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Reading Coordinates


El Mysterioso

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ok, I feel really silly asking this...being a grown up and all...but when you read, say, 32 (degrees) 58.086N, 096 (degrees)51.087W, how do I SAY it? Is this the most moronic question ever? When someone says "read me the coordinates I really don't wanna get the raised eyebrow "you doofus" look!

also, why do we omit the "-"(negative)? And the goocher of all retarded questions...how do you ppronounce LONGITUDE??? I have heard "lon-nitude", "lon", "long", "lonGitude" (G as in "Git!"), "longitude" (g as in "geo")...

I am sure some of this is listed elsewhere, but for some reason i'ts not letting me search the forums. Thanks much for helping ou this bumbling fool.

~Steanson

steanson@yahoo.com

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I can't vouch for correct but I can tell you how we do it and it includes shortcuts.

 

N42d 57.678m would be read as Fourtytwo, fiftyseven, sixseventyeight.

 

The N is assumed and the W because every cache we have ever hunted has those attributes. We always do Latitude first because it's listed first and first in what we need to enter in our GPS. We also know the format is DDD MM.MMM so we just run with it.

 

As for correct.

There may be a tecnhically correct way as to where you say the North but I'd say North Fourty Two Degrees Fifty Seven Point Six Seven Eight Minutes. I would not add the Latitude in to the converation as it's implied from the North and after another thread discussing the redundancey of North and Lattitude I spoke with a surveyor about it and North works.

 

Longitude would be similar.

Edited by Renegade Knight
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"Thirty two, Fifty two point zero eight six. Nighty six, fifty one point zero eight seven" I'd only add the N/S E/W if I'm talking to someone where it matters (another location is the eastern or southern hemisphere), otherwise it's implied. If you use N/S E/W you don't need the negitive, as that is the same as S or W. Often I skip the degrees, again the local set is implied (around here 47 & 122).

 

Longitude: "lon" for short, or "longitude" (starts like lingerie).

 

There are no silly questions - except those never asked.

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how do you read coordinates "aloud"?

 

I use my mouth. :):P

 

 

ok, I feel really silly asking this...being a grown up and all...but

 

You know I think I have asked the same questions back when I started last May.

 

Don't take my first reply wrong, just having some fun. :)

Edited by Milbank
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I agree with RK as far as the "shortcut" way of saying it...that is the way we've done it.

 

As far as the "correct" way of doing it.... I learned years ago in boot camp that you call out the degrees, minutes and seconds (or decimal) and then give the "North" or the "West". Also, under difficult communications situations, we would also preface each reading with "latitude" or "longitude" as appropriate, just to further try to preclude errors.

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I'd do it much the same as RenegadeKnight.

if the person im talking to knows what im telling them just the digits.

if not "north blah dregees and something somthing point sumthing sonting sothing minutes" and then probably repeat it.

if the person is putting it in a gps I would ask them to veryify the distance and direction to make sure were on the 'same page'.

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I assume you are asking because you want to say it and someone else will be writing it down or entering them into a device/program. So for your example:

 

096 (degrees)51.087W

 

I'd say, "NinetySix Dot FiftyOne Dot ZeroEightySeven

 

breaking it out to individual numbers works too (I prefer this):

 

"Nine Six Dot Five One Dot Zero Eight Seven

 

I leave off the N/W, Lat/Lon also cause those are assumed. *IF* it was something unusual, then I'd specify. Otherwise, it's assumed.

 

I put the "Dot" in there because that's what you write/enter AND it helps clarify where one section ends and another begins.

 

YMMV

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Depends a lot on your audience, I think. We do a fair amount of passing waypoints verbally as pilots flying in the GOM, for platforms, ship coordinates, etc. Between ourselves it would be something like "two niner five eight point three three six, niner five zero eight point five one eight". We know very well which is latitude and which is longitude, (it's always latitude first, because tht's the order they go into the GPS (used to be a LORAN) ) and that it's always north and west, because that's where we are. The aviation and military convention has always been to say 'point' for the decimal point. From ships we sometimes get north and west, but that's just a waste of airtime, because it's obvious, and various combinations of ways of saying the other. It really doesn't matter, as long as we get the right numbers. In short, don't lose too much sleep over this. :)

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A couple alternate thoughts...

 

If not talking over phone/radio, I make others READ it themselves to reduce human error (and interpret hand-writing for themselves). At the very least they read it back out loud...

 

After they are all entered in everyone's GPS's, we confirm the distance we are each showing before we walk off in different directions!

 

(We usually leave off the degrees as we almost never cross the line...)

 

So we'd just say, "fifty-eight", "oh eight six"; "fifty-one", "oh eight seven".

 

The reply would be "oh eight six", "oh eight seven"...

 

The LAST thing you need is to hike back to verify coords if one person read them off wrong and everyone entered the same wrong info!

 

Enjoy,

 

Randy

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...and how the %#@% do I get the degree symbol on my crappy PC keyboard?!?!

GOSH I'M PATHETIC..GOSH! (thanks Napolean)

0176 on the num pad while holding the ALT key will do it if for many fonts, but not all. An alternative is: On the XP START menu - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Character Map. If that shortcut is not on your menu, the program you are looking for is \Windows\System32\charmap.exe.

 

In the FONT box, select a font that contains the degree symbol. Arial and Verdana are two examples. The degree symbol will be 11 over and 6 down in the grid. Left click on it, then press the SELECT button. The degree symbol will appear in the "Characters to copy" box. You may SELECT multiple symbols. Press the COPY button to place the symbol(s) on the Clipboard. You may now paste it into documents as many times as you wish, until you put something else on the clipboard.

 

This will work for any special character of any font, that does not appear on your keyboard, such as °àп

Edited by DNK in CC
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when you read, say, 32 (degrees) 58.086N, 096 (degrees)51.087W, how do I SAY it? ~Steanson

steanson@yahoo.com

 

Just to elaborate a little, that's said 32 degrees 58 point 086 minutes. A minute of angle in latitude or in longitude at the equator is a nautical mile, 2000 yards. 6,076 feet to be more exact. Thus a tenth is 600 feet, a hundredth is 60 feet, and the thousands position represents 6 feet from a cache you might be seeking.

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OK, Kinda new too but, i thought they were written in degree, minute.seconds thats why you see dd mm.sss so, ive always read N47 56.113 W081 73.928 as............north fortyseven degrees fiftysix minutes onethirteen seconds. and west 0 eighty one degrees seventy three minutes nine twintyeight seconds

 

 

anyway thats what i do.

 

steve

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OK, Kinda new too but, i thought they were written in degree, minute.seconds thats why you see dd mm.sss so, ive always read N47 56.113 W081 73.928 as............north fortyseven degrees fiftysix minutes onethirteen seconds. and west 0 eighty one degrees seventy three minutes nine twintyeight seconds

 

 

anyway thats what i do.

 

steve

There are 60 seconds of angle in a minute. Using N47 56.113 as an example, the seconds are 60 X .113 = 6.78 and would be represented as N47° 56' 6.78"

 

Your error, 113-6.78=106.22 would put you about 600 feet from your target.

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Interesting. I thought the answer was simple when I first read your post, but it has been enlightening reading the replies. I’m not sure why I thought this, but from the dawn of time I have believed it's the way BigHank said.

 

Assuming the person doesn’t know as you begin that you’re giving coordinates it would be:

 

“Latitude thirty-two degrees, fifty-eight point oh eight six minutes North. Longitude 96 degrees, fifty-one point oh eight seven minutes West.”

 

If the listener knows you’re giving coordinates you omit the words latitude and longitude.

 

If I hadn’t read this thread I would have thought the above style was universally accepted.

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.north fortyseven degrees fiftysix minutes onethirteen seconds. and west 0 eighty one degrees seventy three minutes nine twintyeight seconds

That won't work. There are only 60 seconds in a minute, so 928 seconds is 15 minutes and 28 seconds. When the coordinates are in degrees, minutes, and seconds you see 56 13 25, meaning 56 degrees, 13 minutes, and 25 seconds. We sometimes get coordinates from offshore drilling rigs in this format, but to a hundredth of a second, which looks like 56 13 25,32. These rigs are surveyed on location using DGPS, and the position is accurate to a foot or so, but this is the location of the drill string, not the heliport which is a couple of hundred feet or so away, but we don't need that much accuracy anyway. You can see one of those suckers from a long way off, providing the fog isn't too thick. It's not the same thing as finding a micro in the woods. <_<

 

Caches are always listed in degrees and decimal minutes here. That's the standard format for GPS.

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...and how the %#@% do I get the degree symbol on my crappy PC keyboard?!?!

GOSH I'M PATHETIC..GOSH! (thanks Napolean)

0176 on the num pad while holding the ALT key will do it if for many fonts, but not all. An alternative is: On the XP START menu - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Character Map. If that shortcut is not on your menu, the program you are looking for is \Windows\System32\charmap.exe.

 

In the FONT box, select a font that contains the degree symbol. Arial and Verdana are two examples. The degree symbol will be 11 over and 6 down in the grid. Left click on it, then press the SELECT button. The degree symbol will appear in the "Characters to copy" box. You may SELECT multiple symbols. Press the COPY button to place the symbol(s) on the Clipboard. You may now paste it into documents as many times as you wish, until you put something else on the clipboard.

 

This will work for any special character of any font, that does not appear on your keyboard, such as °àп

 

thanks I've been looking for that file for a week -

 

it used to be in the accessory folder - just dropped a shortcut there -

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...and how the %#@% do I get the degree symbol on my crappy PC keyboard?!?!

GOSH I'M PATHETIC..GOSH! (thanks Napolean)

And for any Mac people out there (and there -are- many...) it's a simple variation of the "*" asterisk key - it's an Option-8.

 

--Marc

February 2, 2005 @ 8:57 PM

N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

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