Shifting Coordinates
We’re in UTM zone 14N here, so all our mapping is based on that. Last week we did some soil samples that spilled over into Zone 15N, which threw everything off. Here’s what I did to convert from 15 to 14. This doubtless introduced some inaccuracy, but it should be close enough for Tone Ag purposes.
1. In Mapsource, change the coordinate system to decimal degrees (lat/lon hddd.ddddd), export points, close Mapsource
2. Open the resulting text file in Excel, strip out redundant columns, save as txt, close Excel
3. Open the resulting text file in your favorite text editor, search and replace ft with nothing, search and replace N with nothing, search and replace (space)W with (tab)-, save and close
4. Open the resulting text file in Excel, insert two columns filled with 1 before elevation, swap lat/long columns, save as txt, close Excel
5. Run my coordshift.pl program on the resulting text file
Usual disclaimers - don’t use this in any environment where precision is at all important, I take no responsibility, use at own risk, blah, blah, blah.
You might want to look at this article on crossing UTM zone boundaries.