Configuring a Handheld GPS receiver to read in State Plane Coordinates, in feet or meters, in Florida West & Florida East Zones

By Gregory A. Shimp, PSM

My hand held GPS has a "user grid" option, but setting it to read in State Plane Coordinates (SPC) is not an intuitive process. The only options for configuring are as follows:

Longitude Origin:
Scale:
False Easting:
False Northing:

However, the parameters for the Florida West SPC Zone are as follows:

As you can see, the standard parameter settings for the handheld GPS’s "users grid" lacks a Latitude Origin. This, however, does not exclude one from being able to set-up a handheld GPS to read in SPC.

With significant help from newsgroup posters, the following parameters have been calculated, for SPC feet or meters, in the Florida West and Florida East zones:

Florida West Zone, Meters:

Florida West Zone, Feet:

Florida East  Zone, Meters:

Florida East Zone, Feet:

I tested the settings for Florida West Zone, Feet on an NGS control point, and found the values to be well within the expected range for handheld GPS.

If anyone cares to test these settings, please contact me at gregs@tampabay.rr.com and let me know the results.

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