Press “Navigate To”
Keep pressing the forward arrow
Until you find the option “Latitude Longitude”
Enter your Latitude co-ordinate first (“N”orth or “S”outh of the Equator, in case you don’t know), in the format that your TomTom is set to use, and press OK.
The example below is in the Degrees (decimal) format.
The Longitude entry screen will then appear. Enter your Longitude co-ordinate (“E”ast or “W”est of the “Prime Meridian”, or Greenwich), in the appropriate format, and press OK.
The remaining navigation steps will be the same as for the more usual methods, e.g. postcode, etc.
A Word about Longitude/Latitude Formats and How To Change It
Your TomTom can use three formats for Longitude/Latitude. The examples above used the “decimal” format known as formally as Degrees. In my view, this is the easiest to deal with. Below is the same value expressed in each of the three options:
Degrees e.g N 52.56294o
Minutes e.g. N 52o33.776’
Second e.g. N 52 o33’46”
Why is “Degrees” easiest? Some reasons:
a) You can input it the most easily when using Longitude Latitude option under Navigate To. You don’t actually have to enter the “o”. (With
Minutes and Seconds, you need to enter the fiddly symbols as well). So, in the example above you only need to enter
b) It’s easier to read out on the phone to a chum
c) It’s easier to text to a chum
d) Google Maps gives you locations in this format (see below)
e) Tyre gives you locations in this format (see further below)
So if you’re sold, your TomTom is using one of the other formats, and you want to switch, how do you do it?
Find your “Change Preferences” menu option, which should be at the highest level menu, and press it
There will likely be a number of pages of sub menus under this (example below shows 6), just keep pressing the forward arrow
Until you find one called “Set Units”
This is where the default settings for a number of unit related items on your TomTom are set. Each unit type appears on it’s own page, just keep pressing “Next”
until you come to the one for “Coordinate Display”. Select the format you want by pressing it, and ensuring that the circle (“radio button”) moves to your selection.
If that’s the last screen of units, as in the example above, then press “Done”, and then “Done” again to get out of the “Set Preferences” menu. If not, keep moving forward through any further screens until you reach a “Done” to press.
If you want to check that your change has been successful, then the clearest way to check is to go to the “Where am I?” menu option which will show your Longitude Latitude co-ordinates in your TomTom’s currently set preference (see “How To … Find Out Where You Are – Very Precisely – So That a Fellow SKCC’er/RAC, etc., Can Come To Your Aid“)
Google Maps and Longitude Latitude (assumes some knowledge of Google Maps and route previewing in your TomTom)
You’re in Google Maps, and you’ve found somewhere off the beaten track, or located the hidden entrance to an attraction you’re visiting, that you want to get your TomTom to take you straight through. But, you don’t know the post code, or you know that the post code is inaccurate or, just not precise enough.
In the example below, I’ve just searched for the village of Hallerton in Google Maps. Whilst looking around, I’ve seen a likely B&B I want to go to. In fact, I want to get my TomTom to take me to exactly the point on the road where the arrow is pointing to
Put your cursor precisely where you want to go, and “right click”. In the menu that appears, click “Where’s Here?”
The place where you put your cursor is now marked with a green arrow, and if you look in the search box, you will see some co-ordinates have appeared, albeit in a slightly different format.
The first will be the Latitude co-ordinate, a positive number is “N”, negative indicates “S”outh. The second is Longitude, a positive number is "E”ast, negative “W”est. This (positive & negative co-ordinates without the N/S/E/W tag) format is another way of expressing the Degrees format.
Using the co-ordinates in the example above, this is the result in my TomTom showing the “Browse map of route” preview option during the navigation process. As you can see, spot on.
Tyre and Longitude Latitude (assumes knowledge of Tyre)
Below is the same location shown in Tyre, and with a Tyre waypoint in place, and it’s details being displayed in the callout box. These include the “positive/negative” version of TomTom’s Degrees format of Longitude Latitude coordinates.
(Edited as per Matt's comments)
. You have NO IDEA how annoying that is. Now you can see why I need a satnav 