Finding coordinates of where someone is

[dinovagsd]

Hi all. Here's my question. I will give example: One day my son was at after-school event, then called me and asked to go to a friend's house, that the mom was picking them up from school and taking them to her house. Later, my son called and said he was ready for me to pick him up. Okay, where are you I said. He didn't know. My question is this - Would there have been a way for my son to get coordinates for his location -- from the internet -- and give them to me so I can enter them in GPS.

 

Now, let me elaborate a little bit and quickly so you don't think I'm nuts "not knowing" where my kid went. I know of the family very well, son has been friends with them for few years. It's just that they live way north of high school and we live way south, so the kids are pretty much friends during school and online. It happens a lot here, that when they go to middle school they meet kids from possibly 45 minutes away, which is the case here. Also, it seems that many people don't know how to give directions

 

Let's assume that the people don't have GPS and need to use internet for this.

 

Jodi

[+JSWilson64]

Step One would be, "Ask your friend what their address is."

Step Two: a) Enter the address into your GPSr (if it supports finding an address); OR

Enter the address into Google Earth, get Lat/Lon, write down, enter into GPS

 

There's probably other methods, too...

[+Sputnik 57]

Converting an address to GPS coordinates (called "geocoding") isn't an exact science, but it generally works will enough to get you close. I like to use TravelGIS, which is free and pretty easy to use.

 

My address is 4235, which happens to be the last house in the 4200 block of my street. Most geocoding servers show 4235 as about a third of the way down the 4200 block of the street. Like I said, not exact, but close enough for Jazz.

[dinovagsd]

Thank you JSWilson. I did check your recommendation of google earth but only saw option to dowload software for service, which I won't do. I'm hoping that Garmin's update 2008 maps will show entered addressed a bit better, but I don't count on it, especially for these rural areas.

 

Sputkink, sputnikkkk whoa! That is just too cool. That site is exactly what I was looking for. Who knew. That's the beauty of forums, to share and learn. Great stuff.

 

I did put my mom's address in to play around, of course. She lives on Long Island, so quite populated. Her actual house was about 3 blocks down. The arrow put me at beginning of street. I wonder if that isn't done on purpose. It just seems to me if we were able to get this far, how could we be 3 blocks off? Again, I just can't help but wonder if they do this as deterrant for the ill-minded ones. I don't know, maybe.

 

Anyway, this would certainly work, especially with cell phones. Call, say okay I'm on the road, wave me down. Really, here it can be that bad, with houses buried in woods, driveways obscure.

[+Haffy]

Google Earth is free so I don't see a problem with downloading it.

[+Knight2000]

Two more geocoding sites i had bookmarked.

 

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoding.html

http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php

 

The last site listed shows results from 5 sources. I am not sure how exact any of them are though. Usually good enough for the area i guess.

 

I save addresses to "my maps" in google. Then when i load google earth i mouse over for the coords. I am sure there is a faster way though.

 

Google earth is free and works great.

[Motorcycle_Mama]

Google Maps will get you there as well and no downloading of software required. (Although Google Earth rocks and is well worth the download.)