At the moment I am evaluating several software packaged before I build my AWS web page. Can anyone tell me where I can find my Latitude, Longitude and Altitude? Is there for example a web site that I can just put in my post code and the magic numbers will appear?
www.multimap.com will let you enter a UK postcode and will return a latitude and longitude. I don’t know if this will give you your altitude, if not then I can dig out another site for you
:hello1:Well done Alex. I spent the last two days trying to find that info!!! All I need to do now is find my altitude. This will probably prove more difficult as Where I live is quite hilly. Thanks again for your quick reply!!!
If you can get hold of a GPS unit you would be able to find out your altitude (and exact longitude/latitude as well). It should be accurate to about 20 m or so I would say.
A GPS unit will gve you the best accuracy, However If you can find a good map of your area you should be able to get your altitude from that to the nearest 10 Meters. I’ve also found that if you use multimap.com and zoom out you can see an Ordnance Survey map with contour lines that should allow you to estimate yout altitude.
I’ve not found an online resource for accurate altitudes in the UK but a landranger OS map will certainly give you a very good approximation from a study of the contour lines and combining that with your local knowledge of your area.
Julian
I suspect that a decent map will give you a better altitude estimate than a GPS unit. GPS altitude isn’t usually less accurate than horizontal accuracy and you can easily be out by 40-50ft. See http://www.edu-observatory.org/gps/gps_accuracy.html for more info if you’re into maths/geometry!
40-50 ft is nothing - I descend more than that when I walk down to my local shops ;).
What’s the standard contour line distance on most maps anyway - I would have thought more than that? For amateur purposes an estimate within 10-20 metres would be fine IMHO.
In the UK the standard Ordnance Survey Landranger maps have contour intervals of 10m which is usually fine for approximating your altitude.
Julian
That is accurate indeed ;).
40-50ft is between 1 and 2 mb difference in pressure, so if you have a weather station at your local shops and one at home then you’d better make sure the pressure offset is correct in both locations
The contour line separation can make it more difficult to work out your altitude, but with interpolation between contours (and surrounding contours) you can usually get within a few feet.
it looks like Ordnance Survey Landranger maps sometime go to 5 m.
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/ (view maps online)
I know here, depending on what the local relief is the counter interval will be different.
i do feel sorry for you guys, we have some many more free resources for this kind of stuff
We pay the OS to produce maps that we have to buy from them #-o I sometimes think that someone should try to develop a set of Open Source maps that anyone can maintain (anyone for WikiMaps?) and then we can have a free source of map/routing info that might persuade the OS to reduce their prices. It’s such a huge job though, so I don’t suppose it will ever be done.
we have to pay for paper maps (i think $6(USD) ). However there are many free sites like
http://www.topozone.com
http://seamless.usgs.gov/
and tons of there free data (census etc…)
Sorry…I didn’t mean to imply that I was expecting free printed maps. It’s just that if you want a decent chunk of real map data it will cost you
Not sure if you are still looking for this information, but I found this site that shows you altitude anywhere on the globe: http://www.altitude.org/find_altitude.php