BTW is there a site with a program that inputs lat.long and outputs the
locator and "wab" ?
Bryan
----- Original Message -----
From: captbrian <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 12:30 PM
Subject: LF: Re: Locators
That is an interesting historical account but you fail to tell us the
reasons advanced for not using Lat. Long. ie trigonometrical definitions
on
a true curved surface rather than draughtsman drawn squares on a
draughtsman drawn simulation on a flat sheet of paper
G3GVB
----- Original Message -----
From: Walter Blanchard <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 11:44 AM
Subject: LF: Locators
> In 1968 I had a long-running correspondence with the RSGB over the IARU
> adoption of what was then the "QRA Locator"; later to become the
> "Maidenhead" locator. QRA was first proposed for amateur use by a Czech
> amateur OK1VR in 1958 and was subsequently adopted by amateurs in all
the
> Warsaw Pact countries. I believe it originated in a USSR military
locator
> system already well understood by them. The Western (NATO) counterpart
was
> the GEOREF system which I described in an RSGB Bulletin article in 1968.
The
> RSGB VHF committee at the time were, somewhat amazingly, unaware of
GEOREF
> and thought that QRA was a totally amateur invention. When I started
pushing
> for GEOREF, a more logical, accurate and simpler system, I was more or
less
> told to keep quiet and stop rocking the boat since the IARU were going
for
> QRA and that was that. The rest, as they say, is history. I forecast at
the
> time that QRA would never have the accuracy required for accurate
contest
> scoring and that's why Maidenhead has become so needlessly complicated.
We
> could also have gone for the well-established world-wide UTM grid but I
> suppose that would have been too easy. It's all too late to do anything
now,
> of course, but I have never met a professional geodesist who understands
why
> we need Maidenhead. .
>
> Walter G3JKV.
>
>
>
>
>
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