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Converting Grid Co-ordinates to GPS Lat/Long

Submitted: Sunday, Jun 01, 2008 at 22:26

Dolphin38

G'day all,

I am just getting into this 4WD/off-road "stuff" so please bare with me...!!!

I have just bought a number of books/guides such as the "4WD Days out of Perth" so that I can get an idea about places to go and have trip notes as well to provide guidance and information.

However, all the GPS Waypoints for the various treks are referenced by Grid Co-ordinates based on the WGS84 datum, eg., 0 408 079mE 6 484 597mN.

My question is... is there a way of converting these co-ordinates into Lat and Long (deg min sec)?? Or do I need to get maps that have both the grid reference and Lat-Long scales/markings so that when I plot a grid reference, I can work out what the Lat-Long is?

Cheers,



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AnswerID: 307260   Submitted: Sunday, Jun 01, 2008 at 22:39

equinox replied:

Hi Dolphin,

Any decent GPS should be able to convert for you.

Otherwise have a look at this site: http://www.ga.gov.au/geodesy/datums/calcs.jsp#coords

Cheers


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Reply 1 of 7
FollowupID: 573150   Submitted: Monday, Jun 02, 2008 at 04:03

Zebra400 posted:

This link is good as it gives you an online conversion and a downloaded excel spreadsheet just in case you want to convert when you are out and about in the bush.

I am intrigued why you want to operate in lot long? If you are using detailed maps, you will find grid references much easier to work with as the grid lines are either 1km or 10 km apart, and the grid lines are straight.

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Zebra400
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AnswerID: 307264   Submitted: Sunday, Jun 01, 2008 at 22:57

Bonz (Vic) replied:

Those references are UTM. Just set your GPS up for UTM rather than DD MM SS.S or DD MM.MMM (i.e. lat/long) and you'll be fine. If youo must stay with lat/long then set the GPS for UTM and input the waypoints then set it back to lat/long and the GPS will automatically convert the coords.

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Reply 2 of 7
AnswerID: 307277   Submitted: Monday, Jun 02, 2008 at 00:25

Dolphin38 replied:

Thanks very much for the info... most useful.

Cheers.
Reply 3 of 7
FollowupID: 573189   Submitted: Monday, Jun 02, 2008 at 12:52

Member No 1 posted:

much easier to work out where one is on paper maps in UTM

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AnswerID: 307282   Submitted: Monday, Jun 02, 2008 at 04:11

Zebra400 replied:

Make sure when doing your conversion that you use the right zone. Australia is divided up into 8 zones, from 49 - 56. Put the wrong zone with the same grid co-ordinates and you will end up in a different location.

See below


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Zebra400
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AnswerID: 307290   Submitted: Monday, Jun 02, 2008 at 09:00

KennyBWilson replied:

Hi Dolphin38,

I find the best way is to change the settings in Ozi-Explorer add the way points in and then change settings back to the way you want it.

Thats if you got a Laptop and Ozi installed , otherwise like some suggested change the settings on GPSr
Reply 5 of 7
AnswerID: 307298   Submitted: Monday, Jun 02, 2008 at 10:38

Member - res.q.guy (VIC) replied:

Hi Dolphin
A really good reference for newbie's, on gps, maps and navigation etc, is "GPS Vehicle Navigation in Australia" by Robert Pepper.
Have a look at :
www.gpsvehiclenavigation.com

Regards
Neil
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Reply 6 of 7
AnswerID: 307388   Submitted: Monday, Jun 02, 2008 at 21:06

Member - John R (QLD) replied:

If you want to do this for a whole lot of waypoints though you might be better off seeing if you can buy a computer file version, then run them through a program that can read the format and even upload the points into your GPS if you have a data cable. G7toWin is one such free program, but there are many.
Cheers, John
Reply 7 of 7