This is just a simple page to calculate distance and bearing between two IARU locators. Simply type them into the two locator fields, and click on the calculate button.

IARU locators were designed by radio amateurs as a simple, brief way of pinpointing their stations. A six-character locator refers to a unique area of 2.5 degrees of latitude and 5 degrees of longitude. The locator consists of two letters, two numbers, and another two letters, for example JN23RG. Eight and ten character locators may also be used, e.g. JN23RG39 and JN23RG39AW. These seldom used locators represent more precisely defined locations.

The Great Circle results are normally of interest to radio amateurs, the Rhumb Line is of interest to navigators.

Fill in any of the fields for NGR, Locator or Latitude-Longitude, and click on the appropriate button. If you enter NGR easting and northing, set the grid also. All the other fields, where appropriate, will be calculated.

NGRs can be for GB, Ireland, or the Channel Islands. They are transformed from the local datum to WGS84 before conversion to geographic and locator display. Similarly if a locator or WGS84 geographics are entered, the entry is transformed to the appropriate local datum before calculation of NGR data.

For full details of usage, please click here.

This is a simple tool to calculate between UTM, geographics, and IARU locator.

Fill in the appropriate fields, and click on the adjacent calculate button. Make sure you specify the name of the reference ellipsoid used when entering latitude and longitude or UTM.

All calculations based on a locator will result in answers based on the WGS84 ellipsoid, regardless of any selected ellipsoid. This is because the locator system is based on WGS84.

For more details on the use of this calculator, please click here.