Hi Matt,

When I make a new way point in Sonar Viewer, I am given a set of XY coordinates (ex. N040.03.619 W087.59.139). When I search these coordinates on google they do not show up in the correct location. I have tried removing the unnecessary decimal points as well as added the correct negative sign.

To make sure I was doing it correctly, I viewed a way point in ArcMap under the WGS84 coordinate system. I got the the coordinates and put them in a converter
( www.earthpoint.us/Convert.aspx#PositionColumn) after these showed up in the same incorrect location as the coordinates directly from Sonar Viewer did.
After conversion of the ArcMap coordinates, I received the correct location of the way point on google maps. I uploaded this same way point into Sonar Viewer, retrieved the coordinates, and entered them into the same converter to obtain the appropriate lat/long location. However, the coordinates then showed up roughly 15 miles away from where the way point is supposed to be.

I want to note that in the Sonar Viewer program, the way point shows up in the correct location on the map. It is just when I try to search for the coordinates separately that I am getting incorrect locations.

Any help/ advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

When you say "I have tried removing the unnecessary decimal points as well as added the correct negative sign" I suspect that you might be using a different GPS coordinate format. We support 3 formats: Decimal degrees (DD.dddddd), Degree, minutes seconds (DD.mm.ss) and Degrees, minutes decimal seconds (DD.mm.ddd). The same position will have different numbers after the DD when shown in different formats. If you are viewing in Google Earth, take a look in the options window there and you will find the same three choices of position format - make sure you are using the same in there as you are in ReefMaster/Sonar Viewer. Since the difference in position is so large (15 miles), my guess is that you are comparing decimal degrees against degree/decimal minutes.

Google expects coordinates as:
N/S/E/W DD.ddddddd
N/S/E/W DD mm ss
N/S/E/W DD mm.ddd

You shouldn't need to convert from any of those formats but where decimals are put is relevant.