I can see more than a dozen fellow hams in my own little part of the world. The QRZ site also has a nifty feature to allow one to explore grid squares and see where there might be hams in it: There are good websites for grid squares here and here and here. It’s good idea to double-check this against a grid square locator application in case there is a mistake. Example below:įor the author it is EM10bl. To determine your grid square, look at your own QRZ profile where it is automatically included based on your postal address registered with the governing national authority (FCC in USA). It’s also a good thing to include on your QSL card if you send one.
Your grid square locator should be on any digital mode computer apps used for communication so that other stations know your location (QTH).
Sub-squares are generally useful only for UHF and microwave contacts where more precise location is required, and are normally lower case alpha characters. The grid square can be further refined into smaller chunks of sub-squares (roughly 4×3 miles) and even extended squares (tiny not relevant to ham radio).įor most radio amateur purposes, the basic four-digit grid square is adequate. So the first four digits are the basic grid square. Several are rare contacts with few active hams located there. Of interest to most readers of this site, the continental United States (CONUS) is dominated by fields DN, EN, DM, and EM, and encompasses 488 grid squares, including little strips of land that overlap a square. It follows the specific format as shown below. This combination of field plus square gives us the basic grid square system. Here you can clearly see square 00, lower left and 99, upper right with the other 98 squares everywhere in between. It looks like this in a more geodetic (less flat) view: If you look carefully at field IO above (encompassing most of the UK and Ireland), you can see this refined grid. The first letter represents longitude and the second latitude as shown below.Įach field is sub-divided into 10×10=100 squares starting again in the southwest counting north in columns of tens and shifting east for the next ten. More detail here.īasically, our planet is divided into 18×18=324 fields identified by two letters (AA-RR)Įach field is 20° longitude (east-west) and and 10° latitude (north-south). The planet is divided up into 32,400 grid squares roughly 100mi wide by 70mi high (in continental USA) per the Maidenhead Locator System. The grid square system was adopted by the IARU for specifying amateur radio station location in a relatively small area. Many hams need to know your exact location for logging and awards purposes. If you are active on HF or non-repeater VHF/UHF frequencies, you should know your operational grid square when making contacts.
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