Six Digit Grid Squares, explained somewhat;
After I
put up my 6 meter beacon, I received emails two locals who expressed puzzlement
when I gave the grid square of my six meter beacon as EN62wu. They both knew
that the grid square for the Holland, Michigan area is EN62, but they didn't
know what the two additional elements were for.
Around this area of the world, a 4 digit grid square is
around 100 miles wide and 70 miles tall. The EN62 grid square, which contains
Holland, MI, also contains South Haven, Benton Harbor, and it jumps across Lake
Michigan and includes the NE area of Chicago, Racine, Wisconsin and the SE area
of Milwaukee. This is a large area.
If you go to the ARRL web site on grid squares, this is
explained rather well:
http://www.arrl.
When the Maidenhead system was designed, a 4 digit grid
square is to be 1 degree of latitude and 2 degrees of longitude. The Maidenhead
people then added the two digits to define a smaller area. The area is now 2.5
minutes worth of latitude tall and 5 minutes worth of longitude wide. This
neatly divides a four digit grid square into tiny slices 1/24th as wide and
tall, meaning the resolution is 576 times greater.
But by adding the two additional letters, we can now identify
an area that is only 3 miles tall by 4 miles wide, such as EN62wu.
If you are interested in what your six digit grid square is,
QRZ offers a good guess. Most of the time, it is very accurate, but be careful
as the QRZ program can be faked out by local road addresses.
If you would really like to find your six digit grid square,
use an online resource that ties into Google Maps:
Go to:
http://www.dxzone.com/cgi-bin/dir/jump2.cgi?ID=13877
Click on the line just below the top:
" Full-screen version with gridsquare limits
here -"
This takes you to a page that shows the Google map. Click on
and drag the map over to your area, and zoom in. Then double click on your house
address, and the program will give you the six digit grid square. Zoom out, and
you can see the limits of this 6 digit grid square.
As an example, the Holland Red Cross Building, where the Holland ARC meets is
EN62wt and the GRARA Red Cross locations is EN72ex.
Many of the logging programs can use the six digit grid squares to show the
azimuth between the two points, for a much superior antenna pointing accuracy.
tom bosscher k8tb "EN72bv" !