At first glance .. I would change

private char latDirection to

private short latDirection.

Same with lonDirection. Go on to declare your 'compass' in this manner ..

public static final short N = 0;
...etc

Refactor your sets and gets ..

This will save you time of comparing strings. Your new test will be similiar to

if(direction == N)

If you add more compass directions .. then you can modify the if/else tests to a switch statement. It will also allow you to scale fairly easy. Like the following

public static final short N         = 0;
public static final short NORTH = 0;

if(dir == N) // will handle N and NORTH.

now you would save yourself the trouble of

char dir = Character.toUpperCase(pLatDirection);

only to test

if((dir == "N") || (dir == "NORTH"))

and as you add more directions .. you would do

switch(dir){
  case N: // falls through to NORTH
  case NORTH:
       doSomething;
       break;
  case NE: // falls through to NORTHEAST
  case NORTHEAST:
       doSomething();
       break;
  etc..
}

where adding these as strings would result in

char dir = Character.toUpperCase(pLatDirection);

if((dir == "N") || (dir == "NORTH")) {
   doSomething();
} else if((dir == "NE") || (dir == "NORTHEAST")) {
      doSomething();
} etc ...

I hope I haven't confused you by overexplaining. In java .. short and char are both 2 bytes. The char will not allow you to account for NORTHEAST clearly where a String would, but the compares are somewhat expensive. That's why I am suggesting the use of a short instead of an int. If I still have you in the dark .. shoot me an email and I will send you some code that demonstrates the use of shorts over a char or String.

Ray