Peter<rant>
Why Maidenhead Grid Squares?
Google maps doesn't know about them.
What's wrong with plain old Lat Long.
At least you can eyeball Lat Long and get some idea where it is.
</rant>
Onno (VK6FLAB)@G8GDS that would be because a Maidenhead locator is significantly easier to communicate and verify across a poor radio link than two series of numbers.
IO93ob is much simpler than 53.0625, -0.792
See: https://www.m0nwk.co.uk/how-to-convert-maidenhead-locator-to-latitude-and-longitude/
@vk6flab Not a like for like comparison.
The six character grid square you give is to nearest 5km, while the lat long, with four decimal places of a degree, is to about 10 meters
See:
https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=hRMBoCTy5a7HqVkxukhHd8
@G8GDS you can add two more characters to the grid square and get 15" of latitude by 30" of longitude. You can keep doing this if you really need to, but the beauty is that just two characters already gets you close. If you need closer, you can add as many as you need.
This is not possible with LAT/LON coordinates. You can't specify a place on Earth with two digits.
Jouni OH3CUF@G8GDS Many reasons: it is more compressed, most of the time the accuracy of 6 characters is enough.
I think it is a good system. This website helps you quite a bit: https://www.f5len.org/tools/locator/