[aprssig] APRS LAT/LONG standards

[Tom Russo]

On Thu, May 26, 2005 at 01:24:47PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <archer at eskimo.com> flavor, containing:
> On Thu, 26 May 2005, Ron Stordahl wrote:
> 
> > This discussion reminds me of the Air Canada passenger jet from Toronto
> > to Vancouver that was forced down at Brandon Manitoba when the fuel ran
> > out..  Seems the fuel was loaded in pounds rather than kilograms.
> >
> > I don't suppose there is any possibility that we will soon be measning
> > angles in radians rather than degrees is there?  2 pi radians = 360 degrees.
> 
> Look inside the Xastir code (you can do that 'cuz it's open-source).
> We do some of our calculations in radians!  hi hi

But I would hasten to point out that while Xastir is very general and can
accept position input in several different formats (amen!), the format it uses 
by default in the station-location and object-creation dialogs is 
degrees with decimal minutes.  All other formats require use of the 
"coordinate calculator".  In this sense, Xastir is already the way Bob
is suggesting --- folks don't have to use the calculator to enter coordinates
in degrees with decimal minutes, they have to use it for everything else.

I, too, find myself using the coordinate calculator more often than not,
because in NM ground SAR we use UTM almost exclusively (much more convenient
for short range work, and in this part of the world paper maps are all 
in UTM projection with UTM grids already).  The only time I ever need
lat/lon in degrees with decimal minutes is when dealing with aircraft ELT 
searching ---  all of the local ELT DFers have standardized on that format
for ease of use with the DF solution program one of the local ELT gods wrote.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY     SAR502  DM64ux         http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 
 "The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly
  worth the effort." -- Norton Juster