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Degrees To Decimal

 
Tue, 08/25/2009 - 11:43am

I know this has been discussed before, and I looked up previous posts. Also, found several good Degree to Decimal converters.
But, when coordinates are listed in degrees as Lat. 38 37.848 and Lon. 90 51.691, how do I enter the minutes and seconds into the converter?

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Tue, 08/25/2009 - 1:11pm

Multiply by 60

There are 60 minutes of arc in a degree and 60 seconds of arc in a minute of arc (just like time), so multiply the decimal part of the arc minutes by 60 to obtain arc seconds

Your example results in:
38d 37' 50.88"
90d 51' 41.46"

Additionally, you can do the same calculation twice if you want to covert a location in decimal degrees back to degrees minutes seconds.

Say you have

36.34567

0.34567 * 60 = 20.7402 (arcminutes)

then

0.7402 * 60 = 44.412 (arcseconds)

Result, 36d 20' 44.412"

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Tue, 08/25/2009 - 1:10pm

Conversion

I use gpsvisualizer. Go to www.gpsvisualizer.com and click on calculator. This will bring up the conversion page and you input your values just like you stated above.It will give you 3 different conversions (degrees,degrees minutes and degrees minutes seconds)

Tue, 08/25/2009 - 1:32pm

Try Here

It's simple and works well.

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html

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Tue, 08/25/2009 - 2:35pm

standalone software

And here I've been using a simple, ordinary Microsoft Excel.

Boy, do I feel outdated.

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Tue, 08/25/2009 - 10:18pm

True, but...

spider_elliott wrote:

And here I've been using a simple, ordinary Microsoft Excel.

Boy, do I feel outdated.

True, but I can get to my Excel spreadsheet quicker than I can to one of those websites.

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Wed, 08/26/2009 - 10:21am

Good reminder . . . .

rocknicehunter wrote:

There are 60 minutes of arc in a degree and 60 seconds of arc in a minute of arc (just like time), so multiply the decimal part of the arc minutes by 60 to obtain arc seconds

of how easy it is to do this by just grabbing a calculator. I go to the website converters myself instead just figuring it out.

THANKS rocknicehunter!!

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