While the Main Database is certainly useful, it does have some major consistency issues regarding how things are named and how things are organized. For example, someone living in Berkeley County WV can hear traffic from VA, WV, MD, and PA. If you do an Add Channels On Range to create a Favorite List, or are scanning the Main Database, you'll get stuff from all 4 states. So if you see a conventional system labeled "State Police" you have no idea which of those 4 states' police the traffic is coming from, unless you recognize a zone or town referenced in the Department or channel labels. The same is true of other agencies. You see "Department of Fish & Game", "Game Commission", "Department of Conservation & Recreation", etc., and have no idea what state the traffic is coming from, especially if traveling, and you aren't familiar with local city names.
Having a convention of prepending the state abbreviation to the agency name would be immensely useful, e.g. "PA Game Commission", "VA Department of Conservation & Recreation", "WV State Police" and so on.
The same problem occurs when you have a city and a county with the same name. You see stuff referring to "Podunk" and don't know whether Podunk is Podunk City or Podunk County. Labeling county-level systems or departments as "Podunk Cty" or "Podunk Par" (in Louisiana) would disambiguate county- and city-level entities.
There is also no consistency in how business frequencies are organized. In some places, you have a system labeled "Attractions" (which should be "Podunk Cty Attractions" unless it's a Department under the System "Podunk Cty") that has a hodgepodge of stores and malls and such; in other cases you have a "Businesses" system and the Departments are labeled "Attractions - Wal-Mart" and such. In some counties, hospitals are listed under business Systems, and in others, hospitals are grouped with public safety entities.
What I'd like to propose is the development of a system of naming conventions and organizational hierarchy for system, department, and channel labels that makes it immediately clear to the user where traffic is coming from, without excessive redundancy. For example, if the System label references a county, then the Department labels do not need to reference it. But if the System label references a state, then it would be appropriate for the Department level to reference a county (if it's a county-level entity, as opposed to a zone or region other than a county/parish).
Mods, feel free to move this if appropriate.
Having a convention of prepending the state abbreviation to the agency name would be immensely useful, e.g. "PA Game Commission", "VA Department of Conservation & Recreation", "WV State Police" and so on.
The same problem occurs when you have a city and a county with the same name. You see stuff referring to "Podunk" and don't know whether Podunk is Podunk City or Podunk County. Labeling county-level systems or departments as "Podunk Cty" or "Podunk Par" (in Louisiana) would disambiguate county- and city-level entities.
There is also no consistency in how business frequencies are organized. In some places, you have a system labeled "Attractions" (which should be "Podunk Cty Attractions" unless it's a Department under the System "Podunk Cty") that has a hodgepodge of stores and malls and such; in other cases you have a "Businesses" system and the Departments are labeled "Attractions - Wal-Mart" and such. In some counties, hospitals are listed under business Systems, and in others, hospitals are grouped with public safety entities.
What I'd like to propose is the development of a system of naming conventions and organizational hierarchy for system, department, and channel labels that makes it immediately clear to the user where traffic is coming from, without excessive redundancy. For example, if the System label references a county, then the Department labels do not need to reference it. But if the System label references a state, then it would be appropriate for the Department level to reference a county (if it's a county-level entity, as opposed to a zone or region other than a county/parish).
Mods, feel free to move this if appropriate.
