[Xastir] Cartographers? UTM/UPS Questions

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Sun, 19 Oct 2003, Gerry Creager N5JXS wrote:

> I'll look at definitive answers tomorrow post-soccer with my daughter!

Great!

I've since changed to a fixed zone zero ("00Y" and similar) for the
UPS areas, and changed the grids there to show two zones per pole.
I think those changes are probably correct.

I'm still confused about whether the official UTM grid used all over
the world has been screwed-up by the U.S. military for a few zones.
It's unclear whether the special zone sizes apply only to MGRS, or to
generic UTM zones used by civilians as well.  I'm hoping it's the
former.  Different sources appear to contradict each other.


> Curt Mills, WE7U wrote:
> > On Sat, 18 Oct 2003, Curt Mills, WE7U wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>UTM:
> >>----
> >>There are two irregular zones in the area of Southern Norway (31V and
> >>32V), and four irregular zones above there (31X, 33X, 35X, 37X, with
> >>32X/34X/36X/38X being absent).
> > 
> > 
> > -snip-
> > 
> > 
> >>BTW:  I don't see a mention of these irregular zones on many sites,
> >>even university sites that should have it.  I had to really dig for
> >>the information.
> > 
> > 
> > Of course I just found another mention of this stuff after I sent out
> > the message:
> > 
> > http://www.geog.umn.edu/courses/1502/Lecture7-1/Lecture7-1.htm
> > 
> > It says this: "Military and civilian referencing systems are in use.
> > In the civilian system, location is described in terms of eastings
> > and northings. A false origin is established 500,000 meters west of
> > the central meridian of the UTM zone to assure that all eastings have
> > positive values. The military modification of the UTM system uses a
> > different grid size and adjusts some quadrangle above 56? North.
> > Additionally, the military system also codes the grid zones with
> > letters."
> > 
> > I guess that means I need to fix the grid for Xastir, unless we
> > implement MGRS in the future, at which point we'll need the grid we
> > draw now.
> > 
> > Verification of this latest fact?
> > 
> > I still need the UPS and MGRS questions answered as well.

Curt, WE7U.				archer at eskimo.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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