Suunto KB14 Compass Review

The company website description calls this a professional compass. It is also is called a sighting compass. Suunto rates the accuracy at one sixth of a degree. Many of the readily available compasses in the camping section of discout stores do not rate accuracy. That lack of rating is a bit scary, but no more scary than the clear difference in the ability to read the guages clearly. The markings on the Suunto are exact and precise.  You can read the guages on the KB14 compass well enough to interpret and appreciate the accuracy. On most of those other compases the dial makes it clear that a high degree of accuracy is not to be even guessed.

I use my Suunto for hot-air ballooning, or I did before someone liked it well enough to liberate it from me! I serve as an observer, that's a race official at hot-air ballooning competitions. Pilots drop sand filled baggies near targets and we verify the location of those baggie drops. Pilots fly as close as they can to a target and drop a baggie. The closest baggie gets the highest number of points. There will be several flights and points accumulate. At the end of a week, the pilot with the highest score is declared the winner. Sometimes the baggie will land in a spot that that makes it impossible to take a direct measure like on a roof or on the opposite side of a concrete wall from the goal. This happens when throw are close enough that a GPS margin of error is a disadvantage and In these cases we take a compass reading to points that we can measure and use trigonometry to figure the distance. I feel confident in my result when I am using a compass of this quality. I also feel much better about my chances of getting out of the woods when I need to with this compass. When it matters this is the compass I want, and when it doesn't matter, I don't carry one.

I put the fact that this is a mechanical device under both pros and cons. I consider this a pro because a mechanical device is reliable. No batteries are needed and there's no crisis if batteries loose their charge. It is a con because of all the fancy features are available with an electronic device. You do not need much preparation or education to use an electronic device for ti to get you back on course when you wander astray. If you are needing to get out of the woods or any other place, the complicated technology is much more user friendly and required less knowledge. These, of course, are features of GPS recievers rather than a compass, but many people will choose the GPS over the compass if it suits their need.