Hello all
I created a Google map of the Summits for the W3 area. I’m looking forward to activate some of them when it warms up.
If that link wraps try
Steve, N3FWE
In reply to N3FWE:
Greetings Steve–
nice and handy to have that all tagged out on public maps–I like it! I would’ve expected more qualifying summits in northern PA, but hey.
One suggestion for your endeavor: update your markers to show point value for each peak for convenience. I don’t know if you’re working in Google Maps from the start or Earth, but I know in Maps you don’t necessarily have that option that does in fact show up in Earth. One way to sidestep this would be to simply make up a fake layer with one point of each value with the desired icon in Earth, export it as a KMZ archive then re-import it into Maps, then you’ll have those icons available in the selection when you want to go around customizing.
It’s just a pointer as I’m doing the exact same thing for the Korean summits at the moment (in Earth, to later be exported to Maps). For a taster have a look see at:
Again, it’s just a sample (I gotta finish rating some 2500 peaks) but it puts more sense into the map when looking from high up to sort things out (especially if you’re goal oriented and are looking for the “big one!”).
W2VLA/VA2VLA
Jason.
Hi Guys
Nice work. Maybe you are not aware but Martin M1MAJ already produces (and updates) a fine Google Earth kml file for all SOTA summits here:
…including the latest 1/1/10 updates.
Jason, as for the number of PA summits… Ed (the W3 Association Manager) has been very diligent in ensuring that all the summits adhere to the P500 (feet) prominence criteria for SOTA qualification in the W3 Association.
73 Marc G0AZS
Yep–I’m sure of that, sometimes the geography on the ground can be deceiving to the eyes (or the legs, as it were, while biking in that area ;)…I grew up in that area and there were more hills (read: obstacles) than you could shake a stick at, and consequently many good cross-country running courses.
I must, however, admit that it is nice to have to include every mini-peak and minor rise in the lists, though!
Greetings!
HL4/W2VLA (just received the HL4 in the mail today!)
In reply to G0AZS:
Jason, as for the number of PA summits… Ed (the W3 Association
Manager) has been very diligent in ensuring that all the summits
adhere to the P500 (feet) prominence criteria for SOTA qualification
in the W3 Association.73 Marc G0AZS
In reply to VA2VLA:
Greetings!
HL4/W2VLA (just received the HL4 in the mail today!)
Where are you in HL-land. I spent a quite a lot of time there at customer sites in Seoul (Samseong-dong), Suwon and Gumi. Never managed a trip to see the DMZ or to Pusan. In fact I seem to remember spending most of the time sat in traffic jams on the freeway between Seoul and Suwon.
I’ll have to see if I can wangle a customer visit and bag a summit or two!
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to VA2VLA:
In reply to N3FWE:
Greetings Steve–
nice and handy to have that all tagged out on public maps–I like it!
I would’ve expected more qualifying summits in northern PA, but hey.One suggestion for your endeavor: update your markers to show point
value for each peak for convenience. I don’t know if you’re working
in Google Maps from the start or Earth, but I know in Maps you don’t
I will check into this. I didn’t know you could do this. This has been a learning experience for me. This is my first time at playing with Google maps.
Steve, N3FWE
In reply to G0AZS:
Hi Guys
Jason, as for the number of PA summits… Ed (the W3 Association
Manager) has been very diligent in ensuring that all the summits
adhere to the P500 (feet) prominence criteria for SOTA qualification
in the W3 Association.73 Marc G0AZS
Yes. Ed did a good job on the site. Thats where I got the data from so its up to date. I sent Ed the link also. I don’t know if he has any plans to create a map or not but I figured I would post what I came up with in the mean time.
Steve, N3FWE
In reply to VA2VLA:
One suggestion for your endeavor: update your markers to show point
value for each peak for convenience. I don’t know if you’re working
in Google Maps from the start or Earth, but I know in Maps you don’t
Jason, I started to play around with your suggestion on showing the point value for each peak. I export one of each point marker that W3 uses from Earth and then imported them into Maps. I started to change the rest of them on Maps. I agree they will be a lot more useful then the default marker.
I did previously play around with some custom icons and pointed them to my web site space but they didn’t always show up due to timeouts and such. As long as Google don’t change their custom icons or their directory path we should be good to go.
Thanks for a great suggestion.
Steve, N3FWE
In reply to MM0FMF:
In HL-land I’m down south, in Jeonbuk. Much less traffic down here but that’s always relative 
At least I don’t actually have to drive to work, and I try to bike mostly though XYL can impose certain standards forcing the usage of four wheels. Down here it’s the right mix of city and country, I’m right on the very edge of my city (literally, with fields directly on the other side of the road and 15 floor high rises on my side) and I was never much attracted to the big metro area–the traffic there never ceases to amaze me, either. The one time I did see Suwon it was for the train museum (accompanied by much eye-rolling, but I got away with it because it was on my birthday that time…). Evidently, the city just 1/2 hour north of where I am houses the national amateur museum. Gotta confirm that.
Where ever you go you’ll have no problem finding a peak to set up on!
To Steve N3FWE–glad to pass on the suggestion! It’s only last week I thought of it, trying to streamline the whole system, and making it easier, especially when it comes to explaining the concept of the activity to local hams. There are some that do mountaintop operations, but nothing formal. It’s a constant process of playing around…
Jason
HL4/W2VLA
In reply to G0AZS:
Nice work. Maybe you are not aware but Martin M1MAJ already produces
(and updates) a fine Google Earth kml file for all SOTA summits here:Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos
…including the latest 1/1/10 updates.
That is correct, but there is a slight glitch which I hope is temporary. There is also a copy on the summitsbase.org.uk which I have NOT been able to update because the site complains that the file is too big. I have so far failed to contact the site administrator to get this sorted out.
This is why I have not yet announced the latest update, which was done about a week ago.