Navigation

What's it all about

Navigation is all about knowing where you are, and then knowing how to get somewhere else without getting lost. There are all sorts of ways of doing this whether by day or by night, and most of them involve being observant. Before you read through this page, you might be wise to check the Navigation pages in the Beaver and Cub Sections to save stuff being repeated.

By now, you will have learned to know your way around your local neighbourhood, and will be able to direct people who ask, where to find places near where you live.

You will also have learnt how to judge distances, but an extension of this is to know your own walking pace. Look on a map and find a spot that is exactly a mile away, then walk it - timing yourself as you go. How long did it take? If it took twenty minutes, then you were walking at 3 miles per hour; if it took a quarter of an hour - then you were walking at four miles per hour. This exercise is useful when you are out walking in the country and if you time your start, you will have some idea of the distance that you will have walked. You will find that you will have to allow a slower walking pace if you are walking over rough ground or uphill.

In Scouting, we also learn to read maps, and the first thing that we must do is be able to recognise the points of the compass. There is a compass above, and on it are marked what we call the cardinal points and the important ones in between.

Grid References

Above is a section of an Ordinance Survey map, scale 1:50,000. These are the most common maps used to help us get around, and when you open it out, you will find that North is traditionally at the top of the map. On the map you will easily spot roads and other features. At the bottom of the map, or at the side in some cases, you will find a section that tells you what all the little symbols on the map mean, and as you progress through scouting, you will learn what all these are, and they will help you to recognise where you are.

It is useful to be able to know exactly where we are on a map at any one time. We may need it to tell others where to meet us, or we may need it to tell emergency services where to find our party, so we have to be able to give a map reference of where we are. To do this, study the map of Bala above, and spot the church with a steeple in the centre of the town. In normal circumstances, we would not bother with a map reference for that - we would tell people we were at the church with a steeple in the centre of Bala, but we will use it for this exercise since it is easy to spot.

Your map is divided up into one kilometre squares by the map makers, and if you study the map, you will see that there are numbers running along the top of the map, and down the sides. There is also a pair of letters in the top left hand corner of the map and repeating again where the numbers at top or bottom reach zero. To give a map reference, we firstly need to give the pair of letters that appear to the left of the point we have selected, in this case they are - SH.

Next we find the Eastings, which is the first vertical line to the left of our position and read the large numbers labelling this line at the top or bottom of the map, in this case 92. We now need to estimate, in tenths, the distance from the grid line to our church - we will call it 7.

Now repeat the same exercise for the Northings, but taking the grid line immediately below our church - 36, plus tenths up the map from the grid line and we have 2.

We now have our full grid reference: SH927362. And now you can give a grid reference. Practice it until you can do it without looking it up each time, because get it wrong and you could finish up miles from the right place.

If you forget which set of numbers to give first, remember that you have to go in the front door and along the hallway, before you can go up the stairs!


Setting the Map

By setting a map, we mean - laying the map out on the ground, or on a table if we have one, and arranging it so that it lies in the same direction as features on the ground. This is easily done, if we put our compass on top of the map, and arrange the map so that the North point of the compass needle is pointing to the North point on the map. Note that the grid lines on your map do not lie to the magnetic North, but differ by about two or three degrees or so, but for most purposes you can ignore that, you just need to know and keep it at the back of your mind in case a circumstance arises where it might make a difference and an up to date map will tell you the error margin. Having set the map, you can now look for features on the ground in the direction that they are show on the map.

Setting a Course

The next trick is to set your compass so that you don't have to keep getting your map out every five minutes to check direction.


The compass above is a Silva Expedition compass, and these type are ideal for scouting purposes. Note that the centre has a moveable direction finder with a superimposed red arrow on it, and is visible below the floating, magnetic needle. To set your course, point the body of the compass in the direction of travel with the compass over the map that you have already set. Now turn the moveable direction finder arrow until it is exactly over the the magnetic arrow, and be sure that they are pointing in the same, and not the opposite direction. You can now remove the compass, and your direction of travel will be indicated by the body of the compass when the direction finder and the magnetic needle are in line with one another. Again practice this.

Alternative method for finding South

If you can see the sun, it is possible to find North, or at least South, using a watch that has fingers. Hold the watch horizontally and point the hour hand towards the sun. Now bisect the angle between the Hour hand and 12.00 o'clock. This line will point due South. When using British Summer time, bisect the angle between the hour hand and 1.00 o'clock. If you have a digital watch, you can still do the same, but you will have to draw a clock on a piece of paper, putting the hour hand in the right place according to the time. See on the right.

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Last updated: January 23rd, 2012
Published by:  Lichfield Web Design