Plotting your Z32 Solution using Google Maps (if you must)

shaqmeister · 2026-05-12T06:13:22Z

In follow-up to a previous thread—Plotting your Z32 Solution easily using Microsoft Word—we'll take a look here at how we might go about working out what adjustments we need to make in the hope of being able to readily translate our map coordinates into corresponding lat./long. coordinates for use with Google Maps. It is common to encounter the error of supposing that we can simply begin with the raw bearing we have applied to the map, couple this with the stated scale of 6.4 miles to the inch and then just run the math. It is, however, not as simple as this. The Phillips 66 Map used by The Zodiac is, as we shall find, actually not scaled at anything close to 6.4 miles to the inch, nor is the straight-up direction (Map North) properly aligned to True North. It is for these reasons that, through ignoring these combining deviations, we find ourselves regularly presented with proposed bomb locations that do not match the location that would have been obtained by simply following the instructions and laying off the coordinates on the map, as given. The starting point, then, must be a detailed analysis aimed at identifying the precise degree of each of these primary deviations. And, to do that, we must start with the map itself.

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Posted by: @letega

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I don’t know how much difference that makes, but thought it worth pointing out.

Hi @letega.

Thank you. Yes, certainly worth pointing out.

As I had noted previously, the code I’ve used here is stripped down and re-parameterized from that linked to elsewhere by user @coder1987, and the error evidently stems from there. As you have seen, record 274147 actually relates to the Three Peaks Mountain in Monterey, CA, and not Diablo. The correct entry for Mount Diablo would be record 222343.

Even then, the coordinates for this entry are given as 37.8816462, -121.9140403 and not the 37.881628, –121.914382 in the original codebase.

I have to think that, as the code was auto-generated initially using AI, the author’s assistant had got muddled up a little with both its figures and its source references.

Of the various values available, I find that the coordinates given by the Wikipedia article pin the actual summit most closely, and so I have changed to these values also in the code, although the difference this makes is minimal.

This post was modified 1 month ago by shaqmeister

This post was modified 4 weeks ago by shaqmeister

“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)

Posted : May 19, 2026 1:15 am

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