Erroneous changes by DB admins

[mikepdx]

Hello -

I noticed today that every single FM frequency
in all counties in the Oregon DB has been changed to NFM.

WHY?

Low band is NOT narrowband. No FM voice frequency is there.
And our 800 MHz Trunked system IS NOT narrowband.
72-76 MHz is NOT narrowband.
Look at the authorizations.

Why would someone do this?
Now they have to all be resubmitted and changed back.

I understood that changes were supposed to be based on
VERIFIED submissions, not guesses or assumptions.
Some of us spend a lot of time verifying and
submitting factual freq reports.

I'm always puzzled of the DB administrator's priorities.
Are policies published?
Are they just free to make changes willy-nilly?
I would think new submissions would be #1.

I have a submission from days ago that hasn't made it yet.

Thanks for listening.

 

[nd5y]

I understood that changes were supposed to be based on
VERIFIED submissions, not guesses or assumptions.
Some of us spend a lot of time verifying and
submitting factual freq reports.

The database is full of incrorrect and data and is missing a lot of data that should be there. People that don't know what the hell they are doing can submit "verified factual" data. That's what happens when you rely on crowd sourcing. How are the admins supposed to know if it is correct or not? They don't live everywhere or know everything about every location. I agree that they should be better at filtering out obvious BS.

Are policies published?

Yes, but the admins don't always follow them. Database Administrator Handbook - The RadioReference Wiki

I have a submission from days ago that hasn't made it yet.

I had one made in April that was just worked yesterday.

 

[mikewazowski]

I've posted a link to this thread in the Database Admin forum so the Admin who made the changes is aware.

 

[mikepdx]

I've posted a link to this thread in the Database Admin forum so the Admin who made the changes is aware.

Those who rely on the RR DB to program
their radios may get clipped deviation on wide band channels
set to NFM.

PLEASE - new waiting submissions over make work maintenance as a priority.

Thank you again.

 

[wa8pyr]

Those who rely on the RR DB to program their radios may get clipped deviation on wide band channels set to NFM.

PLEASE - new waiting submissions over make work maintenance as a priority.

I have instructed the responsible party to correct the entries which should not have been made narrowband.

RR policy is, in fact, that pending submissions take priority over "make work" of this nature, but everyone makes mistakes from time to time.

The database is full of incrorrect and data and is missing a lot of data that should be there. People that don't know what the hell they are doing can submit "verified factual" data. That's what happens when you rely on crowd sourcing. How are the admins supposed to know if it is correct or not? They don't live everywhere or know everything about every location. I agree that they should be better at filtering out obvious BS.

I have to defend our administrators here. They do one heck of a good job at filtering out "obvious BS" and furthermore, do a heck of a good job at filtering out "verified factual" data submitted by the people who don't know what they're doing. For every bit of wonky data you might see, there are probably at least two or three more that our administrators recognized as flawed and either rejected or, more often, went the extra mile to contact the submitter for verification and correction.

Also keep in mind that there's lots of data that was imported from the FCC database or local frequency lists submitted by folks from all over the country left over from the early days of RadioReference (and before that, TrunkedRadio) when standards were a bit more flexible. Some of this data may no longer be valid, but because no one has ever verified that it's no longer in use (or has changed) and submitted that to us, it's still in the database.

All things considered, RadioReference is way ahead of other sources of similar information for accuracy and completeness, and I think our staff does a pretty damn good job.

 

[mikepdx]

All,

I have instructed the responsible party to correct the entries which should not have been made narrowband.

RR policy is, in fact, that pending submissions take priority over "make work" of this nature, but everyone makes mistakes from time to time.

Understood.
Thank you for your attention.