Entering GPS waypoints

GPS is great. It's revolutionized small plane navigation. But one thing
that bugs me is that there are two or even possibly three ways of
entering a GPS waypoint.
DD MM SS Degrees minutes seconds which is how we were taught in
school
DD MM.XX Degrees minutes and 10ths and 100ths of minutes
DD.XXXX Some genius has Degrees and decimals of degrees.

I think the first way DD MM SS is the best but I could live with the
second way. But whatever we do, CAN WE GET EVERYONE TO AGREE ON ONE
METHOD!!! If it hasn't already caused an accident I bet it will. Also
search and rescue position reporting etc foulups are easily caused by
this.

I'll agree that we should all do it the same way -
as long as it's my way

Place the pointer over the waypoint - hold it down for 2 seconds - Done!

Who needs all this DD MM SS stuff - get a GPS with charts!

Tony

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE

In article .com,
"Doug" wrote:

GPS is great. It's revolutionized small plane navigation. But one thing
that bugs me is that there are two or even possibly three ways of
entering a GPS waypoint.
DD MM SS Degrees minutes seconds which is how we were taught in
school
DD MM.XX Degrees minutes and 10ths and 100ths of minutes
DD.XXXX Some genius has Degrees and decimals of degrees.

I think the first way DD MM SS is the best but I could live with the
second way. But whatever we do, CAN WE GET EVERYONE TO AGREE ON ONE
METHOD!!! If it hasn't already caused an accident I bet it will. Also
search and rescue position reporting etc foulups are easily caused by
this.

On 18 Jul 2005 21:12:54 -0700, "Doug"
wrote:

DD MM SS Degrees minutes seconds which is how we were taught in
school
DD MM.XX Degrees minutes and 10ths and 100ths of minutes

I've run into this one on DUATS, right?

s.


-- all the best, Dan Ford

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Doug,

But whatever we do, CAN WE GET EVERYONE TO AGREE ON ONE
METHOD!!!


Uhm, aren't you hailing from the land of feet, Fahrenheit, inch Hg.,
"point" and other pecularities? Coordinates are just another oddity in
the world of units...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

I must be living good. The last time I had to enter degrees and
anything was to put my home (private) airport into my Garmin 300XL
because it wasn't in the DB (and I wanted to ensure precision -
otherwise I could have just hit the button when sitting in the middle of
the runway). I've been using it for 6 years and have never entered
another one.

Before that the only time I had to enter them was into 1st generation
panel mount GPS glide computers that had no database. You would enter
20 to 30 waypoints for each contest site. Now that sucked, but GPS was
such magic, it sucked good!

Doug wrote:
GPS is great. It's revolutionized small plane navigation. But one thing
that bugs me is that there are two or even possibly three ways of
entering a GPS waypoint.
DD MM SS Degrees minutes seconds which is how we were taught in
school
DD MM.XX Degrees minutes and 10ths and 100ths of minutes
DD.XXXX Some genius has Degrees and decimals of degrees.

I think the first way DD MM SS is the best but I could live with the
second way. But whatever we do, CAN WE GET EVERYONE TO AGREE ON ONE
METHOD!!! If it hasn't already caused an accident I bet it will. Also
search and rescue position reporting etc foulups are easily caused by
this.

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 16:13:03 +0200, Thomas Borchert
wrote:


Uhm, aren't you hailing from the land of feet, Fahrenheit, inch Hg.,
"point" and other pecularities?

Uhm, what do you think, we have two measures of feet, degrees, inches?
Not for a couple centuries.

(Well, we have two measures of degrees, but only because some mindless
Frenchman thought it would help to run the world by the boiling and
freezing points of water. Here in Fahrenheit-land, the world is run by
the tolerances of the human body. Much more civilized. Who cares a fig
about what water thinks?)



-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

Well, I can think of a couple. You are down, safely but crashed. You
pick up an airliner on 121.5. Ready to copy, he says. You say N48 34'
26". He says uh, could you give that to me in fssst %^^ north
---***$%^& copy )(*)_*. Last you hear of him.

Or you have to enter the waypoint manually on a ferry flight. The unit
wants it one way, you are used to another. End up entering it wrong.
You run out of fuel.

Or CAP flight is searching off of a waypoint in DD MM SS and it's been
given to them in DD. XXXX and they do the conversion wrong. Guy dies of
exposure just before they find him.

You get the idea.

Cub,

[...] Who cares a fig about what water thinks?)

Serious pilots do, because water/moisture is what weather is made of... ;-)

Best regards

Kai

Kai,

Serious pilots do, because water/moisture is what weather is made of


And the pilots too, mostly.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Well, check out the history of the inch.
There were 3 flavors up to the '50s(i believe), now it is set to
25.4mm(as a derivative of the metre) he he he he.

-Kees

PS. we have also two measures of degrees. Kelvin and Celcius, same
scale different zero-point.