I IanR,

      Well, VOR is more then a gadget once you understood how to work with it. You will see.

First, the VOR means, Very high Omnidirectional frequency Range. It is station located on the ground. There is a lot on the airport or close to the airport.
But sometime they can be in the middle of anywhere.

The VOR station gives you air roads to follow to go over the station. We call them VOR Radials. There is 360 air roads. The are dispatch as a clock. The station is the center of the clock and there is 360 road around the station. The road start from the station and there is 1 degree between each them.

You can select any road you like to follow. The selected road is defined of where you are and where you want to go. Let say that you want to go to the station. The station is right North of you. So you will have to follow the road 360 or 0 (same road) in this case. First, open your radio stack, set frequency of the VOR station in the nav 1. Comeback to your gauge and set the OBS button on the 360 direction. Then  start your flight.

You will notice an arrow moving in your VOR gauge. If this arrow is straight and pointing forward it's means that your are following the right direction the go to the station. If the arrow is not straight this means that you are at the right or the left of the road. Let say that the arrow is pointing east-north. This means that the road is situated at your left. You gotta turn left to join the road.

When you get closer of the radial, the arrow will tend to point north and become straight. When you are just over the road, the arrow will pointing straight north. So when you are over the road, turn in the direction that you previously set on the VOR gauge wich is the direction that you want to follow.
The trick is to start turning just before the arrow become straight.

But you gotta practice a couple of time to be confortable with this instrument.

There is another important information to know about VOR. Look at the gauge, in most acft, you will notice a small triangle flag. When the flag is pointing up, this means that you are going TO the station. If the flag is pointing down, this means that you are going FROM the station and you are going far from this station. It is not the same thing. So better watch this carefully. And if it is a rectangle or square flag with usually white and red, it's mean that you are just over the station.

If you want visual information, I will scan a small drawing that can resume everything that I explain. Just send-me your e-mail.

Anything else, ask question on this excellent forum.
Hope you will enjoy it.

                                     Cheers