Introduction
There are frequent questions about the Ordnance Survey national grid in Britain and many who wish to manipulate data in Ordnance Survey format. Questions such as:
- What is the Ordnance Survey reference system?
- How do I convert references to and from latitude and longitude?
- How do I set my GPS receiver?
- Where can I get waypoint information for walks in the UK?
- Where can I buy UTM maps for Britain?
- How can we manipulate OS data?
- How can I get GPX files into an excel spreadsheet?
- How can I use OS references with mapping software?
- How can I easily plot data on Google Earth?
- How many norths are there?
These notes and the accompanying software are an attempt to give background information which will either answer those questions directly or show an alternative way of working which is more helpful in Britain.
Excel routines are also available to convert latitude and longitude to and from OS references, compute bearings and ranges, compute variations from north, import and export GPX files, show data on Google Earth and convert postcode and zipcodes.