Degrees, Minutes, Seconds and Decimal Degrees Latitude/Longitude Conversions

[StarEcho]

Here's the FCC website where you can convert GPS coordinates back and forth between decimal degrees and degrees, minutes &amp; seconds.<br /><br />http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html<br /><br />Some newer GPS's require decimal degrees and we might get full coordinates - so this is an easy way to convert if you have internet access.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[josephusminimus]

If not online DEGREES+ MINUTES/60+ SECONDS/3600 works fairly well

 

[lesliemorris85]

It really works well for me. This thing is really helpful, thanks for sharing @StarEcho.

 

[josephusminimus]

Strange to me they're still using LOng/Lat because it's so much more cumbersome than Universal Transverse Mercator [UTM].&nbsp; I'd have figured everything would be using UTM by now.&nbsp; Back when it was all paper maps I used to convert everything to UTM and still carry a transparent grid in my wallet for precise breakdowns of it on maps.<BR><BR>But evidently what's actually happened is they've all just gone to decimal values on Long/lat coordinates.

 

[Willy]

Yup, UTm is the way to go. I have my GPS set to display UTM's and my map books have both UTM &amp; DMS coordinates. ..Willy.

 

[elric52]

Am soon to take a job requiring extensive travel in portable office/living arrangement, so this is a really cool site. Being a Professional Surveyor and Mapper, I do see why both are used and the answer is that each system is used for different purposes and are interchangeable to a degree depending on what you are doing.<br><br>TIP: Because UTM is 2 dimensional, it "flattens out" areas by utilizing zones. Know what zone you are in and beware utilizing pre 1984 UTM coordinates today &nbsp;as they are based on the Clarke 1866 ellipsoid. Modern UTM is based on the WGS 1984 ellipsoid so coordinates&nbsp;can vary up to&nbsp;250 meters with the old ones.<br><br>It is true that Lat/Longs are tad difficult to deal with, but the first nation-wide detailed maps were the USCGS Quadrangles which still contain a huge amount of historical information. You can still find old churches, graveyards, schoolyards even old cabins and houses&nbsp;(or their remnants anyway)&nbsp;etc etc from the late 1800's on them.....anyway any amatuer could scale Lat/Longs on these and there were special conversion scales that made quick work of distance calcs&nbsp;on them. 1 minute = 1 nautical mile. These are the old 3' x 3' green maps...I can stare at them for hours deciphering details from them but then, I AM easily amused............lol<br><br>Nowadays it is simply quicker to use decimal degrees because you can enter them in a calculator. Surveyors and Mappers use decimal feet (no inches) for the same reason. UTM on the ground for campers would appear to equate to the old LORAN for nearshore fishermen as it is repeatable (you arrive at the same place every time) and easy to use as long as you know what zone you are in. It is however pretty much useless for survey grade mapping professionals as we require 3d (geodetic) accuracy so we convert Lat/Longs into individual State Plane Coordinates (and their sub-zones)&nbsp;which are repeatable to a cm including the elevation.<br><br>So this is why "they" still use Lat/Longs as that is the system from which springs all the rest. I am not trying to be too cerebral so&nbsp;please don't take it that way. I am a history nut (and Professional land measurer), and&nbsp;it's just as with many topics the who, what, where and whyfors; the answers lie in the historical timeline and the need based developments along that timeline.<br><br>Sorry for overlong post, TOO MUCH COFFEE this morning........have a great day everyone......

 

[peacetara]

For people like me that are total idiots when it comes to this stuff, it would be super helpful if you could share what UTM is, versus the other thingies you talked about, some examples, etc.&nbsp; Like how would I know a UTM from a DMS, whatever they are! <img src="/images/boards/smilies/tongue.gif" border="0" align="absmiddle"><br><br>I sort of understand the Lattitude Longitude thing, but that's about where my knowledge runs out.&nbsp; Whenever I deal with maps, I always use the little distance measure thing in the corner (the mile marker thing).

 

[josephusminimus]

Hi Tara.&nbsp; Luckily we live in a time when smart people figured all this out a long time ago.&nbsp; At least Longitude and Latitude, which you understand, more-or-less.&nbsp; Degrees/Minutes/Seconds.&nbsp; DMS.<BR><BR>A degree in a perfect world would be one/360th of the circumference of the earth at the equator.&nbsp; It varies in our imperfectly round and otherwise world, but close enough for government work.<BR><BR>The earth spins at roughly 1000 miles per hour, 24000 miles in a day, so a minute is the distance the earth turns in a minute of time.<BR><BR>Similarly, a second.<BR><BR>This works well on a 3 D globe, but when it's flattened sometimes things get strange, and the grids are larger than a person might wish - cover a lot more ground.<BR><BR>As Elric explained, UTM -Universal Transverse Mercator - is an attempt to treat the world as a flat-surface map with smaller grids to help make it more precise on one hand, compared to Long/Lat on a flat map, but less so compared to a 3D globe.<BR><BR><SPAN dir=auto><SPAN dir=auto>Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Transverse_Mercator_coordinate_system" rel=nofollow>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Transverse_Mercator_coordinate_system</A><BR><BR><BR></SPAN></SPAN><H1>The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Grid</H1><SPAN dir=auto><A href="http://egsc.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html" rel=nofollow>http://egsc.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html</A><BR><BR>Some of the images at the links might help you understand it better.</SPAN>