Help! Wrong GPS coordinates?

[Misticme]

Im tying to post a cache I placed. I got a reading from my GPS. But when I enter the coordinates, the map shows its like a mile away! I tried to reverse it and get coordinates in google by entering the address, but when I put those coordinate in, the map shows its 2 blocks away! What am I doing wrong?

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

Hard to say what you are doing wrong, but........

 

.....at this point, I would say you are guessing.

 

Return to the location and take another reading. When something isn't quite right, don't guess, just start over.

[+The A-Team]

Im tying to post a cache I placed. I got a reading from my GPS. But when I enter the coordinates, the map shows its like a mile away!

There are a couple of things to check:

1. Make sure the format of the coordinates match. The website expects them to be in the format DDD MM.MMM, DDD MM.MMM. That is, there should be some degrees, then some minutes with fractions of a minute, and no seconds. If your coordinates are in some other format like DDD MM SS, DDD MM SS, (degrees, minutes, seconds), you'll need to convert them.

2. Check that your GPS is using the correct datum. You may need to consult the manual to find out where to go. The datum should be set to WGS84.

 

If you want, you could send me a message through my profile with your coordinates, and I could try to see where the problem is. Don't worry, I don't live anywhere near you, so I won't be going out and finding your cache early or anything!

[Misticme]

Yes I have triple checked my GPS, it keeps giving those coordinates. Thank you A-Team, I did PM you.

[Misticme]

omg thank you soooo much A-Team!!! I finally figured it out and the coordinates are correct! Thank you thank you!!

[+The A-Team]

For those curious, and for anyone in the future that may have the same problem and finds this topic, the problem turned out to be mis-matched coordinate formats. The GPS was displaying the coordinates in DDD MM SS format, but the website expects to see it in the format DDD MM.MMM. This site has an easy-to-use conversion tool that can convert between the most common coordinate formats.

 

Edit for spelling

Edited May 1, 2012 by The A-Team

[+RedjackRyan]

For those curious, and for anyone in the future that may have the same problem and finds this topic, the problem turned out to be mis-matched coordinate formats. The GPS was displaying the coordinates in DDD MM SS format, but the website expects to see it in the format DDD MM.MMM. This site has an easy-to-use conversion tool that can covert between the most common coordinate formats.

 

Thanks for posting the conversion page, didn't know the site had one. Alternately, one can just divide the seconds by 60 to get the decimel minutes

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

I (almost) feel like a dummy, as I thought that might have been the problem. But, upon checking the OP's profile, I saw that she was a 'long-time' cacher albeit not very actively.

 

My assumption (oops) was that she was probably using the same GPSr as before. Having found and placed caches previously, everything should have been in order.

 

Perhaps a tidbit that needs to be mentioned when posing a question.

 

Moral: Never take things for granted, eh?

[+bulcacher]

Hey, thanks for this post.  I had the same problem.  My GPSr was way off on its taken coordinates.  It was working fine up until about 3 weeks ago.  I'm not sure when or how the datum changed, but it had changed.  I changed it back to WGS84 and it seems to be working now.  Thanks.