We're working on all new "box cards" for the fire company (basically, these are a script for how response for different kinds of incidents are handled) and my task was to get all of the Landing Zones (LZ's) checked, and get their coordinates and a site naming convention done.

Instead of just making something up that seemed right, we took the radical step of asking the helo pilots how they would like us to present them with coordinates.

Here's how we do it now.

LZ Designators for Station 47 are Lat/Long Decimal Format as follows:

DEG.MIN
DATUM WGS-84

To notify dispatch of coordinates for an LZ, tell the dispatcher:

"We are setting up an LZ at "(name of LZ)"
GPS coordinates for as follows:
40.559 Say "Forty POINT FIVE-FIVE-NINER North"
75.122 Say "Seventy-Five POINT One-Two-Two West"

Listen for dispatcher readback and confirm accurate information.