[Az-Geocaching] UTM/NAD 27 coordinates!

[listserv@azgeocaching.com]

On a search up by Flag last winter (for those 2 lost boys), Coco Co.
was using UTM. I was not real familar with it, but as the radio
operator, I just had to confirm and pass on whatever the field units
said. Luckily, one of the guys knew UTM very well, so he was map
plotter for the night shift!
Our Posse has a template we use with both standard topos and FS maps.
It is clear plastic and has the appropriate scales along the sides to
find minutes and seconds. Without that, I agree, topo's are hard to do
DD.MM.MMM or DD.MM.SS on.
See y'all,
Trisha "Lightning"
Prescott



On Mon, 16 September 2002, "Scott Nicol" wrote:

> 
> 
> Howdy,
> 
> I see there were some slight changes made to the geocaching.com cache
> pages. 
> Appears to be just a font change or two, the removal of the 'caches
> found' 
> noted by each team name in the logs and also they are now including
> UTM 
> coordinates under the DD.MM.MMM coordinates.
> 
> I have always been under the impression that the UTM coordinates and
> the 
> DD.MM.MMM coordinates are not exactly the same. In other words, if
you
> put 
> the coords to a waypoint (cache) using DD.MM.MMM in your GPS, changed
> your 
> GPS to UTM/NAD27 and go to the waypoint, it would put you a bit off
> the 
> mark. Not sure if this is true or not, as I havent experimented with
> it. If 
> so, I would guess the coords would have had to be originally
> determined 
> using UTM for it to be correct.
> 
> I would love to be able to use UTM coords as standard for my
> geocaching. I 
> have used UTM and metric measurements for years in ballooning
> competitions. 
> It is also the standards for international measurements. So, I
always 
> figured that geocaching.com would just use UTM anyways as it is very
> much an 
> international hobby. I would guess that is why UTM was added. When I
> am out 
> ballooning, I always use UTM and metric measurements. It is very
> simple to 
> understand and very easy to get use to using.
> 
> Also, 7.5 minute topo maps use UTM coords as the main 'grid' system
on
> the 
> maps. It makes it very simple to literally pinpoint a location on a
> topo 
> map. The UTM grid on a 7.5' topo is a 1000 meter grid. I actually
take
> all 
> my 7.5' topo's and grid them by drawing faint lines and forming a
> 'checker 
> board' on the map. I then have 1000x1000 meter boxes. Next, I have a
> tool 
> that I can overlay on a given box and break that down into tenth. I
> have 
> become very good at that and can literally take say a street
> intersection on 
> the map, figure out the coordinates, plug those coordinates into my
> GPS and 
> drive to that location and find my coords to be within 30' of the
> center of 
> the intersection. If anyone is interested in learning how to do this,
> I 
> would be happy to show you. It is the easiest grid to use on a
> standard 7.5' 
> topo map. I would assume that many of the jeepers on here and
outdoor 
> enthusiasts use topo maps often.
> 
> It is difficult to pinpoint an exact cache location using the
> DD.MM.MMM 
> coords on a topo map as there really isnt a 'grid' on a topo for
that 
> coordinate system (there is, but, spaced very far apart... I beleive
> only 
> every 30 minutes). On the more difficult wilderness caches, where you
> need 
> to really look at a topo map to figure out your route (Bronco Butte
> Cache as 
> an example), using the UTM grid on the map would allow me to be very 
> accurate in determining where the cache is locatated on the topo map.
> Thus, 
> allowing me to much more accurately determine my route I will take to
> the 
> cache.
> 
> I am curious to know if azgeocaching.com will consider providing
their
> team 
> specific data in the UTM format.
> 
> Scott
> Team Ropingthewind
> 
> 
> 
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