Navigation, comms and mobility

Knowing where you are, reaching people, and moving safely.

• NC1 Map and compass basicsA compass tells you one thing, which is where magnetic north is. Everything useful comes from setting the map to the ground, reading the shape of the land, and knowing where you are before you need to know where you are going.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC2 Take and walk a bearingThree steps to take one off the map and three to follow it on the ground. Following a bearing accurately over distance is harder than taking one, so aim off deliberately and give yourself something you cannot miss to walk into.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC3 Navigate without a compassThe sun and the stars give you direction reliably; almost everything else you have been told does not. Polaris is the best of them and is within a degree of true north, and the moss on the trees is worth nothing at all.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC4 Judge distance, time and daylightFour kilometres an hour plus a minute for every ten metres of climb gets you close, and then you add for the group, the ground, the load and the dark. Almost every benighting comes from an estimate that assumed everybody was fresh.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC5 Grid references, and giving your positionAlong the corridor and up the stairs, eastings before northings, and always give the two letters. A six-figure reference finds you to a hundred metres, which is not close enough on open ground, so learn to give eight.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC6 Read the weather without a forecastFalling pressure and a backing wind is the one combination that reliably means it is coming, and high thin cloud thickening and lowering is the same message written in the sky. Nothing here beats a forecast; all of it works when you cannot get one.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC7 Radio: what actually receivesListening needs no licence and transmitting mostly does. A wind-up set that covers FM and medium wave is the resilient choice, because DAB fails abruptly while FM degrades gracefully, and medium wave carries hundreds of miles after dark.Quick actions, 9 steps
• NC8 Get a message out when networks are downA text needs far less signal than a call and will send itself the moment a sliver of network appears. A 999 call goes via any network, not only yours. Both of those are free, and one of them needs registering before the day you need it.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC9 Meeting points and a household planThe plan that needs no communication is the one that survives no communication. Three places, one out-of-area number, one card per person, and a default that everybody follows without being told.Quick actions, 9 steps
• NC10 Moving on foot safelyStaying put is usually the right answer, and this page exists for the times it is not. Decide before you go, carry less than you want to, move in daylight, and understand that a group travels at the speed of its slowest member for as long as that person can keep going.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC11 Vehicle preparation and storing fuelKeep the tank above half and the car becomes a reserve rather than a liability. Storing petrol at home is legal up to thirty litres in the right containers, it goes off within about six months, and the vapour is the dangerous part rather than the liquid.Quick actions, 8 steps
• NC12 River and flood crossing decisionsThis is a decision page and the decision is almost always not to cross. Fifteen centimetres of moving water will take an adult off their feet, you cannot see the bed, and the walk round is nearly always shorter than the consequences.Quick actions, 8 steps