Set new waypoint on specified bearing from a WP

Former Member over 9 years ago

I have been in Norway and wanted to identify some distant mountain tops, which although on paper maps, would be at least two or three maps apart, say 100 kilometres. I want to make a waypoint where I am, at a known location, and then set a bearing to another waypoint, for arguments sake, 100 k distant, direct routing using the bearing I have manually taken using a good old fashioned compass. I could then view the Topo map, with the route marked, and use it to identify the mountain, where the route crosses over / crosses near a suitable profile mountain.

Although I could create a route using two waypoints, I cannot edit the distance or the bearing, to give me a suitable line. Have I missed how to do this, or is it not possible to do this in BC?

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

...I cannot edit the distance or the bearing, to give me a suitable line. Have I missed how to do this, or is it not possible to do this in BC?

Try this: Having made your present position a waypoint on your GPS, either transfer it to BC or identify it in BC...(could be a POI). Then use the ruler tool to draw a line from it, adjusting with the mouse until the bearing matches your compass bearing (adding or subtracting magnetic to true bearing) (actually you can set BC to use Magnetic under Options to avoid this arithmetic.) Use the overview map and the zoom keys or zoom slider until you have a ruler line that matches your compass bearing and is approximately the length you think it should be, and look in the vicinity for a peak that seems like a good candidate. Now, you can lay a second waypoint at that peak so you have a line you can match up to various lower peaks and passes to see if it corresponds to what you see. As soon as you change to the waypoint tool your ruler line will disappear so you have to be zoomed in pretty good to get the second waypoint real close to where the end of the ruler line was. The route should now have the same bearing and distance that the ruler line did.

Naturally, I'm assuming you are using a Topo map in BC and you can see this distant peak. Also, unless the peak is somewhat higher or isolated, the normal compass error may make mis-identification possible at the longer distances. Of course, the distant mountain may have an elevation or a name on the BC Topo, which will make positive identification easier.

Some hiking GPSr's have a Sight-and Go option, where you simply point the unit at the peak and read the bearing. I think you can also project a waypoint at whatever distance you like with those units....how to save that line to BC I don't have a clue.

Hope this helps, despite being rather kludgy.:)

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Thanks very much. This principle worked well. Unfortunately, I am still not sure which specific lumps they are as I can't match the topo map profile with the mountains at this distance, and of course the inaccuracy of the original compass bearing (need a sighting one like yachties use for better accuracy), but it does at least let me work on this for the future.

Re the Sight & Go, the 64s doesn't appear to let me set a waypoint in the direction required to be able to transfer to BC.

Thanks again.

So a request to Garmin developers - please can you make this sort of functionality available more easily, or make it possible to edit the bearing and distances between waypoints.

0 BTLAAKE over 9 years ago

I’ll assume that the 64 interface is very similar to the 62 series. Sight & go uses the internal compass on the device to create for direction and user supplied distance and units to create a new Waypoint. It then automatically starts navigation to that Waypoint. I would assume the navigation behavior would be the same as selecting a Waypoint and choosing GO.

An alternative is to first create a Waypoint at your current position. Then create a new waypoint by projection from this stored location. The user will asked for a bearing and a distance with units. A new Waypoint will be created at that location. The procedure is to select a Waypoint in the Waypoint Manager, press enter (this will bring up the Waypoint), press Menu and choose Project from the list.

In BaseCamp a direct route using the two waypoints will connect them with a line. Opening the Route Properties will give you a True heading.

A word of caution on Bearing. The bearing the device uses will be based on the Heading set-up. That is to say if the Heading set-up is true, the bearing will be the True bearing. If the Heading set-up is Magnetic, then it will assume the bearing entered is uncorrected for magnetic variation (i.e. True North vs. Magnetic North). The point is the actual projection probably uses a true heading determined using a table of magnetic variations (devices compass really isn’t involved). So the table values may have small errors and local magnetic anomalies can throw off a compass reading. Therefore, some slop should be expected.

A Sight & Go has to be done while you are physically at a location. A Waypoint projection can be done regardless of your physical location.

I hope this all makes sense.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Thanks very much.

This also worked well. So now I have a couple of options, both "in the field" and back at home on the PC.

However, I would still like to see the facility to (within BC), edit the distance and bearing of a direct route between two waypoints, rather than drag the secondway point manually until these details are pretty much correct.