On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:49:12 EDT, Phil Kane
wrote:

Part of the problem is they rely on GPS for location. GPS and the
mapping services ...

Most likely it's the mapping services that get it wrong.

I maintain a website www.lvhamtest.org which lists Amateur Radio VE
teams in southern Nevada, namely Las Vegas, Pahrump, and Amargosa
Valley. Each team has an individual page detailing contact info and
location of the exams. For the big city Las Vegas and for tiny
Amargosa Valley (population 1,456) I embedded interactive maps from
Mapquest.com. But I could not do this for team pages for Pahrump
(population 35K). The exams are located at the county emergency
management building at 1510 Siri Lane. Most of the internet mapping
sites do not know of the existence of Siri Lane; they call this street
Vagueros. One did know of Siri Lane, but was 1/2 mile off. So I
resorted to using Windows Paint to draw a simple map for use on this
team page. See www.lvhamtest.org/p1.html

Dick Grady, AC7EL

On 8/17/2014 8:00 PM, Bill Horne W1AC wrote:
Is there a way for APRS users to submit corrections
to Google Maps and Mapquest?

As an example, Google maps shows my street address wrong.
Meaning, I have to offset the address a bit to show the
right location.

I've sent a message to Google using their "errors or
correction" on the map page and got a rather terse response
to the effect that they couldn't block my address.

Which was NOT what I asked. I asked them to correct the
street numbers to line up with the physical locations.

All things considered, simply based on the amount of data
involved, that you get anything even reasonably right is
amazing, and you just have to bear that in mind.

Pre-Google, Thomas Betts map books had their share of
errors as well.


--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

On Sun, 17 Aug 2014 21:00:57 EDT, (Bill
Horne W1AC) wrote:

On Sun, 17 Aug 2014 14:42:05 EDT, Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:49:12 EDT, Phil Kane wrote:
Part of the problem is they rely on GPS for location. GPS and the
mapping services ...

Most likely it's the mapping services that get it wrong.

I maintain a website www.lvhamtest.org which lists Amateur Radio VE
teams in southern Nevada ...

But I could not do this for team pages for Pahrump (population 35K).
The exams are located at the county emergency management building at
1510 Siri Lane. Most of the internet mapping sites do not know of
the existence of Siri Lane; they call this street Vagueros. One did
know of Siri Lane, but was 1/2 mile off. So I resorted to using
Windows Paint to draw a simple map for use on this team page. See
www.lvhamtest.org/p1.html.

Out of curiosity, I called up 1510 Siri Lane on Google Maps
(maps.google.com), and it shows "1510 E. Siri Ln" as being a point
inside an unmarked area bounded by Tan Way, Floyd St., Vaqueros St.,
and Kittyhawk Dr. in Pahrump, NV.

That's the wrong place for 1510 E. Siri Lane. On mapquest.com, I see
a similar situation. On Mapquest, when I click on "Satellite" to
superimpose a satellite image, I can see the Emergency Management
building at the northeast corner of what the map calls Kittyhawk and
Vaqueros. The map shows 1510 Siri one street north and 1/4 mile too
far east; there is no building at that place.

Now, of course in most cases that would be a mapmaker's anomaly, but I
can't help wondering what this means for APRS, especially during
post-disaster relief work, when hams from outside the affected area
are depending on GPS for every aspect of their work.

The other official emergency response agencies in the state and
adjacent counties most likely have already prepared detail directions
on how to find us. As for hams coming for post-disaster relief, if
they get lost, they will have to call our repeater for detailed
directions.

We hold our amateur exams in the Emergency Management building because
our ARES group is closely associated with them, and we can use it for
free. In January, 2007, the town experienced a town-wide power
failure, due to a break in the only power line supplying the town. It
took the power company all day to fix it. The communications systems
of the sheriff, fire dept, even the power company were AC powered and
quit. ARES was called out to provide communications using our
battery-operated radios and a solar-powered repeater.

As a consequence, the county realized how we can help them. The
county purchased 3 VHF/UHF and 2 HF amateur radios and antennas for
our use in their building. We hold our ARES meetings, VE exams, and
license study classes there. Several of us also have keys to the
building and security codes so we can open the building on weekends
when it is otherwise closed.

Dick Grady, AC7EL

On Mon, 18 Aug 2014 11:18:12 EDT, Foxs Mercantile
wrote:

Pre-Google, Thomas Betts map books had their share of
errors as well.

Were you thinking of Thomas Brothers? Thomas & Betts is a
manufacturer of electrical connectors.

I was told many decades ago by the cartographers at the Automobile
Club of Southern California that they would put in known mistakes in
an effort to foil competitors' plagiarism. The ACSC maps were some of
the best street maps available at the time and were used quite a bit
in transmitter hunts even after they stopped being published.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

On Mon, 18 Aug 2014 14:59:04 EDT, Dick Grady AC7EL
wrote:

The
county purchased 3 VHF/UHF and 2 HF amateur radios and antennas for
our use in their building.

Why didn't they purchase a multi-KW generator large enough to carry
the load and a fuel k tank capable of running the plant for 96 hours?

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

On 8/18/2014 1:59 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2014 11:18:12 EDT, Foxs Mercantile
wrote:

Pre-Google, Thomas Betts map books had their share of
errors as well.

Were you thinking of Thomas Brothers? Thomas & Betts is a
manufacturer of electrical connectors.

Static buildup. That's my excuse. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Guide

I was told many decades ago by the cartographers at the Automobile
Club of Southern California that they would put in known mistakes in
an effort to foil competitors' plagiarism.

Basically, they all did that and for the same reasons.


--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

On Mon, 18 Aug 2014 19:38:22 EDT, Phil Kane
wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2014 14:59:04 EDT, Dick Grady AC7EL
wrote:

The
county purchased 3 VHF/UHF and 2 HF amateur radios and antennas for
our use in their building.

Why didn't they purchase a multi-KW generator large enough to carry
the load and a fuel k tank capable of running the plant for 96 hours?

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

The Building already had back-up power generators.

On Tue, 19 Aug 2014 12:48:02 EDT, Dick Grady AC7EL
wrote:

The
county purchased 3 VHF/UHF and 2 HF amateur radios and antennas for
our use in their building.

Why didn't they purchase a multi-KW generator large enough to carry
the load and a fuel k tank capable of running the plant for 96 hours?

The Building already had back-up power generators.

Then why did the system fail?

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon