Newfer Posted March 13, 2002 Posted March 13, 2002 Is it poosible to find GPS coordinates from just a street address someplace? I am giving my husband a GPS for his birthday and I would like to have him find the rest of his gift, which will be at an amusement park. But all I have is the address of the park. I don't have time to learn how to use the GPS and go find the coordinates myself before his birthday. Help? Thanks! Quote
+parkrrrr Posted March 13, 2002 Posted March 13, 2002 You might be able to post a query in the forum for your region of the country and get someone who already knows how to use a GPS to get coordinates for you. It's possible to get coordinates from an address, but they're notoriously unreliable, and the park is likely to be large enough that whatever coordinates you got wouldn't be close enough, unless "anywhere in the park" is close enough. That said, one place to do the conversion you want is http://www.geocode.com/eagle.html Quote
+rdw Posted March 13, 2002 Posted March 13, 2002 Just let us know what you need the coordinates for and how precise they need to be. We have ways of doing these things. Topo maps, aerial photos, etc. rdw Quote
Newfer Posted March 13, 2002 Author Posted March 13, 2002 parkrrr... thank you for the link. I think the general vacinity will work. I'll give him more directions once he finds the park. That site did return coordinates, now I just have to figure out the correct ones to give him!! This will be fun, maybe I'll split up the Birthday hunt (gifts) into several places, before the big finale. He will enjoy this!! (I hope) Quote
Newfer Posted March 13, 2002 Author Posted March 13, 2002 I'm actually taking him to the Malibu Grand Prix in Redwood City, CA for an afternoon driving the cars and playing games. Along the way (at each new coordinate he finds) he will get another accessory for the GPS. I've bought several! Thanks again for help. Quote
+parkrrrr Posted March 13, 2002 Posted March 13, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Newfer: parkrrr... thank you for the link. I think the general vacinity will work. I'll give him more directions once he finds the park. That site did return coordinates, now I just have to figure out the correct ones to give him!! I'm glad to hear the site was useful to you, but you might still want to consider having someone here check up on the coordinates to make sure they're reasonable, or even checking up on it yourself. One place to check is http://www.topozone.com - they'll let you enter the coordinates you have and show you a topographic map with the location marked. I know that when I geocode my address, I end up being off by a fair amount, because the Census Bureau screwed up and switched the names on the street I live on and the next one over. Since almost everyone seems to use TIGER data for their address lookups, my address usually shows up over a block away from where it should be. Quote
The Artful Dodger Posted March 13, 2002 Posted March 13, 2002 at this link. Its quite an accurate Address-to-coordinate calculator Quote
+ultimav Posted March 18, 2002 Posted March 18, 2002 The easiest way I found was to look it up on yahoo.com. If you then look at the URL.. It lists the Lat/Long as part of that big long string.. It works like a charm. I was looking up peoples houses and then going to lostoutdoors.com, and and showing them it on USGS.. fun fun fun.. too bad the data is a bit out of date, but I guess that is good for natsec reasons.. /dana Quote
+Jamie Z Posted March 18, 2002 Posted March 18, 2002 Ultimav... Just tried the Yahoo! trick, but it didn't work for me. I'm looking under Yahoo! Maps, but when I enter an address the URL only contains that address, no coords. What am I doing wrong? Jamie Quote
+parkrrrr Posted March 18, 2002 Posted March 18, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z: I'm looking under Yahoo! Maps, but when I enter an address the URL only contains that address, no coords. What am I doing wrong? Nothing. You're just missing a step. You need to click somewhere - anywhere - on the map after it's displayed. When you do that, then the URL will contain the coords of the address you entered (subject to the usual TIGER geocoding problems) in the slt= and sln= fields. Quote
peter Posted March 19, 2002 Posted March 19, 2002 Once you've got the approximate coordinates by following some of the above suggestions, you can try using the USAPhotomaps by JDM Cox software - it's a free download at http://jdmcox.com/ It will show you an aerial photo of the area and you can see the exact coordinates as you scroll around. I've found it to be very accurate (within a few meters) in my area. Quote
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