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Carl, software programmers sometimes get sloppy (no aspersions on anybody on the MOC), especially when the symbol for degrees is not on the keyboard. Steve's formula for decimal degrees is correct, as long as you know for sure that the numbers you are given are degrees, minutes, and seconds, no matter how they are separated (periods, commas, colons, etc.) The clue with Doug's coordinates is there are three places after the last period. That told me 45.403 and 11.800 were expressed as decimal minutes, not minutes.seconds (only 60 seconds in a minute, after all).
Most programs take all three common formats: decimal degrees (everything converted to degrees); decimal minutes (degrees and everything else converted to minutes); and degrees, minutes, seconds. Usually, each number is separated by a space, but, somewhere, the program should show you what it expects.
Doug's coordinates are N33deg 45.403min and W114deg 11.800min. That would be N33deg 45min 24sec by W114deg 11min 48sec. Plug that into Steve's equation and it should come out really close to what I used (I haven't checked it but I'm pretty confident).
Bob
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