Author: Hui Xin Source: Original of this site
The uncrowned king of the card compass: Songtuo SUUNTO A10, A30 compass
The compass is one of the four major inventions of the Chinese National Dynasty, which uses the geomagnetic principle to determine the direction of the device for early human exploration of the world, ocean navigation to provide strong technical support, and is still widely used today.
The compass to be introduced today is the Suunto brand from Nordic Finland.
The logo of Suunto, note the red triangle on it that indicates the direction
As the saying goes, one side feeds the other. Similarly, the natural conditions of a place can also give rise to local specialties.
Just as the sun and soil of France make red wine, Frankfurt in Germany makes sausages. The birth of the compass brand, Sunto SUUNTO, naturally benefited from Finland's forest cover of up to 80% (about 22.82 million hectares).
Logging, hiking, and hunting in the vast and inaccessible old forests certainly requires a tool to orient yourself.
Finland's vast boreal coniferous forests
Sunto SUUNTO A-10/A-30 is a card-type compass, which is characterized by a simple and reliable structure.
The overall structure is clearly visible through the transparent hanging card packaging: a circular compass is mounted on the transparent base plate. But when you take out the compass and play with it, you will find the subtleties on the small compass, and you will see the real skill.
Sunto SUUNTO A-10/A-30 north arrow is packaged in a transparent elevator
Sonto SUUNTO A-10 North Arrow
Each set of Sunto SUUNTO A-10/A-30 north arrow includes the north arrow body, lanyard and black plastic hook for easy carrying of the north arrow around the neck. At the same time, in order to facilitate the lifting of the north arrow from the vertical suspension state to the horizontal position, one end of the north arrow transparent bottom plate lanyard is also carefully designed to resemble the curved warp of the front of the ski.
Officers who have had outdoor hiking experience will be more sensitive to the weight of their belongings, and the Sonto SUUNTO A-10 compass is only 34 grams, and it is almost impossible to feel it hanging around the neck.
To facilitate the lifting of the compass from the vertical suspension to the horizontal position, one end of the transparent bottomboard lanyard is designed to resemble the curved warp of the front of the ski
The transparent base plate makes it easy to place the north arrow on the map to minimize the obstruction of information content on the map.
On both sides of the transparent base plate are printed red metric (in centimeters) and imperial (in inches) tick marks, and note that the scale is marked with 1:10000, 1:25000, 1:50000 three quick conversion labels, which is faster and more convenient to estimate the distance on the corresponding scale map.
Scale on the map on the transparent base plate of the Sonto SUUNTO A-10 North Arrow
The diameter of the circular compass is about 48 mm (if the diameter is too small to clearly display the azimuth scale, the diameter is too large and not easy to carry), the upper cover is printed with a white 360-degree scale and the word "N, E, S, W", and the black plastic ring below is just below the white number, which is easy for users to read.
In the wild, it is not possible to always travel towards due north or due south, due east, and due west, and to change the direction of travel is to gently rotate the edge of the north arrow cover with anti-slip bumps, and the north arrow can be rotated to the desired angle to match the change in the direction of travel.
The north arrow can be turned 360°
The steel red and black hands, red pointing north and black pointing south. The handcuff turns the compass back and forth, and you can see that the needle always keeps the direction it is pointing in, without repeatedly swinging until it gradually stabilizes.
This is due to the fact that the SUUNTO A-10/A-30 north arrow uses gem bearings and a liquid-filled chamber. A closer look reveals that there is a transparent counterweight block on the black part of the pointer.
Since the Earth's magnetic field is inside the Earth, the compass sinks towards the north end when actually in use (especially at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere) and upwards at the southern end. This causes friction between both ends of the pointer and the inner surface of the north arrow to create resistance, affecting normal use.
Looking down through the needle, the circular transparent base plate of the north arrow (rotatable, not integrated with the main transparent bottom plate) also has a red scale of -90 to +90 degrees and the SUUNTO logo.
The SUUNTO A-30 North Arrow is an upgraded version of the A-10
As an upgrade of the A-10, the A-30 North Arrow mainly has the following upgrades:
- The black plastic circle under the compass scale was replaced by a luminous material;
- The red triangular arrows on the hands, dial and transparent baseplate have also been preceded by fluorescent dots, making it easier for users to read scale data in low-visibility environments such as night;
- In addition to metric imperial scales and scales, the transparent base plate also has a convex lens with a diameter of about 30 mm, which can easily read the small print, contour lines, etc. on the map, and can also be used as a tool for emergency fire in the wild (please strictly abide by the forest fire regulations outdoors).
The scale ring of the A-30 north arrow has been replaced with a luminous material, and the red triangle arrow on the hands, dial and transparent base plate has also added fluorescent dots in front of it, making it easy for users to read the scale data in low-visibility environments such as night
The transparent base plate also features a convex lens with a diameter of about 30 mm, which is convenient for reading small prints and contour lines on the map
A-30 refers to metric/imperial scales on the north arrow transparent base plate
Speaking of the lanyard of the compass, the author has the privilege of seeing the A-10 compass that a friend purchased earlier, with a striking red arrow in the middle of the transparent bottom plate, and the word "A-10" on one side.
The lanyard of the early version of the A-10 compass is a pure red nylon rope, which is very beautiful. The new version of the lanyard adds a short reflective strip that can be used as a more eye-catching visual identification mark when outdoor activities, and it is easy to find in case the compass is lost.
A-30 north arrow, black lanyard buckle and new lanyard with reflective strip
Old A-30 compass and pure red lanyard
The black lanyard clasp needs to be pressed hard to clamp the hanging point on the bottom plate of the compass
Finally, it should be noted that due to the limitation of the "magnetic inclination" mentioned above, the north arrow is distinguishing between the southern hemisphere version and the northern hemisphere version. This is mainly because the Northern Hemisphere version of the compass may not indicate direction accurately in southern South America, southern Africa, and Australia. Therefore, small partners located in the southern hemisphere need to pay attention to the purchase.
Of course, if there is a need for deployment or activities on a global scale, you can choose KB-20 and other SUNTO global compass models, and we will continue to introduce different compass products if we have the opportunity to do so.
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