GPS coordinates are confusing me. (1 Viewer)

[popotla]

Hi everyone,

I have a TomTom Go Camper satnav and am confused about something with regard to GPS coordinates. My screen here tells me I can enter either a decimal example, a DNS example or a GPS example. OK.

I'm looking at two different camping guides. For the same camp spot, I have - in the two different books - two different types of reference. Ok, fair enough, perhaps. One is
N 48. 27222 / E 10.88389 while the other is 48 degrees 16 minutes 20.83 N / 10 degrees 52 minutes 52.28 E.

Well, there appears to be more to this than just a matter of how the location is expressed, of differing styles of expression. And indeed there is: only N 48. 27222 / E 10.88389 gets me to the spot in question.

What's going on here? I have only minimal experience with a GPS device and don't understand this difference at all. I've looked on the internet, where I find explanations of different systems but this doesn't tell me why there are two different systems in my two guides, each with different numbers for the same physical spot.


Any advice will be gratefully received. Thank you.

 

[Figaro]

I think there is an app that will do the conversation for you, not tried it though and can't remember what it's called but Google might find it ?

 

[tacr2man]

have a read here , and bookmark it , as it will change anything to anything pretty much
https://www.latlong.net/

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[Figaro]

I had some coordinates once with a - before one of the numbers and my TomTom had no such symbol !

 

[TerryL]

With my TomTom (Go Live 1005) I can put almost any format into it and it works itself out. The one thing it doesn't do is allow input of a minus sign, and that's because the minus sign means the longitude figures are West rather than East, which it does recognise.

So if you get a minus in the lat/long numbers, you simply select West when inputting the longitude.

 

[Gellyneck]

If you have access to Microsoft Excel this may help you.
https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/resources/gps-data-format-converter-multi-format.140/

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[Deleted member 29692]

There are several different ways coordinates can be expressed. They are different systems and so not interchangeable.

The three main ones are:

Degrees-minutes-seconds: N 48° 34' 8.6"

Degrees-decimal minutes: N 48° 34.143'

Decimal degrees: N 48.56905°

There are some others but those are the main three you will come across.

The various different guidebooks and Satnav platforms use different systems because they can. It's simply a matter of the publishers or programmers choosing the one they want to use.

Some Satnavs will accept input in more than one of the systems.

There are plenty of free apps to allow you covert them. Just search for coordinate converter.

I use this one:

Broken Link Removed

 

[Justamil]

As NickNic says above.

And If you want too, you can convert manually.

With 48° 34' 8.6" take 8.6 / 60 = 0.143 So you get 48° 34.143'
and then 34.143 / 60 = 0.56905 So you get 48.56905°

Simples.

 

[popotla]

Thank you for all replies.

It sounds like it's all going to be great fun. I can look for a campsite in “Bord Atlas”, use an app to convert the GPS reference given there to a format that my TomTomGo Camper will recognise and then use another app to find out the postcode of the site I might want to go to (such is the extraordinary way in which the 2018 version of the Bord Atlas has been organised; to find a place listing, one must first know the postcode!! German users are irate about this, rightly so.) Oh, then rinse and repeat until I find a suitable site and if it's not dark by then, drive there.

The screen of my satnav tells me but I can enter any one of the three ways in which coordinates are expressed. The issue appears to be that while it recognises the decimal example it does not recognise DMS. Perhaps I can get to the bottom of this. Perhaps the way in which the DMS coordinates are shown in the board atlas cannot be accepted by my device.

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[tacr2man]

My Garmin can take about 8 different ones , but mainly you only need two . Pity they just didnt stay with original Lat/long , but must be a decimalising thing .

 

[Deleted member 29692]

Pity they just didnt stay with original Lat/long , .

They did

That’s the degrees - minutes - seconds method.

 

[irnbru]

If you are following the N , E,W etc just make sure you dont have it set to W when it should be E etc or you will end up in no mans land.

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[tacr2man]

They did

That’s the degrees - minutes - seconds method.

, thats the point , it still works , but why all the others

 

[Deleted member 29692]

, thats the point , it still works , but why all the others

Various reasons.

There are some applications where DMS isn’t suitable.

It’s too boring and nerdy to get into here. Google it if you’re really interested.

 

[Deleted member 29692]

If you are following the N , E,W etc just make sure you dont have it set to W when it should be E etc or you will end up in no mans land.

In Europe if you do that you usually end up somewhere in the North Atlantic

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[DavidG58]

All this confusion is why I enter a town and road name , not let me down yet

Provided I don’t set off to completely the wrong town with the same name , but very unlikely to also have street with the same name, I feel more confident of getting there

I often see requests for coordinates to UK rally destinations and really don’t get why they are needed

One day I may sit down with someone at a rally discuss in more detail and have an epiphany moment and never look back at post codes

 

[Pausim]

There is a bit of history behind the various formats. The degrees, minutes and seconds has been used by mariners for centuries and is basic geometry, so I think we can blame the ancient Greeks for it. More recently many mariners favoured a simpler degrees, minutes and decimal points of minutes.

Over more recent years, probably since GPS moved from the marine environment and came ashore, there have been various attempts to “simplify” the system by dropping units and turning East and West into + and -. It appears to cause as much confusion as simplification but in most cases is simply different ways of saying how far N or S of the equator and far E or W of the Greenwich Meridian the position is.

We should perhaps be grateful that eventually a single point was adopted universally for the zero point of E/W (Greenwich). There was a time when different Nations favoured different places e.g. Paris. If you really want to complicate the issue you can use Ordnance Survey coordinates, where even the N/S first and E/W second convention is reversed. Rumour has it that when the British Army wanted to map the UK accuratey they reversed them because they didn’t want to do the same as the Navy.

 

[Reallyretired]

In Bridlington there are two roads with the same name, my satnav only recognises the wrong one.

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[rickwiggans]

All the above is excellent info. I suspect a typo though, in one set of coordinates, as they don't match. That may explain why they don't represent the same spot. It's a reasonable guess that the set that takes you to the correct spot is the one without the typo.

 

[popotla]

Thanks for all comments.

Problem not resolved.

Here's what it says on my TomTom screen:

Enter decimal values or degrees, minutes and seconds DMS or GPS standard coordinates.

Decimal example: 49.970091 8.668947

DMS example: N 49 degrees 58 mins 12 secs E 8 degs 40 mins 8 secs

GPS example: N 49 58.205 E 8 40.137

The 2018 version of this atlas, by the way, has come in for a lot of criticism because it sorts place-names and sites according to postal code/ZIP. Thus, and because of the nature of the maps, in order to find out where a place is (unless you happen to carry in your head all the postal codes in Germany and all the other countries covered), it’s necessary to use a postal code app.

A sample reference in this atlas is given as follows:

POS: 50 degrees 33 mins 39.54 secs N / 7 degrees 3 mins 15.24 secs E (This is for 53501 Grafschaft-Holzweiter.)

Here's a reference for a site in Britain, TN22 5GJ Uckfield:

POS: 50 degrees 56 mins 1.49 secs N / 0 degrees 8 mins 19.35 secs E

I'd assumed that I would simply be able to feed such references into my TomTom, click-click and follow the blue line. However, assumptions do so often go astray, as in this particular case, apparently.

Am I going to have to convert these references each time I want to use one of them is, or is there some other way?

 

[Geo]

I like to Google earth the destination in satellite view, put mouse up the drive or entrance
and input coordinates displayed at the bottom of Google Earth cant fail to find destination
You can even pick your pitch its that accurate

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[Zains Pops]

Just use google to convert to the format your sat nav likes.


The various formats are just there to get you lost in France, our UK post code system is probably the best there is.

 

[Stephen23240]

Perhaps it might be helpful to point out that these are not different systems, they are expressing the same thing different ways - one could say one yard 2 foot 6 inches or 1.8333 yards or 1 yard 2.5 feet - they all mean exactly the same distance. In the case of GPS or Lat/Long coordinates the units are degrees minutes and seconds.
I suspect that most GPS units can be set to accept xx.xxxxxx degrees or xx degrees yy.yyyy minutes or even xx degrees yy minutes and zz.zz seconds.
At least they are not using the ThreeWordSystem! https://what3words.com/

 

[monzer]

So does anyone know what format of co ordinates I should be telling my garmin to recognise if I'm going to be using the co-ord's off of camper contact?

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[pappajohn]

I put street and town or postcode if I have it.... Then use mk1 cake hole and ask where the place is.

 

[TerryL]

Depends on model. Try going to the GPS co-ordinates page and see if that gives you a clue. You should be able to change them in the settings menu.

Had cause to use GPS co-ords input in my new TomTom 6200 couple of days ago - they've introduced yet another way to do it! Took me a couple of whiskies to sort it out..........................

 

[monzer]

Depends on model. Try going to the GPS co-ordinates page and see if that gives you a clue. You should be able to change them in the settings menu.

Had cause to use GPS co-ords input in my new TomTom 6200 couple of days ago - they've introduced yet another way to do it! Took me a couple of whiskies to sort it out..........................

I found the settings menu to change the format, the trouble is there are so many to choose from with so many different names I don't know which one would be best for Camper Contact. I'm back in the UK away from my van and satnav so I can't take pics to show.

I will probably be using Camper Contact and they show their co-ord's like this:

Are they giving you the co-ord's in 2 different formats there? And which format should that be on Garmin models, anyone know?

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[DJA]

Hi @popotla

In your example 48 degrees 16 minutes 20.83 N / 10 degrees 52 minutes 52.28 E. if you put the N and E at the front of their figures and ignore the decimal points for the seconds ie .83 and .28 it works and the result is on Konigsallee very close to the result using the other format.

Doug

 

[klaatu]

Yes, those are two formats for the same co-ordinates. Your Garmin will accept either, the first line is the simplest, the Garmin setting for this is

h ddd.dddddd°

You can leave the last digit at zero and add leading zeroes at the front as required to make up 3 digits before the decimal point.

 

[Reallyretired]

I was rather chuffed to find Copilot Caravan (possibly other versions too) will accept OS map references as well as the more usual coordinates, the one which starts with two letters for the sheet number then up to 5 numbers for Northings and Eastings.

Useful to foil people in our response group who only give the map reference to force you to read a map.

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