I'm having a bit of a nightmare plotting some GPS coordinates in QGIS. My coordinates came from a PDF so it took a little wrangling to extract the from the PDF and convert them to a CSV file. I've done this now, and have ended up with a CSV containing the coordinates in DMS format. When I attempt to plot in QGIS (add delimited layer, using DMS option) they are plotted way off from their true locations. Is it possible that the coordinates were captured in a different projection to that which they are initially plotted in QGIS (WGS84)?
Or perhaps the coordinates were just incorrect in the first place. For example, If I copy and paste Northing and Eastings into Google Maps the resulting point is about 1000 miles away from where I would expect it to be.
Anyone have any experience of importing GPS coordinates into QGIS with similar results?
Best Answer
GPS is per definition always WGS84 EPSG:4326, so this should be ok.
A most popular error ist to exchange lat and lon values, or forgetting negative signs for West and South degrees.
And: Most GPS coordinates end up off the coast of Nigeria, because people have preset a projected coordinate system like EPSG:3857 for the project, not considering that the GPS layer is not in a projected CRS.