iPhone compass: does it work w/o cell coverage?

[Paladin]

I was thinking about that young couple who got lost in the SoCal desert and died last summer. http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/s....php?t=1388527

I know my iPhone has a compass. Will it work out in a wilderness without any cell phone coverage? Link?

[LeadFarmer74]

Yes it does. Turn cell signal off and WiFi and try it. Group consensus is it may not be that accurate but it will work.

[Elgatodeacero]

You can buy 30 Suunto M3 NH (northern hemisphere) compasses for price of a new iPhone X.

http://www.suunto.com/en-US/Products/Compasses/Suunto-M-3/Suunto-M-3-NH-Compass/

Only 30 bucks on amazon.

It is possible to "calibrate" the iPhone compass inside "location services," then select "system services."

Here is a good article: https://www.imore.com/compass-app

[Creampuff]

While it is helpful knowing where true north (well sort of north, since I have no idea what the declination is in JT park), I suspect urbanites like the hikers, and myself included, would still get lost with a compass and no knowledge of how to use it.

I guess a topo map and a compass would be good as long as the territory is flat. I have feeling with a topo map and a compass I might still get lost in some of the areas of the Sierras where I have no idea how the rocky terrains with changes in elevation work.

[gorn5150]

I was thinking about that young couple who got lost in the SoCal desert and died last summer. http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/s....php?t=1388527

I know my iPhone has a compass. Will it work out in a wilderness without any cell phone coverage? Link?

Probably wouldn't have helped the couple you are talking about. It turns out the deaths were a murder/suicide.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/10/22/joshua-tree-hikers-murder-suicide-family-speaks/788685001/

[Paladin]

Thanks for the info.

Since they headed south from their car and the road, knowing at least which way was north would have helped them vs wandering around lost in the desert in July....

Probably wouldn't have helped the couple you are talking about. It turns out the deaths were a murder/suicide.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...aks/788685001/

If you look into it more, you'll learn that it was, more accurately, a mercy killing-suicide. They were trying to live, rationing water, hiding in what little shade they could find. The guy was carrying a handgun because the gal (his friend, not his girlfriend), had a stalker.

Only when they realized they had no hope of being rescued and had run out of water did he kill her and then himself preferring that to being cooked alive. This was not the typical "murder-suicide."

http://www.kmir.com/story/36648617/exclusive-parents-of-joshua-tree-hiker-found-dead-say-son-killed-friend-and-himself-to-end-suffering

[gorn5150]

Thanks for the info.

Since they headed south from their car and the road, knowing at least which way was north would have helped them vs wandering around lost in the desert in July....



If you look into it more, you'll learn that it was, more accurately, a mercy killing-suicide. They were trying to live, rationing water, hiding in what little shade they could find. The guy was carrying a handgun because the gal (his friend, not his girlfriend), had a stalker.

Only when they realized they had no hope of being rescued and had run out of water did he kill her and then himself preferring that to being cooked alive. This was not the typical "murder-suicide."

http://www.kmir.com/story/36648617/e...-end-suffering

Looking more into it I found there is no provision in the law for mercy killing.

[Paladin]

Looking more into it I found there is no provision in the law for mercy killing.

I didn't say it was lawful, just that it was not the typical "murder-suicide" and that him bringing the gun is not proof that, when they set out, he intended to kill either of them, but rather was brought along to protect them, but esp her, from a guy who was stalking her.

This is like someone with extremely painful, untreatable, incurable terminal disease where the dose of pain killer needed to alleviate the pain is fatal. The MD will give them a prescription medication and "warn" them of taking over X amount because it would be fatal. They intentionally take that amount. Suicide? Assisted suicide? Or mercy killing, putting themselves out of misery?

I'll leave it up to God to judge them (and this young man and woman) and just pray I'm never in their situation.

[packnrat]

i am lucky in i have a great since of direction.
so hard for me to understand how one can get " lost".

with that said, i know nothing about this report.
if they were out there more than one day, how could they not know what way to walk to seak help?
but then the new " adults" seam to belive with no goverment person to help them, then all is lost.

the human body, and sprit is a great thing, can ( and has) been know to do things beond belife. but from what i read here they were not of such caliber.

sad.

[ExtremeX]

When it comes to GPS, Navigation, Compass...

One is none.

[cleonard]

Compass? Pretty much all phones have GPS. You do need an app for it to be useful off line. I've used my phone for dirt bike navigation well away from cell service.

Navigation is a skill that most young people just don't have anymore.

This is just a sad situation all around.

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[SkyHawk]

I carry PLB/ELT whenever I wander off the beaten path.

[cvigue]

Until the battery runs out.

[sar_man]

The loss of awareness is becoming a bigger issue with people depending on GPS. The Kim search in Oregon was a example of two very intelligent people that depended on the GPS and if had fatal results. There have been studies that we are losing our spatial awareness due loss of being able to visualize our location in relations to our community or area.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gislounge.com/spatial-orientation-and-the-brain-the-effects-of-map-reading-and-navigation/amp/

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