in the Northern hemisphere. Its quite easy to spot even though isn't quite the brightest star in the sky. All you need to find is The big dipper, Little Dipper and Cassiopeia. Everybody knows the Little and Big Dipper, but Cassiopeia is a W shaped constellation not far from them. Between the Cassiopeia and The Big Dipper, is the Little Dipper and the North star. It's almost directly in the center and is the tail end of the Little Dipper. If you can Find just one of these three you can have a general Idea which way is North.

Now obviously a compass would be the best way to determine direction. So here's how to build one if you didn't happen to have one with you. All you need is a small pool of water, a leaf and pin or small piece of wire. Any metal that is ferrous (a magnet can stick to it) can be magnetized, either by electricity or contact with a permanent magnet. So when you magnetize the pin and place it on the leaf, floating in the water, it will spin like a compass giving a fairly reliable North/South line. You can figure out which way is South using the sun. If that is not possible, look at vegetation. It grows thicker on the Southern side. To magnetize the pin, rub on wool or silk to create a magnetic field using static electricity. A much easier way would be to touch the pin to a permanent magnet. Magnets can be found everywhere, not just on the fridge. Any speaker has a magnet in it. So my favorite example is your cell phone. Especially the newer media oriented phones, the have great speakers as well as the earpiece.

If you're dealing with a small pin you may not even have to destroy the phone, just hold it to the speaker. If it sticks, it's magnetized.