converting long lat to google maps long lat

Question

I'm having some trouble getting accurate readings from a GPRS tracker, implementing the coordinates given into gMaps api.

I've read here that you should convert the minutes / degrees by dividing them by 60 and 3600 respectively, but even trying this i can't get anything TOO accurate:

GPS tracker coordinate conversion into google maps format and preciseness

the trackers sends packets with the following information;

5242.8157 North
00126.3539 West

Which i translate as;

latitude: 52 degrees, 42 minutes, 8157 seconds - > 52.428157
longitude: -1 degree, 26 minutes, 3539 seconds - > -1.263539

But this puts a marker significantly off where i am. Is there something i'm missing here, perhaps something simple that someone might know to do just the trick for more precision?

Answer 1

The decimal part of your input data (eg .8157) is not seconds; it is decimal minutes. So it should be:

latitude 52 degrees, 42.8157 minutes or 52.7136 degrees