Nad27 Or Wgs84 Which Is Best?

[phern47]

I live in Canada. NAD27 is probably the norm I will be using when working with maps. However, right now, I am not working with maps etc. Should I leave my settings on WGS84? I guess most Americans use WGS84 and from what I see, most of the waypoints mentioned in this site are in WGS84. Should I stick to WGS84 and then switch to NAD27 only when using maps? I am still at the "autolocate" stage ..... it's taking forever. My GPS is outside on the dash of my car "autolocating".....

[+Renegade Knight]

Work with the datum the data is in.

 

Most maps are based on 27. WGS84 is the geocaching standard.

[phern47]

Thanks Knight

[dsandbro]

Most federal agencies use NAD27 because all the old data and maps are in that datum and the cost of converting would be monstrous, take years, is impractical, and would be mass confusion for several years until the conversion was complete. WGS84 is the current international standard. Many cities and local governments that are more recent to GPS/GIS started out using WGS84 for their data, so in a way local governments are ahead of the feds. Eventually the Feds will convert the old stuff over to WGS84 and use it exclusively but no one has a serious timetable yet. New maps and data are now often produced on both datums.

 

If the data and maps are in digital formats then converting is just a few mouseclicks. Hard copy is a different matter, and there are massive quantities of paper maps, field notes, survey data, etc all in NAD27.