Give your general location along with your grid square. Example: for grid 13 in region DM say delta, mike, one, three on air. Say your grid square letters phonetically. Many portable GPS receivers can read out Maidenhead grid squares automatically. They measure 2.5 minutes latitude by 5 minutes longitude, roughly corresponding to 3 × 4 miles in the continental US. A large collection of amateur radio maps, including CQ and ITU Zones, a complete set of ham radio Prefix Maps, grid locators and time zones map. Say your grid square location when operating on VHF & UHF bands. 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.
