Brush Pile Coordinates

The dept of conservation has brush pile coordinates for the lakes around missouri they have placed. I saved these to my PC. if i purchase a mmc card i believe i can save to this and then put this into my HDS8. Can you do this? When i place the card into the unit what happens then does the unit promt me to do something? Last question can you see the coordinates when the card is in or do you have to save them to the unit=i would prefer not to save them since there are so many coordinates?

Thanks any suggestions would be appreciated.

You can use a regular SD card up to 32 GB for the HDS units....you can get a 4 GB for cheap and will be plenty.....as for your coordinates, you can save them to the card BUT they must be in the correct format for the unit to import them.....which the file extension is *.usr....there are a few ways to do this....assuming there are not a lot of wp's, you can manually enter them into the unit or use the free program from Lowrance, it's very basic but allows you to plug in your numbers at the pc, save the file and then copy to your card to import to unit. Also can be done with google earth, just enter the info, then save the kmz file out and then convert it over to a lowrance file with a 3rd party program like GPS Babel.....the first two i suggested is the easiest......when you place the card in the unit, it will NOT transfer them automatically...you must manually import the file....the unit does not "read" the wp's from the card and display them....it actually stores the wp's in the unit's memory....so after that you can remove the card. Also a common mistake some make is they put the wp's into one coordinate format and then forget to change to that format on the unit when uploading and they wp's are not in the right place...so if you input the wp's in decimal degrees, make sure the unit is set to the same format for reading....

Thanks fishin couillon for the info this will help.

I did what you want to do, but be carefull, there are so many, I went back and deleted all but three lakes that I fish the MO. site hall all mo. lakes, and way to many spots it will load up your lowrance and you may run out of memorie. i think

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by beagle man

I did what you want to do, but be carefull, there are so many, I went back and deleted all but three lakes that I fish the MO. site hall all mo. lakes, and way to many spots it will load up your lowrance and you may run out of memorie. i think

---

i was afraid of that so i just took the coordinartes of the brushpiles i wanted and manually put them in my unit--the problem was the coordinates were for example 38 16 20.2353 and on my unit it only takes 38 16 202 i went to the chart where it put them and i was in the vicinity but looked not be in the same place as the the ones on the MDC map. i havent tried them on the water yet--iam sure i have screwed something up.

38 16 20.2353 doesn't look right.

Normally you'd have coordinates in the format DDD MM SS where the letters indicate the number of characters allowed for each number. The "DDD" means you can have up to 3 digits of the degree value or 0-360 degrees. The "MM" means you can have up to two digits of the minute value or 0-60 minutes, and the "SS" means up to 2 digits of the seconds value or 0-60 seconds.

An alternative format is DDD MM.MMMM where degrees is the same, but in minutes you have two digits of whole minute values and 4 digits of decimal minute values.

For example, N 38 16 20 means Northern Hemisphere, 38 degrees, 16 minutes and 20 seconds. Translating that same coordinate to DDD MM.MMMM format would be N 38 16.3333 because 20 seconds is 1/3 of a minute or .3333.

My guess is the values you are getting are really in the DDD MM.MMMM value and your unit is set to DDD MM SS. You can either switch the format on your unit, or you can just multiply the numbers after the decimal point by 60 and use that result as your third number. So if they give you 38 16.2353, you'd multiply .2353 by 60 and use 14 as your seconds value making your location 38 16 14.

Post some exact values from the points and your unit if that doesn't make sense.

Went back and looked up the exact values from weigh points on the Missouri Dept of conservation map.
38 15' 48.686' N 38 16' 0.926' N
93 33' 26.446' W 93 33" 20.627' W

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrappieMop

Went back and looked up the exact values from weigh points on the Missouri Dept of conservation map.
38 15' 48.686' N 38 16' 0.926' N
93 33' 26.446' W 93 33" 20.627' W

---

the two on the left go together and the 2 on the right go together.

The lowrance unit is set up just like you said DDD MM.MMM

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrappieMop

the two on the left go together and the 2 on the right go together.

The lowrance unit is set up just like you said DDD MM.MMM

---

You can just divide the third number by 60 and put the result after the MM.

For example 48.686/60=.8114, so that first one becomes N 38 15.8114. Give that a shot on a couple of trial points and see if they are closer.

Not trying to stick my nose into a post about another company’s product here but…
If these are the coordinates from this web page:
http://newmdcgis.mdc.mo.gov/statewid...202/index.html
then it states that: “The download coordinates are in degrees, minutes and seconds”. The coordinates are showing decimal seconds as well. Set your unit up to use DDD MM SS and just drop off the numbers after the whole seconds.

Example: 38 15' 48.686' N would get entered as N38 degrees, 15 minutes and 48 seconds (you could round up to 49 seconds).

I’ve dealt with the coordinates from this web site before for others who wanted to load them to their Humminbird units.

GPS Coordinate Converter, Maps and Info

Jusitinp61, go back and look at the longitude that it is showing for the numbers you inputted (38 15 48.686 -93 33 26.466). The second set of numbers (-93 33 26.466) is the longitude yet the converter is showing it as E 686 93.550 because it picked up on the 686 from the decimal seconds for the latitude. This puts the waypoint somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean. Change the data to 38 15 48 -93 33 26 (dropping the decimal degrees) and it puts you on Truman Reservoir.

Sorry about that, the map didn't come up after it converted. I'd have a hard time finding the way points wouldn't I. :biggrin

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Humminbird_Greg

Not trying to stick my nose into a post about another company’s product here but…
If these are the coordinates from this web page:
http://newmdcgis.mdc.mo.gov/statewid...202/index.html
then it states that: “The download coordinates are in degrees, minutes and seconds”. The coordinates are showing decimal seconds as well. Set your unit up to use DDD MM SS and just drop off the numbers after the whole seconds.

Example: 38 15' 48.686' N would get entered as N38 degrees, 15 minutes and 48 seconds (you could round up to 49 seconds).

I’ve dealt with the coordinates from this web site before for others who wanted to load them to their Humminbird units.

---

If you stick your nose in on someone else product, your just showing how nice a guy you are, help of any kind is appreciated, your product or not, thanks

Dropping the decimal seconds can easily create a 100ft error in a waypoint. Calculating decimal minutes from seconds and decimal seconds is most accurate.

For example, 38 15 48, -93 33 26 is 79 feet from 38 15 48.686 -93 33 26.466

CrappieMop .... you have the capacity to store 5000 waypoints in a HDS8 !!

I have a Elite 5DSI, capable of holding 3000 waypoints ... and I only have 100 on one lake entered. Even if I had 200 on each lake I fish, I'd probably have over 1000 empty waypoint spaces. And 200 waypoints would likely take me over a week of fishing 12hr days @ 30mins per waypoint !!

My unit does not have the "options" for the various coordinates conversions, and the waypoints I got were the decimal degrees version (on the map I took them from). I used the "converter" program site that Justinp61 has in his post, and converted the coordinates to GPS numbers, then manually entered them into the unit. Took the boat/unit to the lake, fired up the unit & went looking to see how accurate the coord's were. When the boat icon was centered over the waypoint icon ... the sonar screen lit up with the brushpiles that were dropped. DEAD ON !!

I had to chuckle at Greg's remark about some of the numbers putting one out in the ocean. You see, the reason I even LOOKED for a converter was because I input the decimal degrees numbers in my unit (manually) and looked to see how accurate they were. I had to clip off the last digit, in order to make them fit, but figured "seconds" were the "last few feet" of the equation. Boy, was I wrong :Doh: ... my waypoints ended up being 40 miles away from the lake :Rofl
After converting them to GPS .... they've proved to be a lot more accurate than I ever imagined/expected they'd be.

... cp :kewl

I agree CatFan, a thousandth of a minute gets you down into the 6-foot range which is a whole lot better than 100-foot range! Even better than that is using an all degree number. Not sure what his HDS8 is capable of but five decimal places in degrees will get you down into the 3-foot range. I guess to get better than that your system would have allow for six or more decimal places or switch to using the UTM system. When I help Customers convert their waypoints I always use the DD.ddddd system for its better accuracy. It takes a little math to get to the all decimal numbers but using an EXCEL spreadsheet helps when there is more than just a few to deal with.

Edit: Oops! Did not see your post crappiepappy. Guess you were posting while I was still typing. Decimal degrees is definitely the way to go if you want accurate waypoints!

Thanks to all for the help--i will try out some of the suggestions next week and let ya know what works..
Thanks again

[QUOTE=CatFan;2165352]You can just divide the third number by 60 and put the result after the MM.

For example 48.686/60=.8114, so that first one becomes N 38 15.8114. Give that a shot on a couple of trial points and see if they are closer.[/QUOT

CatFan this worked great--I was close enough my down imaging picked up the brushpile.
Thanks again....

Good deal. Now let's see the fish pictures!

The brushpiles were empty but the bluffs have been good..