TAFL archived files

[AggieCon]

Also, IC, please use some random character or combination of characters for separating the fields. Something that is highly unlikely to be included in any of the data fields, e.g. the pipe |

Surely someone at the FCC would be willing to lend some advice?

EDIT: The pipe is no good, it's present in the data. I second using tilde ~

 

[slicerwizard]

A new dump was made today and it looks much better than before.

The hell it does.

Who's this licensee on 422.6375? No, you can't look at the old dump data.

Old:  TX,422637500,0000524061,14,D,A,LM_CAN_UHF_DUPLEX3_6K25,C2646,,D,4000,4K00F1DNN,LMR-DIGITAL,1,79.4328048780487804878048780487804878049,100,6.5,1,,-,-,* Other Manufacturer (not listed) * - * Autre fabricant (non inclus) *,SD-312Q,,,,,B,338,,,,,VFW952,8,FX,,ORONTO, ONT. 301 FRONT ST (CN TWR,,ON,43.6425,-79.38722222,76,553,H,,,010394303-001,Land Mobile,Base-Mobile Systems,S,G,16-OCT-15,042090000663,Mobile Business Communications Ltd.,24 Mallard Road M3B 1S1 North York ON,O,,0,0,
New:  TX;4000;FX;4K00F1DNN;LM_CAN_UHF_DUPLEX3_6K25;0000524061;A;422637500;1;;6.5;-;-;100;79.4328048780487804878048780487804878049;;;B;;;338;SD-312Q;-;010394303-001;VFW952;43.6425;-79.38722222;H;;ON;Non-Developmental;TORONTO, ONT. 301 FRONT ST (CN TWR);338;;;;;;042090000663;2015-10-16 00:00:00;24 Mallard Road   ;010394303-001;;;N;2009-01-23 00:00:00;C2646;79.4328048780487804878048780487804878049;79.4328048780487804878048780487804878049;100;;0;0;;B;;79.4328048780487804878048780487804878049;


Old:  RX,422637500,0000524094,,D,A,LM_CAN_UHF_DUPLEX3_6K25,C2646,,D,4000,4K00F1DNN,LMR-DIGITAL,,-,-,,,,,,,,,,,,,0,,,,,,3,ML,Not licensed,ORONTO, ONT. 301 FRONT ST (CN TWR,,ON,43.6425,-79.38722222,,,,50000,,010394303-001,Land Mobile,Base-Mobile Systems,S,G,16-OCT-15,042090000663,Mobile Business Communications Ltd.,24 Mallard Road M3B 1S1 North York ON,-,-,-,-,
New:  RX;4000;ML;4K00F1DNN;LM_CAN_UHF_DUPLEX3_6K25;0000524094;A;422637500;;;;;;-;-;;;;;;0;;-;010394303-001;;43.6425;-79.38722222;;;ON;Non-Developmental;TORONTO, ONT. 301 FRONT ST (CN TWR);0;50000;50000;Not licensed;;;042090000663;2015-10-16 00:00:00;24 Mallard Road   ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

This latest dump is unusable. Every time they take a stab at this, they look like fools. The parties involved in design, implementation, testing and supervision all appear to be grossly incompetent. Will they ever choose a delimiter that isn't already present in the data? Protip: Tilde is available... And will they ever learn how to format values to the appropriate number of decimal places? Or are the coordinates, power levels, etc in their database actually accurate to ~10 decimal places? And why is every record padded from ~400 characters to 1000 with ~600 trailing spaces?? What possible (good) reason could there be to bulk up 400 megs of data to a full gigabyte? How did someone's cousin's son fresh out of high school get this gig?

 

[AggieCon]

I have a August 2016 file. They used the semicolon back then.

I'm interested where they store all of these records. Google Docs?

 

[AggieCon]

Who's this licensee on 422.6375? No, you can't look at the old dump data.

I don't know. Just: 79.4328048780487804878048780487804878049

It's all you need to know.

79.4328048780487804878048780487804878049

That's some good rounding on the ~septillionth place. It's crucial that the 8 was rounded up to 9. Someone could have ended up with catastrophic radio failure if that was done incorrectly.

Addition: The precision of this database dump is just outstanding. They have their data more precise than the smallest force ever measured. The Canadian Science Industry Agency is really on to something here. http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2014/06/26/smallest-force-ever-measured/

 

[jmorgan123]

I received a response from the Open Government website team:

"Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada is in the process of replacing those datasets which are outdated and might be misleading and result in error, given that many spectrum users utilize this information to perform technical analysis to ensure electromagnetic compatibility in the Radio Frequency (RF) environment. New Technical and Administrative Frequency Lists (TAFL) datasets are scheduled for release in February 2017."

I'll believe it when I see it! I'm just a hobbyist. There must be a lot of unhappy commercial users of this data.

 

[hfxChris]

Keep us posted!

And thanks for running your TAFL search site, even if it's a bit out of date it's still my go-to for data.

 

[Jay911]

They've changed (the search) again...

Frequencies are now in Hertz. It's so much better to see 4.061375E8 for a frequency, really... :roll:

CSV downloads from searches no longer provide the header explaining which column is which, but, they have added a feature that converts cryptic flags into meaningful data (i.e. "1" in a column is replaced with what the "1" means), so I guess we've got that.

Lat/long is displayed in decimal instead of with colons in between (causing Excel to mistake it for hh:mm:ss).

Frequency Record ID - which is useful in sorting the frequencies within a given license so that you can compare them to the virtual license docs - are gone.

 

[jmorgan123]

I don't want to jinx it, but the files were just updated and at first glance they actually look usable!

 

[slicerwizard]

Yes, the 02-02 data is ok. I was able to make a new Canada-wide reference file for FMP.

 

[SCPD]

They've changed (the search) again...

Frequencies are now in Hertz. It's so much better to see 4.061375E8 for a frequency, really... :roll:

CSV downloads from searches no longer provide the header explaining which column is which, but, they have added a feature that converts cryptic flags into meaningful data (i.e. "1" in a column is replaced with what the "1" means), so I guess we've got that.

Lat/long is displayed in decimal instead of with colons in between (causing Excel to mistake it for hh:mm:ss).

Frequency Record ID - which is useful in sorting the frequencies within a given license so that you can compare them to the virtual license docs - are gone.

The link is gone but a Google search produced this.

https://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/licenseSearch/searchVirtualLicense?execution=e1s1&lang=en_CA

I also liked the license name search, which I haven't been able to find.

It also looks like they went back to a version from December. The newer version worked much better.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

 

[SCPD]

Licensee Name Search Link;

https://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/frequencySearch/searchByLicenseeName?execution=e4s1

 

[SCPD]

I am also finding that the Excel Export is only providing Frequency and Class of Emission, based on my selections.

 

[Jay911]

Are you referring to the CSV output you can choose after your search has returned?

In my experience, you get whatever you have selected, but (a) without headers and (2) with a large number of fields in the middle empty. So it appears you didn't get all the data you requested, but in actual fact, the fields like location and licensee name are way the heck out in the boonies in column AE onwards, or something like that.

Actually, looking at a sample I just ran, it looks like you get all columns, even the ones you didn't select - but the ones you didn't select are blank (as well as some of the ones you did choose, in my experience)... so expect location to always be in AE and callsign to be in AG, and licensee name to be in BB. Let me know if that is what you see.

 

[SCPD]

Interesting method for exporting a csv with blank columns. Either way it still allows for proper sorting of the data and changing the frequency from scientific to decimal.

All the selected columns were there. Thanks.

 

[mikewazowski]

Licensee Name Search Link;

https://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/frequencySearch/searchByLicenseeName?execution=e4s1

That link takes you to Callsign or Location search. It's been mislabelled since they rolled this bloody mess of a system out.

I'll go back through my history and see if I can find the proper link. You used to be able to find a link of all the searched but they've messed that up as well.

 

[SCPD]

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

 

[mikewazowski]

It's borked. They've got a bunch of 3rd grade coders working for them.

Might be a problem with how they're interpreting what sort of device you're using.

On an iPhone, the link works fine. On Firefox under Windows7 and on an iPad, the link takes you to the wrong page.

If you shorten the link up to https://sms-sgs.ic.gc.ca/frequencySearch/searchByLicenseeName, it works no matter what device you're using.

Our government at work.

 

[robertmac]

I assume the frequency listed is the repeater transmit frequency when doing searches on repeaters? I haven't seen any other frequency [such as input frequency] listed when doing searches the past couple of months.