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I need a good GPS converter!


Korichnovui

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I swear, the hardest part to making a new geocache is dealing with the website!

It seems to insist on using DDM coordinates. So I need something on the web that can convert GPS coordinates INTO the DDM format. But there doesn't seem to be any decent sites that do this!! The few I've googled up are all really crappy / not easy to use. Does someone have a nice one on hand?

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Do NOT use the iPhone's native compass app for taking coordinates.  The Degree/Minutes/Seconds format is terrible for geocaching, due to its lack of precision. Where I live, 1 second represents about 100 feet latitude and 76 feet longitude . That means your coordinates could indicate a spot anywhere within a 7,600 square foot area. Obviously, that lack of precision is not acceptable for geocaching.

Geocaching.com uses the Degree/Decimal-Minutes format (DD° MM.mmm') as the standard. It's what virtually all GPS units come set to from the factory. It's precise to about 6 feet (or about a 36 square foot area). Converting from one format to another does not increase the precision. You just end up with bad coordinates in a different format.

As a reviewer, bad coordinates taken with the iPhone compass app are a top ten problem in the cache review process.

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9 hours ago, Korichnovui said:

I use an iPhone, which has the compass app and also google maps, neither of which seems to prefer DDM format, so things have been a little tricky

 

Use "Commander Compass" instead, and select DDM.  Or look at the coordinates shown on the Official Geocaching App at the selected cache site.  Or search the store for "Free GPS".  The Geocaching App allows saving waypoints.  In any case, you could take a screenshot of coordinates.

Edited by kunarion
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44 minutes ago, Korichnovui said:

Well I have used the google maps at the site of the cache and make a waypoint and use those coordinates 

from what I can tell so far, it has been very accurate as I’ve been a bit anal about checking it between other applications such as geocaching.com 

Have you checked the coords when actually navigating to a cache?  That is where it becomes an issue.

 

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On 4/14/2018 at 6:28 AM, Isonzo Karst said:

If you have the Geocaching app on your iPhone, you can set it up for DD MM.mmm (which will simplify your edit cache page issues) and use it to take coords - bottom of article on accurate coords in the Help Center illustrates this.

I see no way to do that on the Geocaching App on my iPhone. Under "setting" all options I see are to use "metric system" or not, or the get a "close to cache warning" or not. 

Edited by Jayeffel
grammar errors
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10 hours ago, Jayeffel said:

I see no way to do that on the Geocaching App on my iPhone. Under "setting" all options I see are to use "metric system" or not, or the get a "close to cache warning" or not. 

Yes, it appears that the app is hard-coded to use the DDM format. That's fine, because it's the format you'd want anyway.

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13 hours ago, The A-Team said:

Yes, it appears that the app is hard-coded to use the DDM format. That's fine, because it's the format you'd want anyway.

DDM format is used for *displaying* coordinates, but under the hood (e.g. in GPX files) all lat/long coordinates are represented as Decimal Degrees which is much easier to work with for coordinate "math".  

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