Mixed up coordinates

[Guest Havasu Desert Rat]

tes posted on the cache page. An example:

 

Viva Las Vegas #2

N36° 8.24 W 115° 31.206

 

You would think that the correct waypoint to enter into your machine on the northing would be 8.240 but in fact it turned out that the correct waypoint was 8.024.

 

Out of 12 caches, 5 had coordinates that could be taken more than one way, and I actually had problems with 2 of those.

 

After getting back home, I tried converting the coordinates to UTM via the button on the cache page. The conversion software made the same assumption I did and spit out the wrong coordinates.

 

I sent an email to the site (contact us) concerning this, but thought I would also bring it up here.

 

Do we try to get the site converted to UTM so there is less chance for any ambiguity or do we try to educate everyone to use leading and trailing zeros to eliminate the problem? And what about all the sites out there that are already posted incorrectly?

 

Part of the reason I bring this up is that another seeker went to one of the caches I found, and described where it was that he couldn't find it. It was exactly where I couldn't find it until I swapped the trailing zero for a leading zero and got the correct coordinates.

 

Anybody else run into this? I can't believe I ran into the only 2 sites out there with this problem.

 

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Larry Sallee

aka The Havasu Desert Rat

[Guest Markwell]

There's a story about to appear in USA Today regarding a local cacher from Chicago had a poor turnout (no find) because he had dropped leading zeros (see the story here)

 

Not that I have anything against UTM, but rather than change all of the cache pages, and also have to continually instruct people in how to change their GPS receivers to UTM, why not just have all the pages display all numerical characters, even on the "Hide a Cache" page?

 

Example - if I had hidden that one in Vegas (N36° 8.24) once I typed the 8.24, and left the field, it would have automatically displayed as "08.240" - two integer numbers and three trailing decimals. If I checked my coordinates on the Tiger Census map after I logged the page, I would see if there were any errors.

 

Also, the main cache page would display all of the zeros as well, leaving no doubt to the finder exactly how to enter in the coordinates.

 

[This message has been edited by Markwell (edited 18 July 2001).]

[Guest jeremy]

Viva Las Vegas #2

N36° 8.24 W 115° 31.206

 

It is 8.240, not .024

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=2324

 

I worked on the formatting today so folks are absolutely positive what it should look like in their GPS unit. Hopefully there won't be any confusion from now on.

 

Jeremy

[Guest wm6p]

Viva Las Vegas is still showing 8.240. So it is still in error or not?

 

[This message has been edited by wm6p (edited 18 July 2001).]

[Guest Havasu Desert Rat]

Sorry, Jeremy, but yes, it is still wrong, as is the 372-178 cache, which should be 10.025 instead of 10.250 I was just up there at the Viva Las Vegas #2 and I can tell you that going to the posted coordinates will put you into some nasty terrain. The correct coordinates are 8.024 Since they were input incorrectly in the first place, forcing the trailing zero where it looks like it should go doesn't help. And now, we have no way of knowing if a coordinate was input with or without the trailing/leading zero.

 

I really don't know how to go about fixing all these bad coordinates except to have everyone who has reported a cache double check their coordinates against what is now published on the cache page. Maybe a bulk e-mail requesting that they do this?

 

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Larry Sallee

aka The Havasu Desert Rat

 

[This message has been edited by Havasu Desert Rat (edited 18 July 2001).]

 

[This message has been edited by Havasu Desert Rat (edited 18 July 2001).]

[Guest Havasu Desert Rat]

I have been in touch with Seeldog privately concerning the '372-178' cache. Seeldog verified that the correct coordinates are N 36° 10.025. The cache page has been edited and the correct coordinates are now shown.

 

Now if we can just get everyone else to do that...

 

(Personally, I would still vote for UTM. That would eliminate almost all the possibilities for error.)

 

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Larry Sallee

aka The Havasu Desert Rat

[Guest Havasu Desert Rat]

I just received a reply from the owner of the Viva Las Vegas #2 cache. It turns out he is dyslexic and accidently got the numbers mixed up when he entered them. The correct northing is N 36° 08.024

 

I asked him to go to the cache page and edit the coordinates to reflect the correction.

 

Now I wonder how many more of these mixed up coordinates are out there...

 

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Larry Sallee

aka The Havasu Desert Rat