The RadioReference.com Forums - Wiki Forum

cannot log into the wiki

ka3jjz — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:32:56 GMT

I've received a few reports over the last 24 hours of folks that were previously able to get into the wiki no longer can do so.

As mentioned in the user guide, I'm afraid I don't have any control over the passwords, etc. I've sent the Chief an alert; however, anyone having these issues should contact him directly. PMailing me only slows down getting a resolution

TIA and 73 Mike

Deleting/Moving articles

ka3jjz — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:52:55 GMT

Per policy (as written in the wiki user's guide), there are 2 steps to take in order to get an article deleted.

Wipe the content of the article entirely
Send a note to me via email or RR mail to have the article deleted

However, as noted, if all you need to do is change a title of an article, it's far better to use the Move tab, found on the left under History.

Following these simple steps keeps the wiki clean and well organized. Thanks in advance for your cooperation 73 Mike

Ohio Collaboratioon Gateway Question

mmtstc — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:44:54 GMT

Ohio Collaboration Gateway

How do I do what was done for Ohio with the counties on the Map and All?

I would much rather that than the silly table i made for Minnesota counties...

A small mess is beginning to develop...

ka3jjz — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:35:51 GMT

Some of you might know that I run regular reports using wiki based utilities to check for articles that don't link to anything (called 'orphans') and those that aren't assigned to any categories. Both, as defined in our user guide, are not allowed. Orphans are only permitted when creating a multi page article where the associated pages are not yet ready, and you need a place holder.

Orphans are a particular problem because if an article isn't linked to something else, no one else can find it without searching for it, and the difficulty is compounded by not having the title. Simply put, no one can contribute to the article if no one can find it.

Linking an article to another one is a simple matter - simply create a line on the article you wish to link from by surrounding the title of the article you wish to link to with 2 square brackets like this;

* [[New Article Title]]

There are MANY such article links in most any of the articles linked in the collaboration gateway in the US states - check any one of them out to see how that works.

The asterisk in the leftmost column forces the wiki to create an unordered item for it. Basically speaking, it's a whole lot easier than having to put
all over the place every time you want to start a new line.

The following articles have been flagged as orphans - if they are to be dropped, please send me an email and I will take care of it...

Bob Evans Farm Gallia County (OH) - The RadioReference Wiki

FELHC (Jersey Central Power & Light) - The RadioReference Wiki

Manchester Township - The RadioReference Wiki

Naval Air Station Lakehurst - The RadioReference Wiki

Nebraska Land Mobile Radio System (NELMRS) / Omaha Regional Interoperability Network (ORION) UnidenXT Unit IDs Omaha Fire - The RadioReference Wiki

Our House Museum Gallia County (OH) - The RadioReference Wiki

To rename an article, simply Move it. There is a 'Move' tab on the left underneath the 'Delete' tab. Since the article links to nothing, it's a one step process - otherwise the person moving it is also responsible for adjusting all the links to the article. This too is documented in our user guide.

I would also avoid putting 'Uniden XT' anywhere in the title. As I was reminded just recently the GRE PSR500 and 600 also can read UIDs, and I believe utilities like UniTrunker can, too. If you wish to mention that a particular model radio was used to grab these IDs, that's fine - just don't put it in the title.

I will categorize the articles that don't have any at the moment, but please take the time to link these articles properly. Remember, if no one can find it, no one can add to it - and that defeats the purpose of having an area where anyone can contribute.

73 Mike

RID/UID information in the wiki

ka3jjz — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:12:58 GMT

This thread will become a sticky for now and serve as a bridge to continue the discussion from another forum.

Please place all RID/UID information in the wiki. In addition, it's strongly urged that such articles should be attached to the trunked system whose users are being identified.

The format of this information is up to you to decide.

I will construct a RID/UID category (to be called RID.UID Lists or similar - if someone has a better name, speak up now) tomorrow (one for now - if we find we need 2, it's no biggie to split) - there are 4 or so articles already in the wiki with this information, and I think the Saskatchewan article has some as well. All you need to do is to add the following line at the bottom of each article;

[[Category:RID/UID Lists]]

It would be helpful if someone were to build a definition article for the RR Glossary for these terms (along with appropriate synonyms, if any exist) so that newcomers know what is being discussed. Include in this description the list of XT radios that support this feature.

73 Mike

Major Announcement

ka3jjz — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:59:44 GMT

As of now, with the exception of 4 counties in North Carolina (whose tickets are already submitted), the migration of all files/links from the US side of the database (at the county and trunked system levels) is complete.

The Canada side of the migration has had a first pass, but still needs to be audited to make sure nothing was missed or got slipped in while other provinces were being worked.

We are well into phase 2, which seeks to move the files/links from the agency/areawide levels of the states and provinces.

It's likely that phase 2 won't really be complete - and audited - until the end of the year at the earliest, so it's not time to open the bottles of bubbly just yet :D

At that point, the last phase will be to scan each county/province and make sure that they don't have additional categories (such as amusement parks, railroads, airports, etc.) that need to be checked.

Lots of people have been a big help in getting this far, and I don't want to forget anyone - so I'll just say 'Thanks for the help!' to everyone that pitched in. Don't stop now - we still have a good way to go.

73 Mike

Personal information in the wiki

ka3jjz — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:19:44 GMT

Recently an admin had spotted some data that included the names of individuals involved in a public service area. The administrator correctly dropped this data from the wiki, and it started a small thread in another forum. Since not everyone can see this forum, allow me to summarize the decision, as approved by the Chief;

The wiki should not be used to house people's names, phone numbers, addresses or other personally identifiable information (PII). Since the wiki is an open application there is no way to scramble or otherwise secure this information, and this skates dangerously close to violating federal PII regulations.

I know I've seen this in other places in the wiki - I just can't remember exactly where.So if you see this type of information, please delete it at once. In addition, any submissions that include such information will be immediately removed without comment.

This policy is in force as of now, and a comment has been entered in the wiki user's guide.

Thanks for your future cooperation and understanding in this matter. 73 Mike

Time to overhaul the wiki front page

ka3jjz — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:08:48 GMT

Clearly with the growth of the wiki, the current front page is just plain overwhelmed. It just can't handle much more stuff, particularly with the explosion of the collaboration and coming live audio stuff. It's served its purpose quite well for the last year or two, but it's time it was overhauled.

I really don't have time to consider this right now (holidays and mother in nursing home...), but now is the time to start collecting ideas on the subject. I was considering redoing it in the manner of several 'gateways', and each 'gateway' would cover it's own set of articles, much in the same manner the Collaboration Gateway does now.

To start, here are a few topics for gateways - and note that it's possible that an article can belong to more than one gateway (for example, loops can belong to both a MW and HF gateway)...

- MW
- HF
- RadioReference FAQ (includes the web and audio services)
- RR Forum back links (probably no longer really needed - the Collaboration Gateway and the various topics make this a bit redundant I think)
- Scanners (including accessories)
- Software
- Collaboration (we have this already)
- Satellites
- TV/FM DX

In some cases, the existing article(s) would become the 'gateway' until they grew enough that multiple topics would force separate articles within it.

There would be a single article with links to each 'gateway', much in the manner of a wheel with lots of spokes on it.

Several folks have told me the wiki is a bit tough to navigate - now is the time to consider what and how it can be simplified. It isn't going to be easy with almost 4000 (yes you read that right) articles, so put on your thinking caps.

I'll be waiting to hear from the membership 73 Mike

CAP Wiki suggestion

radioprescott — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:51:00 GMT

On the Civil Air Patrol Wiki page:

From the data already entered, it appears that the ODD channels (R-1, etc) are all the 1250/5500 freq pair and the EVEN channels (R-2, etc) are all the 1500/7000 freq pair. Also the CTCSS/NAC listing appears to be consistent for the freq pair, rather than the location.

So, can we identify the 'R-XX' identifier by the freq/tone assignment - a single entry per channel rather than multiple entries with the location? It would make the table a lot cleaner. Separate Wiki pages could be developed for location specific data. (The specific State/County pages could also be linked to these, which would make data maintenance and retrieval a lot easier as well.)

AOL HT gone

milf — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:37:38 GMT

Since AOL shut down hometown, all links to those sites are DEAD

This affects many of the articles in the wiki

Please check your articles for dead linkages!

extensions and the refresh link

ka3jjz — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:03:16 GMT

There seems to be a bit of confusion as to how to use the refresh link, and when it should be used.

To review: There are a set of custom extensions Lindsay wrote to enable folks to pull data directly from the database onto a wiki article. How to use these extensions is fully documented here;

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/RR_Wiki_Extensions

The next question is to how to keep the data in the article and the data in the database in sync when the database changes. The coding is a bit odd, and not everyone can remember what to do - I know I certainly don't all the time with things like this - so a standard was set up to put what is known as a refresh link at the bottom of each article that uses the extensions. Only 1 refresh link is required per article - so if you have lots of data you are pulling, the single link will refresh them all. Let's examine this coding a bit...

[http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Andrews_Air_Force_Base%2C_MD?action=purge Refresh] this page from the latest database entry

The tag keeps the text small and out of the way of the rest of the article (which is also why it's recommended to put it at the bottom). I have highlighted the part that seems to cause the most confusion.

What is this doing? The wiki has a page cache that functions much like the cache in your browser. It attempts to pre-fetch a page rather than retrieve it each time. This adds speed, but it comes with a price tag. When using the extensions, it will also recall the data as it was before any changes were applied.

Using the purge command purges the cache and forces the extensions to retrieve data again - and this time, it picks up any changes that were applied to the database.

Hopefully this clears up the confusion. If there are further questions don't hesitate to yell.

73 Mike

removing old data

ka3jjz — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:09:55 GMT

With so many articles created from the database for the Collaboration project, it's very likely that some of the data is out of date or no longer valid.

That's something I can't control - but you can. If you notice that something is out of date, then please take the time to correct it. If the entire article is out of date and needs to be deleted, you won't be able to drop the article - but you can wipe the content out. Please put something like 'content deleted out of date' or similar in its place then send me a pmail and I will drop the article.

It's the only way to keep the data being transferred from the database as current as possible- your eyes will be the way this happens.

73 Mike

Fire Tone Outs

ka3jjz — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:44:13 GMT

With the exception of North Carolina and Tennessee, almost all of the fire tone out information has been transferred to the wiki.

This category lays out those articles that have this information;

Category:FTOs - The RadioReference Wiki

However for a newcomer, this poses a formidable problem; there are over 200 articles with this information. It's more than a little daunting to try to find one county out of that.

There is a pretty simple solution - use the Search tool. However, there's another issue - the FTOs are not consistently labeled in each of the articles, and even if it was, it's not specific enough to enable the search tool to home in on the desired state.

To help better find this information, we can start at the State level; if a specific tag were put at the end of the desired article, that's something the Search tool can latch onto. For example, in Delaware, I added the following tag at the end of 3 articles that had this information;

Search:DelawareFTO

If you enter 'DelawareFTO' in the Search tool, you will come up with the 3 articles I labeled.

So what is needed is pretty simple - I need someone (maybe more than one person) to go through each of the articles in the category above and add a search term that would correspond to the state name and the fixed variable 'FTO' at the bottom. Be sure not to enter any spaces! So for states with 2 names, it would read:

Search:NewJerseyFTO

This will make it super easy to locate all the articles in a state that have this information. If this proves popular, I will consider adding a county+FTO search, but let's start here first.

Volunteers? 73 Mike