I have a hard time deciding between watches for outdoor wear. My main watch is a Marathon SAR with cyclops and the optional steel bracelet (http://www.countycomm.com/presar.htm). It has a high-end Swiss automatic movement that is accurate to within COSC spec, is water resistant to 330 meters, has great night illumination and is built like a tank. It is vastly in excess of any sane timekeeping requirement that I will ever have, and I have total confidence in it.

I also have a Casio ProTrek PRG70-1VDR (http://world.casio.com/asia/wat/protrek/triple_sensor/prg-70.html#PRG-70T), which has a slew of time, compass, altimeter, barometer and thermometer functions and is solar powered to boot. I got it from www.chronograph.com.

The SAR is significantly more indestructible than I am but only tells time, and the Casio does a lot of useful things but isn't anywhere near as water resistant and indestructible.

I should probably wear both <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

I guess I am a watchaholic! I have loads of them all over the place! Daily I wear an Omega Seamaster auto with a black dial. It is very accurate and looks nice. Most important to me is it feels good on my wrist. I do not take it on outdoors trips though, cost too much for me, anyway.
If I am going on a field trip I have a Luminox "Navy SEAL" with a custom dial that does not say Navy SEAL on it! It was worth the $25 or so I paid for the dial! I like the watch for camping because it was relatively inexpensive, it is accurate and it glows better than any other watch I have seen with the tritium. You can get lots of good inexpensive watches like Timex, Casio, etc. Just ask yourself what you want it to do, tell time and be expendable is mostly my criteria for a field watch. I like my Seiko divers also, some glow well and some don't glow much at all, depends on the model. The common auto diver is the SKX-007K which sells for a little over a hunderd bucks and glows well enough to read the time all night. Guess it all depends on taste, budget and so on.
Hope you find something that you are happy with. Cheers.

Thanks to all for your recommendations. I have an 1960s era Omega Speedmaster and the 10 year old Seiko Sports 100 that I mentioned earlier. I usually alternate between these watches for everyday wear, but they have aquired some sentimental value and I don't take them into the woods for backpacking and rock climbing. I've got a really cheap digital Timex Expediton that is always screwing up, and which I cannot get the day (not date) set correctly. It drives me crazy.

Anyway, like I said, I am looking for something that I can wear everyday and not take off for the outdoors. Furthermore, as I am always trying to streamline my EDC, I wanted to have a compass on the watch to free up some space in my altoids kit. I keep a base plate compass on my BK7 in the attached pouch in my trck which would be my "go to" compass, but redundancy in this area is important to me.

I have decided on an analog field watch with date and maybe alarm (a hard feature to find) with a clip on button compass. The wrist top computers are great and all, but I feel that failure is a real possibilty with them due to either the lack of ruggedness, or batteries.

The finalist are:

Timex 41031 Simple watch, can replace the leather strap with webbing.

Timex 48221 Good basic watch. I like the webbing strap.


St. Moritz Pathfinder More money, but has alarm and is made of titanium. How can you go wrong with titanium? <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The St. Moritz Pathfinder Ti looks interesting. It seems to even have a GMT hand. Titanium is lighter, has a high melting point and is non corrosive thus good for saltwater activities. It looks like the perfect field watch.

But the Pathfinder model has no rotating bezel. I'm wondering to what extent it would be a desirable feature. The original function of it is to keep track of elapsed time underwater (for diving... I've never dived but I guess it has something to do with decompression, etc.) You rotate
it until the pointer at the top of the bezel is even with the minute hand, then as the minute hand moves you can read how many minutes have elapsed on the bezel... But I think it could have other practical uses:

- for timing your cooking;
- to keep track of the last time you took your medication;
- some math. calculations;
- for parking meters...

Could you come up with other uses?

There's the St. Moritz Transformer ti but it's a solar cell. I'm wondering if those automatic, kinetic "auto relay" or solar cell are really worth it. You don't have to change the cell but on the other hand the capacitor may break after a couple of years which would be more expensive to change than a simple battery.

Then there's the St. Moritz Format 2, etc.

Thanks
Frankie

On a dive watch the bezel only rotates one way so you will not accidentally turn it while on a dive and extend your time under water. If it is moved the one way bezel only allows you to shorten your time under. (Longer could kill you, Shorter will not)

The automatics are an old and proven system. The solar watches seem to work well. (Wife loves hers 4-5 years old) The kinetic ones seem to have problems last time I checked. Spent several hours doing searches on line to see what problems they were having. Short of it was the generator spins at many thousands of RPM’s and does not last long. They may have improved them but I would go solar between the two.

oh okay the extra hand is the alarm feature... anyways

I used to own that exact watch and now I own the version with the stainless steel band and slightly beefier face. Both are excellent. The stainless version is my current edc.

The only watchband that ever felt perfect was called a Fastwrap, or something like that. I have small wrists but Timex watchbands fit me the best.

Yeah, the extra hand is the alarm. Not something you see everyday on an analog watch. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I, personally, cannot think of any reason why I would need a rotating bezel. Diving and timing are the only the only things I can think of using them for. For either of those situations, I'd probably want a chronograph of some type.

I just want something that tells the time and date, is tough, won't break the bank, has a band upon which I can put a compass, and, as an option, has an alarm. Not goofy looking is another consideration.

Dynamo,

Here's what I use, since I destroy wristwatches:

Dakota Angler II

It's got a compass, red led light, stopwatch, alarm, calendar, and it's water resistant. I keep it clipped to my belt loop. For 70 bucks, it's not too pricey, either.