Using a GPS

[R1Kirby]

Has anyone ever run into this problem? We use a Tom Tom GPS in our travels. We also use Trailer Life Campground Directory. We have found that you can not program GPS cordences into the Tom Tom. Trailer Life shows the cordenece as -97.95724, 43.70206. No matter how many ways we try to enter them, the Tom Tom will not accept them. Is there something that we are doing wrong?

[RVThere]

Did you try to convert from your decimal coordinates to degrees, minutes and seconds?

43.70206 becomes -43 degrees, 42 minutes and 7.416 seconds. That is your latitude.

-97.95724 becomes -97 degress, 57 minutes and 26.0634 seconds. That is your longitude.

Degrees is represented by the small circle just like a temperature. Minutes is a single quote (') and seconds is a double quote (").

There are a number of website that will do the conversion.

Convert Latitude / Longitude in Degrees/Minutes/Seconds to/from Decimal (FCC) USA

[historyljc]

Another converter is at Latitude/Longitude Converter . Just plug in the format that have and it will convert to the one that your Tom Tom uses. In your illustration above the numbers are in the wrong order. The 43.70206 will be entered first followed by the -97.95724. The -97,95742 is also written as 097.95724. One of the combinations described by Tom or from the converter I listed should work.

[Gary RVRoamer]

You have just discovered that there are several different "standard" formats for latitude and longitude. The ones you were using are called Decimal Degrees or the WGS84 standard. Apparently your TomTom uses one of the others, perhaps NAD27 or NAD83, or plain old degrees-minutes -seconds, as has been outlined above. Or a system sometimes called GPS coordinates, which is degrees & minutes, with the minutes portion in decimal to represent seconds.

It may even be possible in the GPS set-up to define which format you wish to use to enter the data.

[JoeT]

I put your coordinates in my TomTom and it worked just fine.
Select 'Navigate to' , select 'Latitude Longitude', enter Latitude first 43.70206, then Longitude. The TomTom will prefix a N on the Latitude and a W on the Longitude.

[R1Kirby]

Joe T, what format are you using in you tom tom? There are 3 to chosse from. Thanks.

[JoeT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by R1Kirby Joe T, what format are you using in you tom tom? There are 3 to chosse from. Thanks.

I didn't choose a format. I just made the selections in my previous post and keyed in the latitude and longitude when prompted. TomTom will accept all formats.
What model TomTom do you have?

[R1Kirby]

I am using the TomTom 130.

[Wayne M]

I have the TomTom 740 Live. When I program by lat/long, the first that comes up is Latitude (N) and I just put in the coordinates as a decimal, 38.15.488. It will automatically switch to the longitude mode (W) and again just put in the decimal form of 122.47.197. It will automatically put in the W. All Western longitudes are a (-) negative, and almost all programs will ask for latitude first.

Now you know where I be!!!

[R1Kirby]

Thanks for the help guys, I finally got it working....