On Thu, 29 Apr 1999, Riley Williams wrote:
> Hi Dennis.
>
> > I've got another question, does anyone know how to calculate the
> > QTH-Locator?
>
Actually, I'm new to the list and didn't see the above message....
I have got a file describing the calculation of Qth Locator...
I don't know whether it would really help you....
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Locator to position conversions.... 18th June 1995
"Radio amateurs rarely give their location in terms of latitude and longitude:
instead, they are much more likely to quote the 'locator' of their station.For
example,my locator is IO93FJ, and I quote this over the air when I am in contac
with distant stations.
This locator defines asqure on the earh's surface of size 5 minutes of longitud
by 2.5 minutes of latitude.This system is called the "Maidenhead Locator
System (or IARU Locator System) and is made up as follows:
The first two letters indicate a square 10 deg of longitude by 20 deg. of
latitude, the first letter indicating the longitude and the second letter
designating the latitude. The latitude starts with letter 'A' at 90 deg S
(-90 deg., the south pole) and goes to 'R' at 90 deg.N(+90 deg., the north
pole). Similarly, the longitude letters start with 'A' at 180degW and work
through to 'R' at 180deg.E.Thus the first two letters of my locator,IO,
indicate that I am somewhere in a square between 0 and 20 deg longitude and
40 and 60degN latitude.
The second two characters are digits and they break the first large square
down into 100 smaller pieces. On a 10 by 10 grid.The two digits here range from
0 to 9.the first digit being the east-west position in 2deg. steps from left
to right and the second the north-south position in 1deg. steps from bottom to
top.Thus,00 indicates the bottom left hand corner of the square.Thus in my
locator, 93 indicates that my station is in a square between 0 and 2degW
longitude and 3 to 4degN latitude.
The final two letters of a Maidenhead Locator serve to reduce this 2 by
1deg square down to a square 2.5 minutes of latitude by 5 minutes of longitude.
Here, the letters reference a grid 24 by 24 squares. starting with AA in the
bottom left of the square, and XX in the top right hand corner of the square."
- Extract from "Amateur Radio Computing Handbook" By Joe Pritchard G1UQW
In case one wants find out his station Locator he can use the Server mode
of FBB BBS...
Alternatively there are simple Basic programmes available for the same
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73s de Rakesh VU3RGP
