Autohelm hand bearing compass - instructions?

antaris

antaris

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Hello all,

I've recently bought one of these old Autohelm hand bearing compasses:

Autohelm_compass.jpg


Anyone happen to have the instructions? In either photo or scanned (or even text) format.... would be great.

Many thanks in advance! :)
 
Dipper said:
Everybody says how good they were. Why did they stop making them? Strange.
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I think there were some downsides... One I think was that they have to be horizontal to give a correct reading or the ( considerable) dip in the earths magnetic field causes an error.

I cannot remember exactly when they were produced. Before the current electronic/digital age really became so firmly established? May be more successful now although I guess every one now just uses a smart phone, an i-pod, j-pad, xyz-box or an "app". What ever apps are

Do you need a HB compass these days?
 
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I have an autohelm hb compass like that, a very good bit of kit though I make sure I've also got a tradtional hb compass and one built in to binos which is also very useful.

As mentioned one has to be careful to keep the autohelm job flat horizontal, but it's a great bit of kit.
 
Seajet said:
I have an autohelm hb compass like that, a very good bit of kit though I make sure I've also got a tradtional hb compass and one built in to binos which is also very useful.

As mentioned one has to be careful to keep the autohelm job flat horizontal, but it's a great bit of kit.
Click to expand...

Aren't (weren't) Autohelm and Raymarine one and the same thing? Was this a takeover or rebranding? Certainly a lot of the premises I remember seeing as a young Marconi apprentice changed from Autohelm to Raymarine without fanfare, and many of the Raymarine products seem to be rebadged versions of the Autohelm stuff. (ST1000 etc.)
 
emsworthy said:
Aren't (weren't) Autohelm and Raymarine one and the same thing? Was this a takeover or rebranding? Certainly a lot of the premises I remember seeing as a young Marconi apprentice changed from Autohelm to Raymarine without fanfare, and many of the Raymarine products seem to be rebadged versions of the Autohelm stuff. (ST1000 etc.)
Click to expand...

Yes they are / were but there seems remarkably little continuity, and even when they were just Autohelm they seemed to have very few spares for their products; when I had a snag with an early ST1000 the chap said I'd just nabbed the last of a certain type of washer !

I don't know why they discontinued the hb compass, it works well and is very compact.
 
Best thing they ever made.
I use mine constantly.
Just be careful with battery life, with heavy use its only about 6-7 years :D
 
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