Sota mapping

MM0FMF · 21 June 2011 01:16

I’ve been going round in circles trying to make a 1TB USB hard disk work with a Linux machine here and so whilst letting the symptoms ferment in my mind I thought I’d clean up the chaser location maps I’ve drawn.

The mapping software runs on a different server to the one that supports the SOTA database. So first requirement was a sync program that compares the state of the SOTA database to my private “playing about” database and pulls across the new changes. That works wonderfully and I’m stunned at the non-stop updates that chasers and activators make. You can use the burst of updates to show that someone is on a wanted summit. As soon as Helen&Caroline M0YHB/G6WRW came on from Eigg you could see the traffic soar as chasers logged a rather infrequently activated summit. But I digress…

So now I can punt updates by typing “clone” on my PC, I cleaned out the chaser locations maps and generated some fresh ones using the latest database. The positions of chasers is subject to error. The location data was accuarte up to July 2009. However, any chase from when SOTA started is included. Some chasers could have moved several times but they are only shown for their 2009 position. Take the results with the necessary pinch of NaCl.

There are maps for The Cloud, Gun, Shining Tor, Moel Famau and Foel Fenlli. The name gives the frequencies used. So Cloud2m70cm.html will be for chasers who worked The Cloud on 2m or 70cms. Red markers are drawn for the first frequency and blue for the second. Likewise Cloud4m6m.html is red for 4m and blue for 6m. This is for all modes. For HF maps, red is for 3.5,5,7MHz and blue is for 10,14MHz.

I hope this is of interest.

Andy
MM0FMF

2E0YYY · 21 June 2011 01:56

In reply to MM0FMF:

I hope this is of interest.

Did’nt realize I’d been so busy, Andy

73
Mike 2E0YYY

MM0FMF · 21 June 2011 03:18

I can do this for chasers in England, Wales and Scotland because I have a list of 48851 UK amateurs and their addresses (the UK amateurs who choose to make their details available). From that you can do the equivalent of a “reverse DNS” lookup (warning Geek joke!) on their postcode and get a lat and long. Armed with that you can plot the chaser’s location on a Google map.

I’d love to be able to do this kind of mapping for other countries but I haven’t got any data. If you want these maps for summits in your country, help me out by pointing me at a list of callsigns and addresses for your country along with some way of converting an address to lat&long.

Andy
MM0FMF

K1YMI · 21 June 2011 03:47

In reply to MM0FMF:
For USA try this one … WM7D dot Net

You can also access via Telnet.

Andrew
K1YMI / GM1YMI

HA5CW · 21 June 2011 11:24

In reply to MM0FMF:
Dear Andy!

EA6VQ Gabries has an extensive VHF database. It is a part of his VQ log application, but it is available online as well. ( Loading... ) The database, as far as I know, contains some 80k callsigns and the associated 6 character WW locators. It it covers mainly Europe and even more.
As far as I know, DL9EBW maintains a similar DB.
A locator square does not provide an accurate geographical position but an approximately 5x3 km size area. There are are several applications available calculating the geograpgical coordinates of the square’s centre.
Maybe, you could take use of these resources.
BTW congratulations and thanks for yor application!

73: Jóska, HA5CW/M0HAA