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I’m guessing your declination should have been 17 degrees in your location. I’ve used a Silva compass for almost 70 years for handheld work. For line running, use a professional post compass. Retired timber cruiser, and ex Boy Scout

You don't know how a compass works.

Sorry I didn't see this 6 years ago when you posted it. Bad news- the compass yu have is a cheap chicom gimmick toy. If you want something tht works, you have to spend the money. Get a Brunton compass. Mine, when I bought it 30 years back, as $360. It is of the quality required to do actual land surveys with. It is a tool, not a toy. With all the effort you're putting into this, you're better off hiring a surveyor to do all the work. But alas, that is...6 years ago. Sorry man, way too late to help.

This guy is a born looser...yak yak for ever, ridiculous faulty use of compass---maybe works for surveyor company trying to discredit everything else....

Was your declination set on your compass?

Thanks so much for making this video. I just got two Maremmas and became worried about winter due to them not being as poofy as my old pyrenees.

Thank you for sharing I am having the same problem as you are. I will check my compass for a accuracy.

Well as a retired surveyor ,most people look at the plat or map with the bearings on it .But one thing is maps use true north when a compass uses magnetic which is about 20° difference .My friend tried the same thing you are doing ,and told him with my equipment I can't be accurate . so maybe that will explaine why you where off 30°.His property was 1800' long so if you took the tangent of 20° x 1800' he wpuld be off little over 600',his lot was only 371',so he would have crossed into the property.

You were most likely off because you were following magnetic north, not true north. NOAA had an online calculator that provides you the difference so you can adjust for it, dependent on your current location. Higher end pocket compasses have an adjustment that lets you correct for this on your instrument.

On your survey map does it tell you the variance of true north to magnetic north?

I have been using a metal detector for two weeks finally for the last two pipes/corners. I also used 100' tape, pain in the ass but it worked .Also determined the neighbor put his fence five ft. on my side ,over 500' of fence. I tried telling him before hand ,he said the property line goes straight. It still would have went straight as the old fence did before.

compass deviation is an issue , I have seen the original surveys to be way off also

A metal tripod???

Liar!!! that compass is more accurate than your Suunto.

Buy yourself a cammenga model 27. We use those compasses to get around all over Vietnam and I still use mine to get around Indiana. Admittedly the better you are at land nav the better the Cammengas going to work for you but that's the same with pretty much any compass. I just purchase and received a prismatic compass and I don't know yet whether it's accurate or not. I too got it off of Amazon and pay less than a tenner for it. I paid 70 for the commenga. I also use Silva and Biriea compasses and they're all accurate enough that I've never managed to get myself lost. Don't ever trust a piece of equipment to do the job it was purchased for until after you've tested it. That holds true with a compass and make sure that you know what you're doing with that piece of equipment. And no I'm not trying to be a smart-ass but believe it or not I've seen it happen

chainsaw and a stringline:)

Have the surveyor stake out your property line. The legal liability will be on the surveyor if anything is wrong. You DON'T want to do it yourself and get it wrong. That's a quick trip to being sued into obilivion. Land surveying is a profession for a reason. The equipment is extremely expensive. Accuracy and precision matter in a big way. A ten dollar compass on Amazon and doing it yourself could cost you tens of thousands in legal fees. Don't be that guy. I work in land surveying and have seen the nasty side when things go wrong.

Need to know the difference between true and magnetic north.

Metal on tripod and or declination is off, might be doing opposite of what you need as in adding or subtracting from N.

I have in time past checked my compasses by the North Star, and some did vary more than others. So it is best to check a compass by a known Meridian.

I realize this is several years old now, but for me, I'd start with using the tools on Google Earth and a GPS.

A few comments - 1) the declination error changes with time, so you need to know the year it was surveyed. 2) I've seen significant errors in the deed and in some cases, the deed seems to have referenced magnetic, not true north, back in the day 3), you had the compass between metal phones - you *must* have the compass away from any metal. 4) there is no way that those compasses are off 30 degrees - as others mentioned declination errors are perhaps about 10 degrees. I would recommend you have some outside reference to validate your assumptions about the accuracy using your deed angles to reality, such as two different pins, or those fence posts.

You would have got a better result with a M2 military compass. You can buy them on military ebay or military store. The precision is 0.5 degree or 10 mils. A MC-2 is also a pretty good choice as the Cammenga 3H. But they are clearly not in the $10 budget.

From your survey I'm assuming that you know the bearings are referenced from North or South with the degrees therefrom to the East or West. I had to buy a surveying book to learn that. It's lots of fun beating around properties looking for corners. I eventually bought an antique Gurley transit to survey with. I think I missed my calling - love surveying.

You say exact heading but in reality it is probably just an assumed bearing system that your local surveyors came up with, unless they used GPS. then you need to know what projection they worked in. You need to know if they worked in state plain coordinates or a localized grid. Are the bearings base on geodesic north, astronomical North, assumed North ? You should have paid then to clear line for you. I have done that a few times for clients.

Not a graduate of Army Land Navigation. No compass can be off that much. One word: Declination.

soft bears.

I think i have the same kind of compass as you do,,,you are right, it is a piece of junk, totally useless.

What site do you use to learn about Maremmas?

Interesting and enjoyable! We have a property with some similarities to yours, although we don't have nearly as much land. And we also have a Maremma! I hope you'll post more videos of how your farm is coming along in recent years.

Suunto MC-2 is a great compass

I love how Tino looks at the guy when he speaks <3

My first thought was to ask if there was metal in that tripod which would throw you off by a mile. Buy a good compass and listen to the previous professional

You want an old military grade compass something like Vietnam era . A bad compass can get you killed in the woods if you drop off a cliff.

Use a tree strap rather than a chain to anchor your winch. No sense in killing your anchor tree.

Thank you for reassuring me that I was not the only one out there trying somewhat unsuccessfully to do this. I know where four surveyor pipes are on my 1.25 acre property (I live in a rural subdivision and am just curious about the boundaries for our property). It is wooded, as well. I cannot line up one pipe to another using the phone app I have but thought it would be more accurate than a needle compass. Thank you for the hint on using a tripod. Plus need to figure how much silt, etc may be covering the other pipes and try my metal detector to find them. If I can find one new pipe, I will feel I have been successful!

Use a Bronton Compass, not that online junk from Amazon..

i have a compass, a few actually, the one i used in the army for 20 years i bought at the BX for i think 45, it is a stoker and yale, and i do trust my life to its readings and have actually done so. the other is a brunton, i paid about 400 for it some years ago. it is one where all the readings are backwards since it is a direct read. you have to know how to use these. 1. prove your compass, (that 88 degrees on a survey map could be their compass, not one that is accurate, although that is remote.) 2. know your declination. this is critical and your 30 degrees could be largely due to declination (movement of magnetic north which the surveyor should have compensated for.) 3. use a map, a sketch, something, when available so that if you have objects at a distance you can triangulate your location. 4. good film i have one of those cheap compasses and i know how to make it work for me and yes, it does perform well. you just need to know how to get it to work. a compass (decent ones) are precision devices.

Why the stupid music, takes away from the video.

We have a dog that’s this breed. We just couldn’t get her to come inside the house she prefers the snow. Now we know why.

Your surveyor could have marked that line spot on in 3-4 hours tops. One shot one begging corner and one the the last one. Mark the line. But good experience for you. Smart going with the bearing on 3 points instead of your compass. Decalation was not being accounted for. No one trys to plumb their own house but everyone thinks they are a surveyor! Good luck

You need Andrew, Andrew Camarata

I'm jealous! We have 4 Great Pyrenees, but here in south Texas we don't get snow like that or temperatures much below freezing in the winter, so our dogs don't get quite as fluffy as that!

One issue that I see is that you're cutting down brush, but you have no clue if the stuff you're cutting down is on your property.

Great video! Thank you for sharing. Did you ever build the bridge? Would love to see the outcome. Thank you!

Do a video on the charger box! I am going to build a custom charger box myself soon and am open to any method of doing so.

Ok, just give the dog a cctv camera.

Can confirm, my Pyr does not like the rain.

love the Maremma from Abruzzo-beautiful dog-interesting video🙂

I have a collection of 9 compasses, including a Cammenga and Suunto MC2, and it also includes that $10 sighting compass -- which is a good enough compass for hiking _if_ _used_ _correctly_ and that includes knowing how to adjust for magnetic declination when using it with a map. That compass marries up exactly with azimuths on my Suunto, so I guess yours must have been faulty from new. I haven't yet tried mine on a tripod to see if the metal in the tripod affects the performance of the compass. The main problem with that $10 compass is that it's very heavy.