Westcott  C-Thru Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Grid Reader

Great concept, but excessively complicated. After a 20 year career in the Infantry I have done a fair amount of land navigation and quite familiar with map protractors and how to use them. Picked up this product to try and teach a friend some land navigation. The protractor is too cluttered and easy to get lost as to which scale you're using. The amount of clutter on the protractor interferes with seeing detail on the map as well as making the marking of defined points difficult. If you have nothing else, it's useable, but something less cluttered makes life a lot easier. 8 different scales is overkill.

I don't know why people are complaining about it not being printed correctly, there are smaller numbers if you want to use the "correct" clockwise degrees. The big numbers are for back azimuths which, if you know how to use this properly, is what you'll be shooting the majority of the time. This is a fantastic tool. If you have an interest in a form of land navigation that doesn't rely on batteries then pick this up, watch some youtube videos or attend a basic orienteering course and after a little practice, you'll be set.

I first learned how to use one of these UTM grid readers back in 2001. It took less than 5 minutes to master and ever since, I've avoided lat/lon like the plague. Think about it... lat/lon is the system Columbus used. But now it's the 21st century. Assumng you understand what the term "datum" means, the UTM system is EASY, FAST, and ACCURATE. Learn to use this; you won't regret it.

The Grid Reader actually has the degrees correctly printed. It’s a matter of knowing how to use a plotter. Example: 1. Lay your (UTM) Grid Reader on a chart. 2. Align the cross-hair where the north-south and west-east lines meet to be on top of a longitude line (probably blue, running north-south). 3. Adjust the reader (which is a plotter) so the north-south line and the east-west line match those on the map. (The North on the plotter should point north just as on the map.) 4. While keeping the cross-hairs on the longitude line, rotate the reader/plotter clockwise about 10 degrees. 5. Now, read up the longitude line from the cross-hats to see the number on the reader. That would be the true heading to move along the “direction of travel” arrow printed on the reader. About 10 degrees. 6. Move the reader around so the starting point and destination are on the “direction of travel” line but keep the cross-hairs on the longitude line. Again, read the true course by reading the number on the reader just over the longitude line. Try it, the explanation is longer than really learning to do it.

An excellent, inexpensive plotting tool. With this simple piece of plastic, a compass, and either some good deductive reckoning or a GPS, you should never get lost, and should always be able to find your way. It is so good that I am getting a second one so I'll never be without.

This is a great UTM grid reader, but does come with a little bit of a learning curve. Once you learn how to use it, the GR2 Grid Reader is quite handy. I’ve bought two and both are spot on. It will take your land navigation capabilities to another level beyond terrain association.

Unless your map is one of the oddball scales you're better off with a military grid reader. Less clutter, easier to read. Smaller, and more durable.

This is a standard tool for working with paper maps, but the US is centering on 24k UTM topos, so several of the grid tools here are just clutter. The main draw for me is the compass, which is nice and clear. I'm building my own version of this for personal use, and the changes I'm making are: rounded corners, 24k only measurements, and holes at the center of the compass and other marking spots. If you've got a range of maps, or may be in a situation where you don't know what you're going to work with until you're in the field, this is a must have tool. It's light, easy to use, and has nearly everything you need. It's also one of the few you'll find in stock at REI across the US, so it's clearly still popular.

A simple one page of info provides minimal info, and provides a physical address, to which you can send snail mail, to request "The Universal Transverse Mercator Grid, a USGS fact sheet". I found that document online, in PDF format. But the point is that the company should provide a URL that will provide that PDF, and other useful information. The included basic sheet states that this reader will work with eight different map scales...yet it doesn't even clarify which eight scales those are. To provide a list of those scales on that sheet, or online, seems like common sense to me. It seems very simple, and I'm sure I'll learn how to use this product very quickly. But, in this age of Internet, it surprises me that they don't have a detailed PDF and a how-to video on YouTube. Laziness, is what it comes down to.

UTM grid reader works if you pick the correct scale. But the protractor is printed like the ones Westcott makes for geometry class, where the angles increase in the counterclockwise direction. Compass angles increase on the clockwise direction. No idea what they were thinking, since there's no documentation with it except for using the UTM scale markings. Basic map and compass training, including military, teaches use of the protractor for plotting the intersection of two bearings to locate the grid coordinates of a distant object, using the protractor on a standard grid reader. Those angle markings always read clockwise, exactly like your compass does. So do most other plastic grid readers you can buy for the same price as this one. Do yourself a favor, and buy a better one than this, that's not printed backwards. Even if all you wanted was the UTM scale, why not carry one that at least works if you ever use the protractor? Maybe you'll even get some better documentation with it, since the doc that comes with this one is also worthless.