John Morris G4ANB originally devised the system and it was adopted at a meeting of the IARU VHF Working Group in Maidenhead, England in 1980. The only abbreviation recommended to indicate a Maidenhead reference in Morse code and radio teleprinter transmission was LOC, as in LOC KN28LH. Use of the terms QTH locator and QRA locator was initially discouraged, as it caused confusion with the older QRA locator system. Maidenhead locators are also commonly referred to as QTH locators, grid locators or grid squares, although the "squares" are distorted on any non- equirectangular cartographic projection.
The Maidenhead Locator System can describe locations anywhere in the world. Its purpose is to be concise, accurate, and robust in the face of interference and other adverse transmission conditions. QTH Locator and IARU Locator) is a geocode system used by amateur radio operators to succinctly describe their geographic coordinates, which replaced the deprecated QRA locator, which was limited to European contacts. They measure 2.5 minutes latitude by 5 minutes longitude, roughly corresponding to 3 × 4 miles in the continental US.Geocode system used worldwide by radio amateurs These more precise locators are used as part of the exchange in the 10-GHz contest. A grid square is indicated by two letters (the field) and two numbers (the square), as in FN31, the grid square within which W1AW, ARRL's Maxim Memorial Station, resides.Įach subsquare is designated by the addition of two letters after the grid square, as FN44ig. Grid squares are a shorthand means of describing your general location anywhere on the Earth in a manner that is easy to communicate over the air.Īn instrument of the Maidenhead Locator System (named after the town outside London where it was first conceived by a meeting of European VHF managers in 1980), a grid square measures 1° latitude by 2° longitude and measures approximately 70 × 100 miles in the continental US.
One of the first things you will notice when you tune the low end of any VHF band is that most QSOs include an exchange of "grid squares." What are grid squares? Well, they're more like rectangles and are just a way of dividing up the surface of the Earth.
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