[MRCA] latitude/longitude

[Tim]

Hi Steve - You're right - DMS works well for celestial navigation at sea
since it is all about the measurement of angles measured with a sextant -
and does not need to be super precise.

I find it to be pretty (very) useless in land navigation with all the
conversions necessary to make any sense of it against a map..The UTM system
(Universal Transverse Mercator) system is MUCH better for land navigation.
No angles involved, it is directly in meters N-S and E-W from references.
Very simple to use, very intuitive.  Most USGS topo maps have the UTM one
kilometer grid ticks printed in the margins.  Both of my ancient Garmin
hand-held GPS receivers and my new one can all display UTM coordinates.

One of the many US military manuals that describes its use is FM21-26 "Map
Reading and Land Navigation"   It's very good.

Tim


On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 1:22 PM, KA1LHZ <sboard.ka1lhz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Many departments are using UTM's now which is the metric equivalent. We
> used UTM's on the K-9 search team for interoperability with the local
> FD's and Vermont State police.
> Steve
> KA1LHZ
>
> On 11/30/2013 08:44 PM, Robert N. Newberry wrote:
> > I ask because recently we had a call on our local VFD and the person was
> > hiking in the woods and broke their ankle. The Lat/long was given from
> > his cell phone over the air to our radios. The way it was given from
> > dispatch and then the way it was read back a few times was different
> > every time. We have a retired "coastie" who flipped his wig. I never got
> > a chance to ask him what the proper way was to do it. He is a snow bird
> > and has since gone back to FL. I'm sure I could track down his
> > e-mail/contact info thru the department but I figured someone here would
> > know.
> >
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