Beacon Database changes

[VK6ADF]

My thoughts, (so you get at least one reply)

Should OCXO stabilised entries also be included in "Locked only" searches?

No.

Could another tick box or drop box be added for Stabilised Only and bring up the lot and then leave Locked Only to only display GPS and Rubidium locked entries. Not wishing to clutter up the screen or cause too much extra work of course.

Should "Locked only" be genuinely restricted to Rubidium and GPS locked entries only?

Yes

Just what popped into my thoughts when I read your posting.

[ADMIN]

My thoughts, (so you get at least one reply)

Thanks Phil, the apathy is disappointing, but not unexpected.
I often question myself whether providing vklogger.com is worth it, or not.

Thanks to VK4OE and ZL2BKC for the comments regarding CW keying modes, and some further updates tonight.

• Selectable CW Keying modes now differentiate between OOK and FSK.

• With the increased decimal places in frequency display (6 decimal places for 1Hz resolution), spaces have been introduced around the numeral groups to make them more readable.

Summary view:

click for full size

Record view:

click for full-size

The two selectable CW modes are not yet 'idiot proof', so both can be inadvertantly selected at present.
(I'll look at implementing some Javascript to address this failing)

When the Keying Notes box is vacant, the background 'placeholder' text is visible, which hopefully explains the modes.
(Others may also be unfamiliar with the OOK and this dang fangled FSK-CW business)

beacon_keying_notes.PNG (4.48 KiB) Viewed 4708 times

I trust the zero dF Offset annotation is ok? Geoff?

beacon_df_ann.png (3.22 KiB) Viewed 4707 times

[VK3OE]

Hello,

Thanks Adam for the improvements in the beacon data base. The path structure is most interesting as well, especially as it shows the potential terrain blocking for elevated ducts. I will also have a go at getting the last few digits correct for my local beacons, this is most helpful for waterfall display. Hopefully we will see a few more GPS stabilised beacons as well. The type of keying is also great, as I cannot remember the different schemes for each beacon.

As to "whether providing vklogger.com is worth it, or not" I am a number one supporter, but I can understand your frustration. Just a thought though, do you think it could be worthwhile restricting some of these fancy new functions to paid up members, or even making more functions available to those who post more spots, the idea may even stir up some more discussion.

Once again, many thanks Adam.

Andrew VK3OE
Science = hypothesis >> measurement >> theory.

[ADMIN]

CW mode check boxes have been 'idiot-proofed' !
You can only select one -or- the other now, but not both CW check boxes

...Just a thought though, do you think it could be worthwhile restricting some of these fancy new functions to paid up members, or even making more functions available to those who post more spots, the idea may even stir up some more discussion.

Hi Andrew.
Whilst donations towards running costs are greatly appreciated, VK Logger is always meant to be free and open for all to access.
It's bad enough that a significant proportion of hams are computer illiterate and/or scared of embracing online tools as it is!

[VK3KGR]

Adam,

Sorry for not getting back to you earlier. For the DF offset you need an extra digit so that you can enter -1230 for example.

Geoff VK4KJJ

[ADMIN]

For the DF offset you need an extra digit so that you can enter -1230 for example.

Thanks Geoff.

Both the 'normal' version of VK Logger and the new mobile friendly version of the Beacon page have just been updated to accommodate 5 characters, as per this example:
(5 characters including minus sign)

beacon_df.png (5.65 KiB) Viewed 4637 times

Now that the tools have been provided, I will leave it up to those in the know to embrace and take advantage of it, and update any beacon entries they may know about.

[VK5PJ]

Hi Adam,
I had earlier completely over looked the SRTM3 data for path profiles you have included in the summary page, bravo Sir that alone deserves a chocolate fredo for effort. This is one feature of AirScout that I have used many many times to check out ideas.

Regards,

[ADMIN]

I think I need to stop stuffing around with this!

Was tweaking the mobile version to now include subtle colour coding, which looks like this:

click for full-size

And then implemented this in the 'normal' version:

click for full-size

Green indicating Active and red indicating Off Air (go/no go), as per last recorded update/spot.

[VK3OE]

Hello Adam,
Thanks for the latest changes.....
Another suggestion,,, is it possible to sort the beacons by direction from my QTH.
This would make it easy to program the beacons into my rig so that if my antenna is pointed @90 degrees I can scan the beacons in that direction as they will be in contiguous memory locations.

Just more stuffing around !

Thanks

[VK3HZ]

Hi Adam,

Looks like you've been busy with the Beacons page.

Following on from Andrew's comment, it would be very handy if distance/bearing was displayed on the Summary page. If space is a problem, things like Power, Antenna and Dir are relatively unimportant and could be relegated to the Detail pages.

Also, how hard would it be to add Sort Ascending/Descending arrows in the headings of the columns like, for example, Element14 do in their Parametric Search page?

z.jpg (6.52 KiB) Viewed 4561 times

Regards,
Dave
VK3HZ

[VK4OX]

ADMIN,
Today at 0013z I tried to spot VK3RGL 144.5300MHz beacon on vklogger. When I pressed "Submit" it spotted VK3RGL as located in JAPAN!.. I immediately cancelled the spot. Thinking I had made an error I tried again but again it spotted VK3RGL in Japan. I again cancelled the spot and left it at that but when I looked in the Beacon database it has these erroneous spots still in the History.

I used the "DX GRID" search button to find the target grid for VK3RGL.

Something weird going on or is it my error?

73, Adrian VK4OX.

[VK4CZ]

Adrian

If you have a quick look at the detailed beacon info, the grid listed maybe correct, but the lat and long included are not.

As the mapping is driven off these values, as a result it's plotting the beacon near JA!

Can someone with the lat and long could update this?

[ADMIN]

When I pressed "Submit" it spotted VK3RGL as located in JAPAN!.. I immediately cancelled the spot.

To be honest, I don't fully understand why hams have such a hard time with latitude!

As Scott suggest, mapping is driven off lat/lon, and when I view the VK3RGL record I can see that VK3RGL lat was mistakenly set to North by somebody.
Obviously Australia is not in the northern hemisphere.
Japan happens to be due North of Australia.

vk3rgl.PNG (4.36 KiB) Viewed 4531 times

Whilst I provide the service and tools, it's up to the community to provide/update the information.
The VK Logger Mapping makes it incredibly easy to determine a lat/lon these days, along with grid square.

If somebody would like to check, verify and correct the lat/lon of VK3RGL, please be my guest.

In fact, if anyone spots any mis-information anywhere, please feel free to update accordingly.
It's a community database to help us all.
If everybody waits for somebody else to do something, nothing ever gets done.

So no Adrian, you weren't doing anything wrong at all, the VK3RGL record data was incorrect.
Like anything, bullshit in = bullshit out!

[VK3PY]

Admin wrote:

To be honest, I don't fully understand why hams have such a hard time with latitude!

The problem resides in the Logger's beacon database. I've just been into it and fine-tuned the lat/long figures for VK3RGL. After submitting these, I noticed the antenna details needed a slight tweak, which I did, and submitted, but these were rejected because they exceeded 24 characters. After reducing the number of characters, the update was accepted, but the latitude reverted to the northern hemisphere! Just to be sure, I went through the process once more, with the same result.

So it seems to me that hams DO understand latitude, but the beacon data base has a mind of its own.

Also, I note this 2m beacon has been variously spotted on 147.000MHz and 432.528MHz. Quite an agile beastie, isn't it?

Chas
VK3PY

[ADMIN]

but the latitude reverted to the northern hemisphere!
...So it seems to me that hams DO understand latitude, but the beacon data base has a mind of its own.

North is the default.
It defaulted.

Also, I note this 2m beacon has been variously spotted on 147.000MHz and 432.528MHz. Quite an agile beastie, isn't it?

Not quite.
VK3RGL was spotted on both 147 and 432.
Many beacons transmit on multiple bands, same callsign.
You're looking at a summary for that callsign.

[VK3PY]

OK. So North is the default. What is not obvious to me is why the latitude should "default" back to North after is has been set to South just because the antenna details have been changed. I think this is the unexpected trick that caught out whoever updated the beacon's details after the upgrade. They didn't notice that the data base "defaulted" the latitude to North, even though no change had been made to it.

This is something to look out for in the future should any beacon details be modified.

OK on the callsign summary.

Chas
VK3PY

[ADMIN]

OK, the antenna field was increased from 24 to 40 last week to accommodate more characters.
I neglected to update the field validator line which still had a limit of 24 - fixed.

I've removed the North/South East/West selectors, so we go back to the way it was originally.
But back then many people did not know being in the Southern hemispere was actually negative - trust me, I have experience dealing with this - it wasn't a flippant comment!

However the new hover-over annotations should well and truly explain this.

beacon_nsew.png (4.6 KiB) Viewed 4494 times

This should also make it more compatible with the Mapping now, where you can directly cut n paste a lat and lon straight in.
I think we've approached the point of not being able to make this any easier for custodians to enter the exact lat/lon?

The North/South East/West selectors can remain on the actual submission form.

[VK3HZ]

The VK5VF 2m beacon location seems to be suffering from northern-latitude-itis too.
I've tried editing the latitude to negative but it reverts to positive each time I click Submit Update.

Regards,
Dave
VK3HZ

[ADMIN]

The VK5VF 2m beacon location seems to be suffering from northern-latitude-itis too.
I've tried editing the latitude to negative but it reverts to positive each time I click Submit Update.

Just when you thought you checked every little thing.
Thanks Dave for the heads up - fixed.

Should be able to drop a minus sign at the beginning of Lat and save now.

http://www.vklogger.com/beacon.php?acti ... cordnum=27

[ADMIN]

Following on from Andrew's comment, it would be very handy if distance/bearing was displayed on the Summary page. If space is a problem, things like Power, Antenna and Dir are relatively unimportant and could be relegated to the Detail pages.

Also, how hard would it be to add Sort Ascending/Descending arrows in the headings of the columns like, for example, Element14 do in their Parametric Search page?

Which reminds me, hadn't ignored this either.
The search/sort parameters are sent when you press submit.
When the distance & bearing was previously displayed, this information was generated 'on the fly' as each row was rendered out.

To be able to sort on distance would require a complete re-write.
You would need read the full table, adding distance and bearing into an array.
Then an AJAX routine would then sort the array in response to clicking on the parametric arrows and display it.

It's a great idea, but will have to wait till a major re-write of the entire Logger happens... which is required sooner or later so VK Logger can run off a later version of php.
The Forum developers have frozen the current build, and newer versions of the Forum will only work with later versions of php... so the motivation is there.