Easy location finding/marking.

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Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 29 Sep 2020, 2:17 pm

I mentioned a tip to somebody and it occurred to me that perhaps it's not as widely known as I'd thought.

If you are in the bush with a smartphone (that has GPS), and you want to know where you are right now, turn on "location data" on your phone camera, and shoot a picture of anything or nothing. Then view the photo, open its "details" and read your Lat/Long off it. You can transfer these to your map using the map grid.

For example, opening a photo on my PC of some scat I found, and reading its "properties":
Photo Location Data.JPG
Photo Location Data.JPG (16.11 KiB) Viewed 6618 times


Obviously, if you are au fait with using your GPS you won't need this, but it is very, very quick to simply take photos of "nothing" as you walk through the bush, even in near total darkness. If you later find yourself confused (some people call it "lost") you can simply refer to your photos, plot them on your map, and backtrack. Without having to wait on satellite signals. Personally I hate GPS so I prefer effortlessly recording my progress without dragging out the GPS.

Also, taking photos of any scat or sign you discover can let you plot game pathways later on when you're home.

And make sure you have a solar power pack for recharging your electricals in the bush!
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by JimTom » 29 Sep 2020, 2:40 pm

In addition mate you can open the compass app on IPhone and it has a LAT LONG there too.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 29 Sep 2020, 3:07 pm

JimTom wrote:In addition mate you can open the compass app on IPhone and it has a LAT LONG there too.



That's a good point too :-)
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by JimTom » 29 Sep 2020, 3:10 pm

Prior to getting Spot tracker I used a screen shot of the compass to send hourly position reports to spouse when I was at sea Fishing.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 29 Sep 2020, 3:19 pm

Good tips I recently bought a gps watch because it’s so much easier to see at a glance instead of digging around for a handheld unit. Depending on how you pack and carry your gear there’s a chance sometimes u won’t bother to take a hand held unit sometimes. When u stroll off into the bush. A watch is always with you. And I also think it’s important to have up your sleeve more than a couple and perhaps many methods of navigation in case it’s overcast or if one piece of equipment fails for whatever reason
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 29 Sep 2020, 3:27 pm

Blr243 wrote:Good tips I recently bought a gps watch because it’s so much easier to see at a glance instead of digging around for a handheld unit. Depending on how you pack and carry your gear there’s a chance sometimes u won’t bother to take a hand held unit sometimes. When u stroll off into the bush. A watch is always with you. And I also think it’s important to have up your sleeve more than a couple and perhaps many methods of navigation in case it’s overcast or if one piece of equipment fails for whatever reason


I tend to get annoyed with GPS, even on the phone, just find it cumbersome and less than user friendly.
But I did orienteering in school and was taught proper navigation in Army Cadets so I much prefer a map and compass.
I never learned celestial navigation, stars just all look the same to me, never got the hang of it at all.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by JimTom » 29 Sep 2020, 3:35 pm

I always have my GPS in my pocket when our in the sticks, don’t always look at however it’s handy just incase you become geographically challenged.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 29 Sep 2020, 4:01 pm

In the army fifty years ago my father was in a mortar platoon. His group were in constant radio contact with other Aussie soldiers In the area, With no gps , all they had was map any d compass. And every group was constantly updating their position , so that as soon as a battle started my fathers group could instantly start dropping bombs on the Aussies enemies. And off course it had to be done with precision. So it just goes to show how accurate you can be without gps if your life depends on it ....I only started star navigation in the last 18 months when I started thermal hunting. because I found it instantly just there ..Whenever u wanted it ....like a bloody big free map that is correct all the time , no batteries required no buttons , no reading glasses ..I’m always taking bearing s of random un named stars ... I just pick whichever one suits me at whatever time of night depending on what I’m doing at the time....one night a whole heap of heavy cloud will come and mess me up ...it’s just a matter of time
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 29 Sep 2020, 4:07 pm

Blr243 wrote:In the army fifty years ago my father was in a mortar platoon. His group were in constant radio contact with other Aussie soldiers In the area, With no gps , all they had was map any d compass. And every group was constantly updating their position , so that as soon as a battle started my fathers group could instantly start dropping bombs on the Aussies enemies. And off course it had to be done with precision. So it just goes to show how accurate you can be without gps if your life depends on it ....I only started star navigation in the last 18 months when I started thermal hunting. because I found it instantly just there ..Whenever u wanted it ....like a bloody big free map that is correct all the time , no batteries required no buttons , no reading glasses ..I’m always taking bearing s of random un named stars ... I just pick whichever one suits me at whatever time of night depending on what I’m doing at the time....one night a whole heap of heavy cloud will come and mess me up ...it’s just a matter of time


How do you know which star was the one you took the bearing on an hour earlier?
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Post by JimTom » 29 Sep 2020, 4:09 pm

Yes the Army teach navigation very well. Map to ground and other manual navigation skills are a great skill set to have.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Oldbloke » 29 Sep 2020, 6:04 pm

More to Explore will also do it in "emergency location"
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 29 Sep 2020, 6:35 pm

Blade , mostly if I see game at night I just find a star on the horizon immediately above the mob of pigs and I walk towards that star so it’s only a short term thing ...If I don’t choose a star and just guess it I find myself walking way off line in no time at all ......if at any time In the night the action is fast or I’m getting tired and I get disoriented I just look for the southern cross
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 29 Sep 2020, 7:24 pm

Blr243 wrote:Blade , mostly if I see game at night I just find a star on the horizon immediately above the mob of pigs and I walk towards that star so it’s only a short term thing ...If I don’t choose a star and just guess it I find myself walking way off line in no time at all ......if at any time In the night the action is fast or I’m getting tired and I get disoriented I just look for the southern cross


That's the bit I don't get, how do you "pick a star", and then recognise it again after taking your eyes off it for a micro-second :-)
As for the Southern Cross, I've spent decades looking for that!
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by JimTom » 29 Sep 2020, 7:43 pm

I reckon I’d make a mess of things using stars. I believe they are good enough for finding cardinal directions and getting the general direction, on a pitch black night I reckon for me using celestial navigation would be fraught with fraughtness.
Perhaps not so for those schooled in its use.
GPS or dead reckoning would be my go to at night.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 29 Sep 2020, 8:03 pm

It’s dark so I can’t see any land , we notice everting around us in the daytime hunts even subliminally without even thinking about it consciously and we have a general idea of roughly where we are , but on the darkest nights I don’t see mountains, soil trees rivers fences ... the only thing I see is stars ....that becomes my landscape. If I want to head a certain direction .because there is so many, it’s possible for me to not find a stand out star. Usually I look for the brightest one in front of me ... if I see one that stands out from the crowd and it’s within 5 degrees of where I am goin that will do. So I follow that sucker for a while , then stop and use thermal binos to check the position of the pigs , and readjust if I need to I might need to travel between 250 and 1500 m .... sometimes if I can’t find a stand out obvious bright star I will pick out two bright stars ( one is each side of the direction of travel ). So I just walk in between those two stars. A couple of times I have noticed that if I don’t pick stars to follow and I ReLy on my own sense of direction, sometimes I can stuff uff real bad and end up Walking 180 degrees in the wrong direction....when that happens I kick myself because I’m too old to be walking twice as far as need be ......many times out in these paddocks by myself I have thought this is how man must have travelled at night for thousands of years. And it gives me a real buzz to be doing it exactly as they used to. .....and 10000 years from now man will still be doing it .....and I hav guessed or assumed that some Land animals may Glance up at the stars occasionally to help them along their way. I love being in touch with nature in a very primal way ....it’s magical. I’m raving
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Chronos » 29 Sep 2020, 8:04 pm

Blr243 wrote:In the army fifty years ago my father was in a mortar platoon. His group were in constant radio contact with other Aussie soldiers In the area, With no gps , all they had was map any d compass. And every group was constantly updating their position , so that as soon as a battle started my fathers group could instantly start dropping bombs on the Aussies enemies. And off course it had to be done with precision. So it just goes to show how accurate you can be without gps if your life depends on it ....I only started star navigation in the last 18 months when I started thermal hunting. because I found it instantly just there ..Whenever u wanted it ....like a bloody big free map that is correct all the time , no batteries required no buttons , no reading glasses ..I’m always taking bearing s of random un named stars ... I just pick whichever one suits me at whatever time of night depending on what I’m doing at the time....one night a whole heap of heavy cloud will come and mess me up ...it’s just a matter of time



Except every star in the sky is in constant motion and depending on which direction you're facing it could be going left to right, over head to the horizion or in a arc on the horizon.

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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 29 Sep 2020, 8:10 pm

Chronos wrote:
Blr243 wrote:In the army fifty years ago my father was in a mortar platoon. His group were in constant radio contact with other Aussie soldiers In the area, With no gps , all they had was map any d compass. And every group was constantly updating their position , so that as soon as a battle started my fathers group could instantly start dropping bombs on the Aussies enemies. And off course it had to be done with precision. So it just goes to show how accurate you can be without gps if your life depends on it ....I only started star navigation in the last 18 months when I started thermal hunting. because I found it instantly just there ..Whenever u wanted it ....like a bloody big free map that is correct all the time , no batteries required no buttons , no reading glasses ..I’m always taking bearing s of random un named stars ... I just pick whichever one suits me at whatever time of night depending on what I’m doing at the time....one night a whole heap of heavy cloud will come and mess me up ...it’s just a matter of time



Except every star in the sky is in constant motion and depending on which direction you're facing it could be going left to right, over head to the horizion or in a arc on the horizon.

Chronos


There is at least one that never moves isn't there?
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 29 Sep 2020, 10:11 pm

They stay still ( or appear to ) for long enough to help me get from a to b ......each of my little stints is only 25 mins max By then I’m done with that little mission and looking for something else
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by animalpest » 29 Sep 2020, 11:39 pm

All stars "move" from east to west at a constant. Of course they do move, the earth is rotating.

Allow for 4 fingers at arms length for the movement of stars per hour. The same as the sun or moon.

If you can't tell which way is east or west at night, I respectfully suggest you shouldn't be there.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 30 Sep 2020, 12:59 am

animalpest wrote:All stars "move" from east to west at a constant. Of course they do move, the earth is rotating.

Allow for 4 fingers at arms length for the movement of stars per hour. The same as the sun or moon.

If you can't tell which way is east or west at night, I respectfully suggest you shouldn't be there.


Direction is easy, how do you determine your position from the stars though? No point knowing which way to walk if you don't know where you are in relation to where you want to be.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 30 Sep 2020, 4:38 am

That’s handy to know about 4 fingers movement for an hour , so roughly one finger per 15 mins ..I usually use this method walking towards pigs that are moving anyway .....and I’m often useing the binos to reassess the location of the mob , so making constant re adjustments along the way .... I never ever know my exact location from the stars ....if I’m sitting Beside my quadbike on the edge of the paddock looking west with the wind in my face I will wait until I see some pigs then walk over and shoot a couple. Then if there’s nothing else going on anywhere else in the paddock I want to walk back to my quad ( sometimes I have a chair, bed , food drink and iPad On quad ). It’s much more comfy back at the quad ....I know that I walked west to get those pigs so I know I gotta walk east to get back to quad....and there’s a good chance I have temporarily lost my bearings if I have just had some fun and taken some pics so I look for the southern cross ....then I just guess where east is In relation to where I saw the cross. and pick a star close enough to it .....I walk that way for a while and then I start I useing the thermal binos to get a more exact location on the quad because the engine is usually still hot .....sometimes I have a gps dog tracking collar attached to my quad.....if I’m really tired or have had too much excitement it’s sometimes easier to dig the GPS receiver out of my mini pack And find the quad that way ........so summarising, I never know my exact position from the stars , I just use them to steer me in the right direction So I’m not wandering round in circles in the dark
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 30 Sep 2020, 4:41 am

I’m going to get an Epirb too , just in case my 30 years of accident free hunting grinds to a halt all of a sudden
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by animalpest » 30 Sep 2020, 9:44 am

It's difficult to tell where you are from the stars, it's more likely to be used as a reference to work out the direction from your starting point.

I have never been lost but have been bushed before. Being lost means someone needs to find you, being bushed means you are geographically embarrassed for a while but eventually work it out.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 30 Sep 2020, 12:31 pm

I got a bit bushed once in real thick scrub somewhere out Dirranbandi way on a very overcast day ....after a while I was getting a bit tired so I thought I would turn around and head back to my Ute ....so I turn on the gps and hit the go to button and it turns out my Ute is only 50 metres away. Awesome news for a hunter with tired legs ......I must have been doing some silly circles without knowledge
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by JimTom » 30 Sep 2020, 1:54 pm

Blr243 wrote:I’m going to get an Epirb too , just in case my 30 years of accident free hunting grinds to a halt all of a sudden


Mate I was going to get a PLB for hunting however decided on spot tracker gen 3. It allows a preprogrammed message to be transmitted, as well as a save our vehicle (I am ok but need help) and of course an sos.

I am not saying it is the be all and end all however I chose it because you have other options other than hit the launch the helicopter I am in peril button.

Downside is that it requires a subscription as opposed to a one off payment for a PLB.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 30 Sep 2020, 2:35 pm

animalpest wrote:It's difficult to tell where you are from the stars, it's more likely to be used as a reference to work out the direction from your starting point.

I have never been lost but have been bushed before. Being lost means someone needs to find you, being bushed means you are geographically embarrassed for a while but eventually work it out.


Same here, at night getting confused is easy :-)

You're hunting on the south side of an east-west track, and it's getting dark so you want to get back to your vehicle. You know the track traverses the area right across the north of you, so head north and you'll find the track. Then, worst case you have to look both ways to find your vehicle, but you will find it. Easy peasy!

Except that in the dark you have managed to stumble across the track without noticing, and are now on the northern side of it. The movement of the stars tells you which way is north, so you start walking...forever.

Not knowing your position makes knowing directions pointless, even dangerous.

In the Fitzroy flood basin, the bush is criss-crossed with channels cut by the flood waters that hammer through every year, they can have vertical six-meter drops, and be completely invisible across the thick ground cover. The ground cover is often what is holding the edge of the drop together. Push your way through a bush...and find yourself in freefall, even during daytime.

Sometimes it's better to just wait until you have more moonlight, or even wait for dawn. Even a twisted ankle can turn a two-hour adventure into a two-day search and rescue.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by bladeracer » 30 Sep 2020, 2:43 pm

Blr243 wrote:I got a bit bushed once in real thick scrub somewhere out Dirranbandi way on a very overcast day ....after a while I was getting a bit tired so I thought I would turn around and head back to my Ute ....so I turn on the gps and hit the go to button and it turns out my Ute is only 50 metres away. Awesome news for a hunter with tired legs ......I must have been doing some silly circles without knowledge


Been there before, an "emerald green" HiLux is not the ideal choice of vehicle to park for a wander in the bush, even in daylight. I was out at night so I had to wait for the moon to get up, when I discovered it not too far away. I was way out from any civilization I could've walked to, even analogue mobile phones hadn't arrived here yet, and I didn't have radio. But I did have a topo map and a compass.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Blr243 » 30 Sep 2020, 6:36 pm

JT U mentioned that technology once before I should look into doin something. It’s easy to find my Ute in winter with thermal binos because the aluminium tool boxes suck the cold out of the air and they show up blacker than anything else ........and often if I can’t find My quad because the engine has cooled down I see my glowing white dog tied to my quad ......a funny thing happened once ...a shot dead pig still glows white a day later in thermal binos. I think it may be the bacterial activity. So I did accidentally shoot what I thought was a bedded boar but I shot him earlier. My bad
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Post by JimTom » 30 Sep 2020, 8:28 pm

Hahaha mate yes I know what you’re talking about. I was sitting in a dead beast that had been dead a couple of days and it was still glowing as you mentioned.
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Re: Easy location finding/marking.

Post by Oldbloke » 01 Oct 2020, 8:06 pm

Chronos wrote:
Blr243 wrote:
Except every star in the sky is in constant motion and depending on which direction you're facing it could be going left to right, over head to the horizion or in a arc on the horizon.

Chronos


Oh dear, my OCD has kicked in again.

Yes all stars are moving, ( the universe is still expanding as a result of the big bang) including ours. But due to the distance the movement is very small. And not noticeable.

What we see and appears to be the stars moving is in fact the earth is spinning as we rotate around the sun.

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