Coordinate Help Needed

[Shimanocono]

So I went to try my first Cache today but with no luck. Something was wrong with the coordinates. We were in the right area but it said the waypoint was something like 20km away. Here's the coordinates given.

 

N 44° 36.677 W 079° 23.105

 

Now on the GPS I was using it didn't have the decimal place so here's what I had.

 

N 44.36677

W 079.23105

 

So is this my problem and how can I fix it? Also could it have anything to do with elevation? It wasn't given so there was nothing I could enter for it so I left it at some random number 313m actually.

 

Here's the cache I was working with:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...f7-4e8d9cbbf8f0

[+ducttape90210]

those 2 cordinates are not the same thing

 

you entered degrees '.' thousands of degrees. (hdd.dddd)

 

all the coordinates on this site are degrees minutes '.' hundreth of a minute (hddd mm.mmm)

 

you need to find the setting on your GPS to make it understand the other position format

 

it will probably look something like this hddd.dddd and you want hddd mm.mmm'

 

h=heading

d=degree

m=minute

s=second

 

did that make sence? if you have anymore questions let me know i would mind helping

Edited May 6, 2006 by ducttape90210

[+jerryo]

I'll reply anyway although t'other person was right:

 

You need to tweak the coords: you can't just drop the decimal point because, say, 44 degrees 36.677 minutes is not the same as 44.3667 degrees. The correct coords are:

 

N 44.61128

W 079.38509,

 

about 20km from where you were!

 

What you’ve said is that 36.677 minutes is the same as 0.3677 degrees but there are 60 minutes in a degree, not 100. So 36 minutes is 36/60 degrees, not 36/100.

 

Ish

Edited May 6, 2006 by jerryo

[+ducttape90210]

that works too but i dont like math so pick or choose what ever works best for you

 

heres the easy way of doing the math

 

minutes/60= '.'degrees

Edited May 6, 2006 by ducttape90210

[Shimanocono]

Checked it out on the GPS and you were right. It was on the wrong settings. Will likely give it another go tomorow. The GPS I have is actually my schools, I'm just borrowing it, so I'll have to remember to change the settings now. Thanks for the help guys.

[+ducttape90210]

theres nothing wrong with barrowing a GPS unit from school thats how i found my first caches.