At 11:42 AM 11/25/2002 -0800, Dan Lau wrote:
>On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 11:39, Garth Wood <garth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>You can use MapQuest to find your own lat/long, just by entering
>>the lat/long pair of the closest city/town/village/whatever you
>>live to, and then entering corrections (usually in seconds only)
>>until you've pretty much nailed your location.
>
>>Using the above technique, I discovered my lat/long as 53:30:20N,
>>113:30:24W. Unfortunately, these MapQuest values usually don't
>>agree with their GPS counterparts, so I have no idea how accurate
>>they are...
>
>OK, now you have me curious. I went to MapQuest and clicked on
>the Maps->Lat/Long and entered 53:30:20 and 113:30:24, it would
>not let me enter the compass directions (ESWN). And when I
>clicked to get the map, it gave me a blank page. So how do you
>enter the "ESWN" compass directions?
>
>I also tried entering an address, but could not find a way to
>convert that to the Lat/Long coordinates. So where do I start to
>pin-point where I am located? Just very curious now. Thanks.
Dan:
53:30:20N, 113:30:24W is expressed in MapQuest as 53 30 20, -113 30 24. For
latitude, North is +, South is - ; for longitude, East is +, West is - .
The way I started was to first find Edmonton's "average" lat/long, which you
can find from several sources on the Web. It was stated as 53:30:00N,
113:30:00W. I inputted that into MapQuest, and it pinpointed the "center" of
Edmonton, which, as it turned out, was remarkably close to where I live (within
a few blocks -- I can walk to the "center" in a couple of minutes...).
Then I started using their lat/long finder to change the coordinates by a few
seconds of arc north and west (the "center" being south and east of my
location). I just patiently crept up to my location on the map, as close as I
could eyeball it (and it's bloody close).
Nothing very sophisticated -- mostly a brute force search, asymptotically
approaching my position by ever-closer guesstimate.
Garth
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