RR Database comment

[W4KRR]

Looking up information in the RR Database section, something occured to me.

The way the database is layed out, if you are looking for information for a particular city, if you don't know what county that city is in, it is impossible to look it up.

For example, if I want to look up information for Lake City, Florida, if I didn't happen to know that Lake City was in Columbia County, I would have a heck of a time trying to find it.

I don't know how or if this problem could be addressed.

 

[Dubbin]

If you scroll down past the map and use the search for radio data then you will find what you need. I just used it to search for Lake City in the Search for Agency/County box and it worked like a charm.

 

[W4KRR]

If you scroll down past the map and use the search for radio data then you will find what you need. I just used it to search for Lake City in the Search for Agency/County box and it worked like a charm.

You're right, it's there. Unfortunately, I tried it, and it didn't work.

I typed in "Lake City Florida" under where it says "search for Agency/County" and it said "No results found for Lake City, Florida" Which of course isn't true, since there is data for Lake City. Gotta love search engines. Not.

 

[Dubbin]

Just put in Lake City and hit the search button.

 

[loumaag]

Dubbin is correct, the reason is that it is a text search feature. It looks for what you type in exactly. You will note that you also get results for "Salt Lake City" which contains the text "Lake City". Adding the state is the problem as there is no text on the site that says "Lake City, Florida" or "Lake City Florida" that is not composed of different fields combined to read that way.

 

[W4KRR]

Adding the state is the problem as there is no text on the site that says "Lake City, Florida" or "Lake City Florida" that is not composed of different fields combined to read that way.

You are correct, and that's the problem. In order for the search function to work, you must know EXACTLY how the information will be listed, or you will get false "no information found" hits. If I want information for Lake City Florida, it's logical to assume you can type in "Lake City Florida" and get results. This would eliminate hits from places like Salt Lake City Utah and other stuff you don't want.

 

[Dubbin]

If I want information for Lake City Florida, it's logical to assume you can type in "Lake City Florida" and get results.

I just assumed to just put in Lake City and got the results.

 

[loumaag]

I guess some of us are just more used to "drill down" thinking. In any case there is nothing that can be done about it, so think more broadly in the future. :lol:

 

[ericcarlson]

The key thing to realize is that the RR Database search page is not really a "search engine" (like Google, etc.) -- it just performs specific database queries. Unfortunately, this is not the most user friendly way to search but it is all this site has for now. The database queries will return matches for the exact phrase entered, so for this site it is advisable to search more broadly (e.g., "lake city").

-Eric