Double Creek

Bare with here guys........

I've got a aerial photo of about 5,000 acres that is zoomed in enough to where it would fill up a 8x11 page...... Here is my delima.... I'm looking for a coordinates grid that would be in perhaps 1 inch squares..... When I scout this area by boat I would like to take the map along and by using a GPS be able track where exactly I am on the map within a reasonable distance....... Is anyone aware of a software or website that puts a coordinate grid on maps? It's needs to be detailed coordinances, carrying out 4 places past the decimal....

Thanks for any help..

saltflat

I have a lowrance I finder hunt. I can make my own custom maps with their software and then download it to my gps. It will tell me within 10 yards of where I am at.

ShadowAce

www.mapcard.com

You can put a PLLS grid on your maps. It costs 14.95 a year but well worth it IMO.

Double Creek

I've tried Mapcard, but for an area the size I'm talking, the PLLS grids are way too big and basicaly useless....

kwilson16

I don't know of any free website that will do this for you. I'm cheap so I do it myself.

You can put your own grid lines on there. This is easier than it sounds.

I assume you're working in lat/long and not military grid reference system (MGRS).

You will need a color printer, a ruler and good black pen.

1. Go to www.topozone.com. Click on 'View Maps'. Use the Place/Name search to find your area.A typicalLat/Long for my area is -Latitude: 36 degrees 14 minutes 56.1 secondsLongitude: 76 degrees 08 minutes 47.3 seconds. Your GPS will go down to the first decimal place in this selected format and this is sufficient accuracy for very precise stand placement (+/- 20 feet). Numbers changed to protect good spots!

2. When the map comes up select the following settings:
1:24K/25K Series
Map size: Large
View scale: 1/50,000
Coordiante format: D/M/S
Un-Check 'Show target'

3. Use 'File' 'Print' to Print out sections of the map you need. Note: You may have to print1-3 pages and carefully trim/cut/glue to get the exact are coverage you want.

4. Go back to place name search and scroll down to the section titled 'Latitude/Longitude - Degrees/Minutes/Seconds'. You will need to input a series of points that represent the corners of the squares in your grid system. Map settings are not critical at this step, but you will need to click 'Show Target' so that the map will depict the exact placement of the corners.

5. To do this, you will round lat/longs to the nearest 10seconds. Example: Latitude: 36 degrees 14 minutes 50.0 seconds Longitude: 76 degrees 08 minutes 40.0 seconds would be the corner to the south and east of my example lat/long from step 1. Transfer each of the corner points to your printed map.

6. After you have inputted all of the points, simply go back and connect the corner dotswith your ruler and black pen.If you use settings from my example, youshouldget 1" squares which is about the same as the military maps. If your squares are smaller or bigger, don't sweat it. You can play with different scale settings in step 2 if it bugs you. Laminate the map for waterproofing, if desired. You can also label the grid lines on the edge of the map, if desired (40.0, 50.0 etc).

Post back if you have trouble.

Double Creek

Thanks kwilson!!!! That will help a bunch!!!

mobow

From mytopo.com you can order that map with the grid already on it. These are absolutely invaluable, and not only that, pretty inexpensive.

RIStrutStopper

You can go to www.jdmcox.com and download USAPhotomaps. There you can download an aerial or a map and overlay grid lines. you can get the map and topo to the same scale and switch between them with one keystroke. If you set the GPS to UTM and put UTM gridlines on the map, you can pretty much look at your GPS coordinates and tell about where you are on the map. There is a print function, but it stinks. Use the option save to screen.jpg and then print out the jpg file to print your maps, that is much better. Its free too, best tool I've found so far.