Zero Coordinates - what are they?

Without talking about any specific cache, what are zero coordinates for a town? I've searched the archives here, on geocaching.com and the net but cannot come up with a reasonable explaination. Most of the searches just yield ground zero in NYC. Anyone have a link to an explaination?

If this can be answered in a general way, would appreciate it but not if an answer gives away a cache.

The ground is frozen enough today to allow 4 wheeling in vehicle to cache sites but slick enough to cause slides when walking down hill :eek:

Anne

did you try zip code search??

I'm not at all sure what you mean, but I have noticed that on my Garmin, Kittery is listed just a short distance from my house!

Most gps have a basemap and it includes searchable towns.

Hmmm, a new puzzle idea?

This is what I mean (part of a cache write up)

FIND THE GROUND ZERO COORDINATES FOR (name of town)

I've truly searched everywhere I can think of - but I'm a pretty linear thinker. :(

Anne

Do you mean the physical center of the town? Or do you mean the the Confluence Degree (the confluence is the point where the lines of lattitude and longitude intersect) ?

I would guess it would refer to the Zip Code Co-rds for a particular town. Just a guess.

Type in the town on Google Earth and hit enter it should bring you in to the town center which I believe is what you're looking for. Make sure you have coordinates checked off in the boxes to the left and on the map it will give you the coordinates.

Thanks for the info. The zip code center and Google Earth center were the same so think that is how you find ground zero for a town. Will go back out tomorrow and see if th enew edited coordinates work. Learn something new everyday.

Anne

Great learning process. DeLorme, Google Earth and Geocaching are all slightly different. I've done all the various math directions and now to head out and see what works. I'm always amazed at the thought that goes into a lot of our Maine caches.

Anne

This is one of several from Hipointer(GCR93K) Life is a Beach by Hipointer I have not done any of them yet.:cool:

I was thinking only about the geograghic center of a town, thats what a zipcode search gives. If you do a zipcode search on geocaching.com it will list all the caches from the nearest to that point. It could be used in a variety of ways, depending on if you are hiding or seeking!!! Makes for some great what ifs?? When searching for a town with mapping software(a long standing hobby for me) it will always be close. It depends on the math the program uses to compute coordinates. I have found terraserver to be the best when I want visual aid, because I can toggle between map and airial photo. Ground zero is open to interpitation, Personaly I would go with zipcode/pysical center.

The reference for zero coordinates is through geocaching.com. That source, zip code finder, town web sites and Google are all different by a few degrees. And we all know what head ache those few degrees can be :) . Very interesting learning more about how to set up your own premium account on geocaching.com. $$ well spent for all it gives you.

Anne

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TwoMaineiacs

And we all know what head ache those few degrees can be :) .

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It takes the difficulty rating from a one to a four. :p Hoamdezinahs will take you to a parking lot and leave you to search a 1000 square foot area, with no hint. Alexanders Cache. And it's a small cache. Very well hidden. So what's a couple of degrees..... a few more DNF's. :D

Found the caches today where we were learning about zero coordinates. Good work (as always) by the owner.

We are well acquainted with Hoamdezinahs and his caches though we've never met. I think we are batting about .500 on his hides. Always clever, always frustrating for this linear thinker. Joe does better than I on how to approach Hoamdezinahs's thinking. He's another who puts a lot of time and effort into his hides. We are really fortunate here in Maine.

Anne