NavList:

Thank you to Frank, Gary, and Brad for your comments!

While I am still not able to recall the specific source that originally confused me by clearly referring to western zone descriptions with the minus sign (-) and the eastern time zones with the (+), it seem that they were used by some GPS manufacture’s explanation of a feature utilized by their particular gps I purchased years ago; again I don’t recall for certain.

However, just recently I discovered a reference in a United States Power Squadrons course manual titled “Electronics Offshore” in which it was stated that the cruise planning tool, - i.e., Visual Passage Planner 2, used in conjunction with a software program titled, CAPN, (the original version of the newer program version identified as OpenCAPN) - uses negative values for western longitudes.  The actual quote is: “Notice in Figure 8-4 that western longitudes are shown as negative values, which is a standard astronomy convention.  This is not a discrepancy, but simply a different convention.”    

So, for me now, I’m a little more comfortable with trying to stick to processes and procedures that I’ve learned rather than attempting to learn something else altogether different.  I’m at that age when I really do need to focus on Keeping It Simple and staying out of the weeds:  aka “KIS(s)-SOOTW.”  I do thank you for your comments 

Steve

PS: I’m still having trouble with the search tool; I’ll try again later.