Bearing compass
AssigneeE. S. Ritchie & Sons, Inc.
InventorAllen Butman Sherman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A portable hand-held compass for taking navigational bearings on distant objects during the day or at night. The compass has a hollow housing in which a compass card is mounted for rotation about a vertical axis, a viewing window in the housing through which compass readings are taken, and a sighting barrel incorporated in the housing for viewing a distant object along a horizontal viewing path. The compass also has a manually activated light emitting diode for illuminating a reticle, a semi-reflective mirror positioned across the sighting path for reflecting an image of the illuminated reticle to the eyepiece of the sighting barrel, means for automatically unclamping the compass card when the L.E.D. is activated, and means for automatically clamping the compass card when the L.E.D. is deactivated.
Claims9
A portable, hand-held bearing compass for taking bearings during the day and at night comprising:
- a hollow housing;
- a magnetic compass mounted in said housing, said compass having a compass card mounted for rotation about a vertical axis;
- a viewing window provided in said housing through which compass readings can be taken;
- a sighting barrel having an eyepiece, said barrel being associated with said housing for viewing a distant object along a horizontal sighting path;
- a reticle mounted within said housing offset from said sighting path;
- manually activated means for illuminating said reticle;
- a semi-reflective mirror positioned within said sighting barrel across said sighting path, said mirror being angled to reflect the image of said illuminated reticle along said sighting path towards said eyepiece while permitting a distant object to be viewed along said sighting path through said eyepiece;
- means for continuously clamping said compass card in the absence of reticle illumination;
- and means for unclamping said compass card in response to the manual activation of said reticle illumination means.
A portable, hand-held bearing compass for taking bearings during the day and at night comprising:
- a hollow housing;
- a magnetic compass mounted in said housing, said compass having a compass card mounted for rotation about a vertical axis;
- a viewing window provided in said housing through which compass readings can be taken;
- a sighting barrel having an eyepiece, said barrel being joined to said housing for viewing a distant object along a horizontal sighting path;
- a reticle mounted within said housing offset from said sighting path;
- manually activated means for illuminating said reticle;
- a semi-reflective mirror positioned within said sighting barrel across said sighting path, said mirror being angled to reflect the image of said illuminated reticle along said sighting path towards said eyepiece while permitting a distant object to be viewed along said sighting path through said eyepiece;
- clamping means movable between two positions, one position clamping said compass card, the other position unclamping said compass card, means biasing said clamping means to its clamping position, and means responsive to said manually activated illuminating means to move said clamping means to its unclamping position when said reticle is illuminated.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.