USING UTM, MGRS & USNG

Monica Spicker
Some slides adapted from Harry Frank
2008

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 Objectives

Understanding UTM system

Finding coordinates of a
point
Plotting a point

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Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)
 NATO system
 Metric units (meters)
 World is split into 60, 6º degree zones
 Spokane area is Zone 11N
 Distorted above North 84º, and South 80º,
not applied above these latitudes.
 Smallest grid unit on USGS 1:24000 maps
is 1 km. May be different on different scale
maps!
 Coordinates get larger going east
(easting) from the zone meridian and
larger going north (northing) from the
equator.
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 Identifying the grid
466 467
(Easting)

5157 5157

Map
5156 5156
(Northing)

466 467

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 Determining Coordinates: Easting
Find theDetermine the easting
nearest smaller first: to the
coordinate
FromLEFT
the object
(W) ofon map
your ( ) go
point
to the bottom (or top) edge of the map

5157

5156

465 466
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Determining Coordinates: Easting

4 6 5 0 0 0

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 Determining Coordinates: Easting
Divide the distance between the coordinate to
the left of your point and the coordinate to the right of
your point into tenths

3 tenths This is hundreds of meters

465 466
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Determining Coordinates: Easting

4 6 5 3 0 0

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 Determining Coordinates: Northing
Find
From
the the
nearest
pointcoordinate
on map ( below
) look(S)
to the
of your
left point
(or right) edge of the map

5157

5156

465 466
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Determining Coordinates: Northing

5 1 5 6 0 0 0

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 Determining Coordinates: Northing
Count or estimate the number of tenths from the
coordinate BELOW your point TO the corner.

5157

8 Tenths This is hundreds of meters

5156

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Determining Coordinates: Northing

5 1 5 6 8 0 0

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 Final Coordinates of

465300E 5165800N

But we can go finer, if we use a template

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 Using a Template

Must match map scale!

Can estimate how far into box on a scale of 1
to 10 to find nearest ten meters.

5165820N
Starting corner:
465000E 5165000N

Template placed
on map at
kilometer grid
corner 465360E
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Another Way to Use the Template

 Put the 0 corner of the template on the point.

 Read where the block margin hits the template scales.

465360E

Starting corner:
465000E 5165000N

5165820N

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Determining Coordinates

489520E

5315440N

Start here.
489000E, 5315000N
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Practice Exercises

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 Plotting Points

 Underline the last 3 digits of each coordinate.

 What’s not underlined are the margin
coordinates.
Example: 490150E 5315325N

Use template to determine

position within the kilometer
box.

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 490120E

5315340N

Start here. 490, 5315

Plotting 490120E 5315340N

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Practice Exercises

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 MGRS and USNG
 Military Grid Reference System
 US National Grid System
 USNG and MGRS are identical
 Based on UTM
 Default datum is NAD83
 Includes
 UTM zone (number and letter)
 A two letter grid designator that replaces the
smaller written UTM number in the margin
 only the ending 5 numbers. More can be
truncated, if you are not going down to single
meters.
 Most GPS support MGRS.
 Most commercial maps do NOT.
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 Example
in UTM: 11T 490150E 5315325N

in MGRS:

11T MP 90150E 15325N NAD83 : 1 meter

11T MP 9015E 1532N NAD83 : nearest 10 meters

11T MP 901E 153N NAD83 : nearest 100 meters

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