A question for the Management please.
Why is the Lon/Lat not given for the two latest Associations, namely, OK and ON, I like to enter the IARU locator for the summit area, I appreciate that the reading only gives the 5km square but I collect these locators on HF as well as VHF, is Lon/Lat to be be added at a later date?
Regards
Don [G0NES]
In reply to G0NES:
This area is a bit of a mess. The main database holds summit coordinates in a variety of different forms: some in deg/min/sec and others in decimal degrees, different sign conventions for n/s/e/w, and in some cases latitude and longitude swapped over. And for the UK and Ireland, their respective national grids instead.
I have been helping Jon ZFZ by running a Perl script to interpret this data, and supplying him with consistent lat/long data. This is that data you see in SOTAwatch2. Inevitably this additional step causes a delay when the summit list changes.
I was pretty sure that I had in fact processed the OK association and given Jon the update, but it is possible that he hasn’t been able to install it yet. I definitely haven’t got round to doing ON yet.
I do plan some changes to make my side of it quicker and easier, but it would be far better if “the management” were to resolve to maintain the coordinate data consistently in the master database.
I see we have another time warp…
In reply to G0NES:
Hi Don,
If you look on the SOTA Website for the Associations documents you’ll find the info there. Coincidence, just been looking at the Belgian locations.
Cheers,
Pete, M0COP
Another time warp! Reply posted before the question.
In reply
Hi Martyn
Thanks for the reply and the effort you and Jon are putting in, all understood and thanks also to Peter [M0COP],I will look in the Association docs.
All the best
Don [G0NES]
In reply to G0NES:
Today I was in JO10js on ON/ON-008. Hope that helps.
73 de Les, ON/G3VQO/P
In reply to G3VQO:
Hi Les
Thanks for the contact and the locator, I have now managed to open up the files for ON and OK, with the help of Peter [M0COP] who incidentally has been to Kemmelberg to watch the cycling, prior to SOTA that is.
Many thanks
Don [G0NES]
This is a personal opinion, rather than a “management” response.
SOTA launched with the five UK associations. These could all be covered by the OS grid reference system. EI, added later, is also covered by this (on the same grid as GI). For me, the major advantage of the OS system is the fact that you can buy a road atlas that uses this grid as its reference. I use the Philips OS road atlas, which is great for identifying target summits from the OS grid references.
It is true that inconsistency has since arisen with the addition of new associations, but personally, I wouldn’t want to address this by replacing the OS GRs by Lat/Longs in the UK ARMs - for the reasons stated above.
The excellent know-how, and collaboration work done by Martyn and Jon on this matter, is greatly appreciated.
In reply to M1EYP:
I wouldn’t want to address this by
replacing the OS GRs by Lat/Longs in the UK ARMs
I agree that we should keep the grid references available. Lat/long has many advantages, but convenience when using a printed map certainly isn’t among them. As well as the points you make, the grid system also makes for very simple distance/bearing calculations using “flat earth” geometry; the answers are wrong of course, but good enough for radio purposes. It helps that the British Isles are fairly small.
I’m a little surprised that other associations haven’t made use of their respective national grid systems. Maybe they are less commonly printed on maps. UTM is a possible alternative, but it must be an absolute pain if you are near the join of two zones.
In reply to M1MAJ:
I’m a little surprised that other associations haven’t made use of
their respective national grid systems. Maybe they are less commonly
printed on maps. UTM is a possible alternative, but it must be an
absolute pain if you are near the join of two zones.
In France on the IGN maps you really need the UTM coordinates if you want to find your location with the GPS WGS84. I have understood from the French radio magazines that this coordinate system is also used in rescue and other catasthrope operations. In one ski outing we called the gendarmerie of Chamonix and gave the UTM coordinates from my GPS. Small injury to one skier. The helicopter came to pick him up in 20 minutes.
73, Jaakko OH7BF/F5VGL
In reply to M1MAJ:
The bottom line is that there is no universally useful co-ordinate system which is why we have a variety in use!
New Associations are being asked to provide lat/long co-ordinates in a standard format which at least will allow easier manipulation of the data. They can also put their own local system in the ARM which may well be more useful for activators.
73
Richard
G3CWI