google earth, need help

[+P3FE]

I took a trip out to osceola national forest this morning. Prior to going out there I loaded from the goggleearth map some GPS coordinates in my explorist 100. I discovered upon arrival that the position I plugged in was further east than I actually was. While I was there I saved some way points then went back into goggle earth and tried locating the points. Upon locating the coordinates for each poi, my coordinates were further west according to goggle earth than they were. I took a reading were a major road and creek cross then located the coordinates on google earth. My location IAW goggle earth was west of the spot I marked. I have used this same GPS to GEOCASH using other peoples GPS coordinates and the get me with in feet of the cach. In one case I was 4 ft away. Any input would be appreciated

[+hiikaash]

on occasion geocaches shown on gge are shown up to 100 feet away from the actual spot. They only give a good idea of the area of the cache

[Clan Riffster]

Another neat feature of the caches shown on Google Earth is that they move. Crank up your height above ground, then pick a cache that's near some kind of landmark. Zoom in slowly and watch the cache icon jump around. Pretty kewl!

[+CJPJ]

Here's a google earth question - does anyone know if you can get actual coords? The format isnt the same what geocaching.com or my gps unit use. Any ideas?

[+Qld_panther]

Here's a google earth question - does anyone know if you can get actual coords? The format isnt the same what geocaching.com or my gps unit use. Any ideas?

I use a Garmin E-trex and have found that the position format I use in the settings' the one that matches the one used on the geocache web site is different from the format used on google earth. When i want to use google earth co-ords I just change the format on my unit to the same as GE b4 entering the co-ords into the unit and when finished change the unit back. the normal format is hddd'mm.mmm the ge format is hddd'mm'ss.s Hope this helps

[+x_Marks_the_spot]

Google Earth will accept any format of coordinates in the WSG84 datum. So you can do:

 

DD° MM'SS.dd"

DD° MM.ddd'

DD.ddddd°

 

Its very flexible.

 

As for using the cache plugin, its computing the cache location quickly, so it won't be spot on for the icon. What we usually do is click on Cache Details, and copy the coords from the page, and plug them right into the Google Earth search window, and it gives a crosshair right where the cache is supposed to be.

 

That's not to say that Google Earth is going to be down-to-the-inch accurate itself. I've seen places where two images don't line up properly, so roads will miss each other by maybe 25 or 50 feet. Generally, I think, the newer the image (meaning better quality) the better aligned it will be.