Donate SIGN UP

Finding Bearings.

Avatar Image
ImLostAgain | 20:11 Sun 17th Nov 2019 | How it Works
19 Answers
Could anyone point me at a site where I can work out compass bearings? I have a number and I'm asked to find a bearing of, followed by a longer number. The last number is a degree number. At the moment I haven't been given a point from where these numbers are to be worked out from but by the time I get them I'm hoping for a site so I can try to learn how to do it.
I hope all that makes sense.
Gravatar

Answers

1 to 19 of 19rss feed

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by ImLostAgain. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
>>> I hope all that makes sense

Er, sorry, no!

To work out a compass bearing you need to know how far east (or west) of a starting point the end point is, and how far north (or south of it). Then it's just simple trigonometry (as long as the two locations aren't so far apart that the curvature of the Earth has to be considered as well). Perhaps the numbers you've been supplied with are OS grid references?
Give us the numbers and we might be able to help.
Question Author
Ok. The numbers are: 2.104831 on a bearing of 294.59865502219°
As I say, where these are to start from I have as yet not been told.
So that tells us that you need to start at an unspecified point, face North, turn clockwise through 294.59865502219 degrees and then travel 2.104831 kilometres (or possibly miles, nautical miles or something else, since the units aren't specified).

However I can't see why anyone would need to give a bearing to an accuracy of one-hundred-billionth of one degree, nor to give a distance to an accuracy of 1mm (assuming that the units in your information are in kilometres).

Your username seems particularly appropriate here ;-)
Is the starting point Earth-bound, or perhaps in Outer Space, On The Moon, etc etc etc.
Question Author
Thanks Buenchico, very nice of you to say so ;). Anyway, I can only give you the numbers I have been given, but as my original question was, does anyone know of a site that would help, maybe all these numbers would then make sense to me! And yes my username is very apt, and not just with this question!
Canary42, It's earthbound. I'm actually trying to help my grandson with his hobby and he keeps aking me these difficult questions.
Are we talking Geocaching at all?

https://www.gagb.org.uk/
Question Author
It could well be. He does geocaching and has started orienteering too.
The possibility of geocaching came into my mind too. (There seem to be some very strange clues used by geocachers!)

However I can't see that any particular website would be of use to you, as I've already done everything that can can be done with those figures without further information being provided.

Sorry :(
Question Author
Ok and thanks. If/when he comes back to me with the starting point I'll let you know.
Question Author
His starting point is
N55°00.387 W001.49.231
The starting point is on a bridleway just north of Hadrian's Wall near Heddon-on-the-Wall. On the specified bearing, 2.1 km would be at the corner of a lane with public access north of a farm called 'Whitchester', so geocaches look quite probable. 2.1 miles is inside the perimeter of the disused Ouston Airfield, so seems less likely.
Question Author
Thank you Etch. You don't have northings and eastings for those do you?
In answer to the original question, I would suggest using the Tools -> Ruler option in Google Earth (which is what I did). Use Search to find and set the starting location (in degrees, negative for longitudes west, so "55.00645,-1.82052" in this case).
Question Author
Oh forget that, I can work those out. Thanks again.
Question Author
Oops, crossed posts.
Using the OS coordinate transformation tool (https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/gps/transformation/):
Starting point: easting 411579 northing 568001
Strange, the brackets must have stopped the link from being shown as such:
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/gps/transformation/
Is "N55°00.387 W001.49.231" not a mixture of decimals and degrees, minutes and seconds?

1 to 19 of 19rss feed

Do you know the answer?

Finding Bearings.

Answer Question >>