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Baseball: Reviving the Sport
Baseball: Reviving the Sport
What things are more American than baseball, red, white, and blue, and apple pie? Unfortunately, this revered sport has earned a rather tarnished image over the past years due to strikes, increasing ticket prices,...
Go Karts - Becoming a Racing Enthusiast
Imagine - ripping your torso as you hit a curve launching your sprint kart down the circuit. Pressing on the accelerator as you exercise dead-on hand-and-eye coordination determining the smartest way to turn the drift in the 21st minute of an...
Ice Hockey History and the NHL
Even though the history of ice hockey began earlier than 1917, many people say that this was the year when the modern hockey history began. You probably already new this, but 1917 was the year when the first historical game of the National Hockey...
Offshore Sport Betting with your Cellphone
Offshore sport betting with a mobile device like a cellphone or
PDA now allows a sports fan to place a bet anytime, anywhere in
the world. Imagine that you are at a game and your favorite team
is hot and scoring fast. You already have a bet that...
Saunders to the Pistons, Larry to the Knicks
What it means to these two teams Well, the news of Larry Brown’s departure from Detroit and expected arrival in New York has finally come to pass. As expected, Flip Saunders, the embattled former Minnesota Timberwolves coach has now taken the help...
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Why Range Finders are Perfect for the BackCountry
Why Range Finders are Perfect for the BackCountry
Chuck Fitzgerald ©2004. All Rights Reserved.
Outdoor enthusiasts love to guess about all sorts of things. We guess how many stars are in the Milky Way, we guess how fast a deer runs or we might even guess about how long it will be until that big, dark cloud dumps rain us. But there are times when guessing in the backcountry just doesn’t get the job done. Specialty gear is available to help us determine how far we’ve hiked - and in what direction - and other tools are available to help take the guesswork out of purifying water. But there is a another useful tool overlooked by many avid backcountry visitors - the rangefinder.
Rangefinders are used in a number of commercial applications - surveying, mapping, mining, etc. - however for our purposes we will be discussing the portable laser rangefinder used by outdoor sportsmen and sportswomen.
Laser rangefinders calculate the distance to an object by bouncing a laser beam off of the object and measuring the lapsed time until the beam returns. Since the calculation is based upon the return of the beam, it stands to reason that a more reflective object can be measured at a greater distance than a less reflective object. Readily available models are accurate to within one yard and have the ability to measure distances to reflective targets up to 1500 yards away – that’s nearly a mile - and they’re accurate under nearly any condition.
The past few years have seen a number of technology advances across all rangefinder price ranges. Many models are lightweight, are easily operated with one hand, can measure through rain or snow, can see through nearby clutter,
function well in low light, contain integrated optical magnification and are 100% waterproof. Additionally there have been vast improvements lately to lens coatings, battery life and information display.
If distances are important to your activity, you need a rangefinder. BackCountry features – rocks, trees, lakes, mountains, ravines, cliffs – have a tendency to distort one’s depth perception. It is easy to misjudge even short distances. The most widely used application of rangefinders is in measuring shot distances by hunters. Whether you are hunting waterfowl or elk, distance to your game is the most critical factor in placing an effective shot. Bow hunters would never hunt without their rangefinder, the difference between 45 yards and 50 yards for a bow hunter is the difference between success and failure. Rangefinders are also used by golfers for determining club selection, by hikers to determine the best route to travel and by campers, boaters and wildlife observers for a wide variety of distance measuring purposes.
The next time you plan to spend time in our wondrous backcountry consider taking a rangefinder along with you. If you’ve never looked through a rangefinder, you don’t know what you’re missing. With a quality rangefinder, guessing distances just became old news. Use this information and you’ll Get It Right The First Time. Get Outdoors!
About the Author
About the author: Chuck Fitzgerald is Owner and President of Arizona based BackCountry Toys, an online store providing backcountry specialty gear and educational information for outdoor enthusiasts. Visit www.BackCountryToys.com to receive the free newsletter "FreshAir” or call (800) 316-9055.
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