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how do you find "GROUND ZERO" of a city?


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Hello all,

 

Are these cooridinates of Vernon Connecticut correct?

 

N41.49.07_

W072.28.48_

 

How do you find ground zero cooridinates of any city?

 

Thanks for any information

 

Try this site: http://worldkit.org/geocoder/

 

If you don't get results by typing in the address box, try entering the city name in the international city box and select the appropriate country. In some cases, you may have to use a zipcode instead.

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Isn't the location of City Hall or County Courthouse considered the 'location' of a town or county for mapping purposes?

 

Like the location of the Post Office is the geographic location of that zip code?

 

If there is another way of figuring 'ground zero' for something like that I can't imagine what it would be.

 

I have not seen any like that, but it would make sense, the "dot" on the GPS is often the intersection of the two main streets , but not always, there are several other ways I've seen of doing it too...

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Since I apparently replied in the wrong topic, I'll copy it here:

 

Click "Hide and seek a cache" on the main page. Enter the city and state (or country) in the "Address" field and search. On the first page with a list of caches, look in your BROWSER'S "Address" field, and it should say something like:

 

blah.blah/&origin_lat=35.063642&origin_long=-85.254824&dist=100

 

The origin_lat and _long is the location that Google thinks is the center of the city.

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I assume you're trying to solve one of the new "Ground Zero" puzzles that just got popular ?

like this one : http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...e3-999cf71a530c

 

I'd probably get in trouble for posting puzzle answers on the forums though... hmmm

 

Only 6 in the whole world come up as below.

 

Keyword search for "Ground Zero:"

 

But I guess everyone, everywhere doesn't put the semi-colon in the same exact spot, uses a dash instead of a semi-colon, etc...

I certainly know I never heard of this stuff.

 

The first one that comes up in my linked search (anytown, U.S.A. located in Massachusetts), pretty much tells what they are after as far as Ground Zero of a City with this series. I think. :D

Edited by TheWhiteUrkel
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I assume you're trying to solve one of the new "Ground Zero" puzzles that just got popular ?

like this one : http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...e3-999cf71a530c

 

Team Spoonhead started the series in MA a few years ago with this cache. I'm happy to see more popping up, but every so often, someone throws a kink in the works and goes about getting their coordinates in the "non-standard" way, and no one can find the cache.

Edited by Skippermark
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I've done one of these caches and I had a great time doing it. Here's the log:

 

"Mrs. L had to work for a few hours today so I decided this cache would be a good time-killer. Took about 1.5 hours.

 

I went to where I thought it would be which is where it wasn't (but I was close!). Then I went to the library to use a computer to get the info I needed. The one I chose wouldn't let me do what I needed to do. I went upstairs to the reference desk and asked the librarian if she knew what the coordinates were for the center of Harvey. She stared at me with a puzzled look on her face. I asked her to go to geocaching.com and then showed her how to look up the coordinates for the center of Harvey. I told her that some men in black overcoats might come looking for me and that she was to say nothing of this to anyone. I'm pretty sure I'm on a government watchlist now.

 

Armed with the GZ coordinates, I proceded to the real location - about 150 feet from my previous hunting grounds. Your clever little cache is no longer a source of frustration!"

 

Good luck with your adventure!

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Hello all,

 

Are these cooridinates of Vernon Connecticut correct?

 

N41.49.07_

W072.28.48_

 

How do you find ground zero cooridinates of any city?

 

Thanks for any information

Some people say it's the post office, but if I use MapSource or Streets & Trips and do a search for Beloit, WI it puts me in the middle of a street with the post office being .8 of a mile away at a bearing of 209 degrees from the spot.

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Hello all,

 

Are these cooridinates of Vernon Connecticut correct?

 

N41.49.07_

W072.28.48_

 

How do you find ground zero cooridinates of any city?

 

Thanks for any information

Some people say it's the post office, but if I use MapSource or Streets & Trips and do a search for Beloit, WI it puts me in the middle of a street with the post office being .8 of a mile away at a bearing of 209 degrees from the spot.

I had three zip code caches, only one is still active, and none of them were anywhere close to a post office. I archived the other two because I moved. I've found the center of my current zip code for a future cache and it's not close to the post office either.

 

If the post offices are the standard somewhere, gc.com isn't using that standard on their maps.

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I have found a spot in Geocaching's website that works just like the old way of putting in the zip code and querying the coords. I used to do this in Update Home Coordinates, but I don't think that's the way the original puzzle creator intended it.

 

Go to Member Features and then Update Insty Notifications.

Choose Edit or Create New if you have to.

Now enter the Zip Code and Query. DONE!

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The way I originally discovered how to do Ground Zero caches, 3 years ago, still works. You will need to know how to use or convert DD.dddd to DDMM.mmm.

This (I'll not say how) works exactly correctly as the other methods.

Now there are actually 3 other different kinds of Ground Zeros, one of which also existed for at least a few years, the other 2 kinds appeared sometime in 2008. All of these give different answers so are different ground zeros.

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Isn't the location of City Hall or County Courthouse considered the 'location' of a town or county for mapping purposes?

 

Like the location of the Post Office is the geographic location of that zip code?

 

If there is another way of figuring 'ground zero' for something like that I can't imagine what it would be.

 

Not always. My Zip is located approx 2.75 miles south of our post office.

Our county courthouse is located at Ground Zero for the county.

In Indiana, it was laid out that way, but over the years when they built new courthouses, this moved the courthouse off of ground zero.

In my county, its still ground zero.

 

Not sure about other states, but Georgia isn't like that, they offset some of their courthouses.

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