Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire GPS with Decimal Degree location

I am looking for a Handheld GPS that shows your location in Decimal Degree format. I have an older garmin that does not have the option of displaying DD. Do any of yall know if the newer units can display DD? I have tried looking at the Garmin page, but have not found that format listed as a option. Thanks for your help.

Wouldn't a simple phone app?

I have a Garmin Montana that does it. Also, OnX on my phone will.
What model of GPS do you have that doesn't allow for it?

All the Garmins I've ever had would allow you to choose/change the angular measurement system.

Even my old 12xl

I need GPS because I'm collecting survey points outside of reliable cell phone service area. I am currently converting location coordinates from Degree and decimal minutes to Decimal Degree. The Company is requiring that I provide DD because all their map inputs are already using that format.

I have a Vista Etrex, I can only get it to show my location as DDM. I can use a pointer on the little bitty map to show DD, but it not specific to where I'm standing. I need to to show my location in DD.

I accept the possibility that I'm just a Idiot and cant work my equipment.

Can’t help you on that one. IIRC, the Trimble GeoXT I used to use would do it but it was $12 thousand dollars six years ago. It’s a mapping grade unit and says Trimble on it so they don’t give them away. Around here you can rent one though.

Have you gone to Main Menu, then Setup, then Units, and finally Position Format to see if decimal degrees is an option? I'll bet it is.

To clarify once again, you don't need cell service to use your smartphone as a GPS.

Here's a link to the original manual: LINK
Supposedly, the Vista will do it but the manual isn't the greatest thing I've seen. Try going to page 50 and looking at 'position format'. Without having the thing in hand, that's the best that I can do. It has a bunch of format options but doesn't show them in the manual.

Or, follow the steps I posted. And while probably not hugely different from the basic Vista model, here's the manual for the model actually in question: https://static.garmin.com/pumac/eTrexLegendHCx_OwnersManual.pdf

I bet yours already does it. Go into the "settings" and look around.

I think you can change the format in the settings of most, if not all, Garmin units. But lots of free software will convert coordinates to whatever coordinate reference system you like. If you can upload your waypoints to a computer, you can get it done.

See, for example:

I have a Garmin Montana with an OnX chip and an iphone with Onx. I've found that the Montana is much more accurate. The phone will sometimes be off as much as 20 yards while the Montana is accurate to about 3 yards. A few years ago, I looked into geocaching and found that the iphone just wasn't accurate enough to find anything. The Montana was.
My iphone is an XR model which is one of their less expensive phones. Maybe the more expensive ones have better GPS.

Thanks for all the input. I did find the format I need in the setup, but it only changes on the little map shown below my location. I tried to post a picture of the screen, referencing both formats being shown.

I’m interested in the cell phone as a gps without cell service. I’m looking into that now. When I tried using my phone it was always showing different coordinates than my gps unit. Guess it depends on which one you trust.

Thanks again.

Some phones use the towers to triangulate your location while other have a real gps built in. The gps models will be much more accurate but they also use a lot more power.

I've been using www.epsg.io as a one stop shop for geo location, NAD27 to NAD83, WGS84 conversions, converting coordinates to/from
degree/minutes/seconds to decimal degrees, etc.

WGS84 is based on NAD83, but includes altitude/elevation in its calculations which can be significant in hilly mountainous areas.

One possibilty for differing coordinates between the two is each unit using different datums (WGS84, NAD83, NAD27, etc.). Do you know which one your GPS is set to?

WGS84

WGS84

To provide more information on what my challenges are I’ll provide a little more information.

I am given plotted locations on Google earth. I’m supposed to go to these specific locations and collect Data. If I have Google earth opened and stand on the plotted point, my gps DDM coordinate will convert to pretty much perfectly match the provided DD point on the Google earth map. But my cell phone DD will read a different number than the plotted point. If I walk to the cell phone DD location I might be 15 feet off.

I have just been using my gps coordinates and converting to DD. I feel that if I have have to defend my observations that this method more accurately reflects the company’s mapping. I was just trying to reduce the possibility of input error occurring during the conversion process.

I'm a bit hazy on how you're doing things. To clarify for me, is the company giving you a map with dots on it that you go to, then part of the data you collect is a coordinate? Or are they giving you a list of coordinates in decimal degrees that you then put into your GPS and navigate to that point? Or another possibility of giving you waypoints electronically?

For S&Gs I did some comparing of units while sitting here inside the house to see what they showed for coordinates, and how those coordinates showed in Google Earth Pro. They were a Samsung smartphone, inReach, and Garmin 64s GPS. In Google Earth on my desktop I placed a marker that reflected my position in the house. I then created markers for the coordinates that each unit was showing and measured their distance from the marker of where I was sitting. The marker for the GPS coordinates was 19 feet from my actual position while the inReach and phone, which was in airplane mode so as not to use tower triangulation mentioned by someone else, were both 14 feet from where I was albeit not in the same direction. I used a dedicated mapping app on my phone for location. I then opened Google Earth on my phone and used the my location finder and put those coordinates into Google Earth on the desktop. Those coordinates put me in my neighbor's front yard, 60 feet from where I actually was. So at least on my phone, Google Earth doesn't appear to be what I'd use if coordinates were of concern.