Preferred GPS position format for GT-Rider.com posts

[JB2112]

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David and friends,

What is the preferred format for this site:

ddd.ddddd°

ddd° mm.mmm'

or

ddd° mm' ss.s" ?

Also, as a professional merchant navy officer, I have a fairly good handle on converting these, so please contact me if you need help understanding these formats.

Maybe I will post a simple explanation of GPS coordinates, Lat/Long, etc., if anyone is interested.

[johngooding]

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Hi JB
The answer to your question about GPS formats, is whatever is easiest for people to understand and enter on their GPS, for me I like the pure decimal format as it is one number with one decimal point. However I do not think most GPS receivers come with this set as default, and some folks do not know how, or do not want to change from default. So maybe the right answer is to find out what is the most common default format of common GPS units, and use that.
Secondly, it is great when people can use their experience and knowledge to add to the knowledge base on this board and so I am sure many would be delighted to have a clear refresh on the subjects you mention

[JB2112]

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Hi John!

I added a (hopefully) helpful post about GPS usage and conversions.

I think the default on my Montana was the ddd.ddddd° format that you described. I can work with this format as it I feel it is user-friendly for typing, etc. The issue I have seen very recently was a novice user taking, for example, N20.95467° and posting same as N20° 95' 46.7".
It drove me batty!

Enough GPS stuff for the night. My cranial "hemispheres" are done now.

[Nicke]

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If it´s a matter of voteing I would like to second John´s vote above, because it´s the easiest format to handle,
and it´s also the format you get when pressing the shift-button in Google Maps. So far I haven´t found any way
to get Google to change their format, 5555.

Leif

[AlaskaDave]

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I vote for the decimal format as well. It's easy to understand and less susceptible to screw-ups and typos than the other formats.

@JB2112 - I use Google Earth to convert formats. I input the data in decimal and then go to Options and change the format, then go back and inspect the Properties of the given point and read it in the new format. Or vice-versa.

But I'd be interested to learn a good, quick way to convert from one format to another.