Next message: Frank Reed: "Re: long lost lunars"
I learned UTM in Search and Rescue Team training for Santa Clara County, CA. Not that I remember it very well, but I still have the little plastic UTM grid square that you lay on your map to subdivide down to 1/10's. I believe we used UTM for the same reason, a simpler set of numbers to read off/copy down over the radio. Also, being metric made it easier to do simple calculations with. Again, this would generally be mostly used for a small area within the same zone.
Another electronic way to transfer between UTM/latlon that I used to use was to plug a waypoint into my handheld GPS in one format, then change the device option to display in the other format.
-Casey
> My understanding (from someone in the US Army) was that UTM's
> only real purpose was for things like calling in artillery.
> Two corners of the UTM grid are matched up to more
> complicated mapping (lat/lon, dd/mm/ss, whatever) and whoever
> is killing things can deal with simple addition and
> subtraction on the UTM grid to make their job faster and
> simpler. And safer, to prevent friendly fire incidents.
