Simple Coordinates Please

          This blog started out for me as simply wanting to put coordinates into my GPS.  In general there are three different formats for coordinates.  Degree Minutes Seconds (DMS) is the most common and widely accepted.  The Degrees are signified by the ° symbol, the minutes by the ' symbol and the seconds by " symbol.  Decimal Degrees (DD) is what the GPS uses.  The whole number in this format is the degree and the numbers after the decimal are a math conversion of the seconds and minutes.  Another format is Degree Minutes (DM) this is in between DD and DMS in which through a conversion the seconds are included with the minutes.  This Wiki article does a nice job of explaining the conversions.  There are many web pages out there to do the conversions here is a reputable one done by the FCC another one that has additional information and is a tool available for Google Earth as well.
          In reading coordinates the latitude is given first and longitude is second.  Latitude ranges from 90° north to 90° south starting at the equator.  If the letter N or S does not follow the latitude coordinate the - symbol indicates south.  Longitude ranges from 180° east to 180° west starting at the Prime Meridian.  If the letter W or E does not follow the latitude coordinate the - symbol indicates West. 
         One degree of latitude is about 69 miles one degree of longitude is about 42 miles.  This web site does a nice job of further explaining coordinates and this web site gets into GPS and coordinates further.