Wiki News and Maintenance

[ka3jjz]

Just a quick note here about some of the things happening over the last month or so;

• Probably the biggest news to date involves the release this fall of new scanners from GRE; Davein and Scanner Freak have assembled some pretty detailed articles

• DXRadio added several review links on HF receivers from the MW Circle website. This is a very well known British-based club specializing in MW DX. One such link was added to the Icom R75 article, and there are others listed, too

• Tom_G added an article on the GE MPA radios, which evidently were a handheld used by GE and now Ma/Com - some flash software even exists for ham applications

• Cubn continues to put more time into the sports and baseball articles, but has also started a new article on the Starcom21 system in Illinois.

Unfortunately I have had to spend a good deal of time over the last week or two undoing vandalism attacks on the Wiki. This is the nature of the beast sometimes; in most cases, it seems these folk delete almost all the links out of an article, or part of one and leave the rest in a mess. There have been over a dozen such attacks in that time period alone.

I think I've repaired all the damage, but in the case I missed an article (certainly possible), please send me a private message and I'll take care of it.

Thanks to everyone who contributed...73s Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

I could use a hand, and it's on a very famous article that needs to be cleaned up. It seems someone has put a copy of the late Bill Cheek's SCANDATA FAQ on our wiki at:

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/SCANDATA.FAQ

However, this article is a touch too big - the software complains that some browsers can't handle a page over 32k in size. In addition, most if not all of the links are very likely dead, as is anything the article mentions about selling electronic items, his website or FTP server. The diagrams are all likely hand-drawn on a word procesor.

I could use someone to attack that article and clean it up. Remove all dead links, transfer the tables and diagrams to use the Wiki markup language, and add sections and category/subcategories where appropriate. This will not be a small job; but once done it should remain the classic that it is. Whoever tackles this should be familiar with the Wiki markup language.

Do we have any volunteers out there? It will take only 1....73s and thanx Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

I want to take a minute here and acknowledge Mwjones and LouMagg for stepping up and helping out with all the spambot attacks we've been suffering on the Wiki of late. I can't check the area as much as I would like, and certainly having more than 1 set of eyes is a great help. A tip of the fedora to you both

Quite apart from all the damage we've been reversing over the last month, we have had a few changes...

• LouMagg, DaveIn and myself have added a section to all the
  Trunktracker articles to try to better describe what kinds of trunking each model can perform. These descriptions parallel what is found on the database; if the database says one thing, and the section in the article says another, chances are good the model
  in question will have problems copying it. Hopefully this will help the newcomers as well as those shopping for a new/used scanner

• DaveIn added a new article on the UBC30XLT

• TonsofFun has added a new article entitled the
  Antenna mounted Amplifier Project

• cubn continues to add data to the Illinois and Racing sections in the Midwest:
  Bloomington-Normal
  Champaign-Urbana
  Starcom 21
  Sports

• Something I didn't mention in the last reports, but should have - and this will help the BCD996 and BCT15 owners - STiMULi, kma367 and BReed11091 have constructed a
  Population Area Centerpoint article to help with setting these scanners up for location based scanning

I have been working on a not-so-small project with the wiki in concert with the 3.0 rollout. It amazes me to say this, but we might be the victim of our own success. We now have nearly 500 (yes you read that right, 500) articles. Obviously the first page we now have is totally inadequate to make a specific article easy to find. It often takes a little drilling, and that can be a bit daunting to a newcomer. I am working on rectifying that situation; the front page is being redesigned to be a bit more friendly to use - if you are comfortable with seeing all the forums (and not just looking at new posts, as I know many do) then you will recognize the new design. It's not quite ready for prime time, but I'm hoping I can finish it up about the same time Lindsay implements the wiki changes for 3.0 (which will involve the fact that there will be only 1 signon needed for both areas, and a new set of extensions).

To introduce one of the major concepts we will be using, take a look at the Trunktracker link I mentioned above. The article is known as a 'category'; a grouping of articles that pertain to a particular topic. Each model number shown there is a link; click on the desired member and away you go. The index is maintained alphabetically and dynamically by the wiki - all the user needs to do is to add a simple directive at the bottom of the article being written. I will be using this concept heavily in the new design.

73s Mike

 

[loumaag]

Once again Mike, thanks for riding herd on the Wiki.

In reference to your previous request, that Bill Cheek article has been there for over 2 years and your comment about browser problems is the first I have ever heard on it.

There is another problem with changing it, it is used with permission and cannot be changed (according to the preamble). I think that everyone will agree that the URL's supplied are probably dead, but since they are not links I don't think we need to worry about them.

 

[ka3jjz]

I doubt anyone is around right now to care about that Lou. Bill has been dead for years (sadly) as has, as I understand it, his wife. The company no longer exists, and the web pages are all but gone. The Wayback machine has a single page for them in 1999, and that's it. Nothing else going all the way back to 96.
It would, I think, be safe to just move the tables and hand drawn diagrams to their own articles and link to them; that would cut the size considerably, and we can get away from the 32kb warning I (and maybe others, too) get when you try to edit it. That would not be a significant change to the article, for sure.

73s Mike

 

[DaveNF2G]

You could try putting a statement like "Based on [original document name], used with permission of [whoever]."

 

[ka3jjz]

I'm awaiting word from el Jefe - let's see what happens. Too bad Bill is gone - I could ask him (hi) 73s Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

Since we're in the midst of the airshow season, here's a thought for those folks that are gathering frequencies; it's perfectly acceptable to use the wiki as a file system to capture the frequencies. There is some benefit for future years; I've seen the same questions come up time and again about what frequencies are being used, and a running log - that anyone can add to - is a terrific way to have 1 answer to that repeated question.
I've put up a short section on the Andrews AFB article on this very topic - this is but one way. The format you use for cataloging is up to you.

73s Mike

 

[DaveNF2G]

I have discovered a plugin for OpenOffice that converts text to the wikipedia document format. Does anyone use it or know whether its output is compatible with the RR Wiki?

 

[ka3jjz]

Why don't you simply try it, Dave? Save the output in your own user area - that way if something really gets hosed, there's no real damage.

Hmm, someone just found a Firefox plug in for searching, you came up with this Open Office plug in - this keeps up we may need to start a new article for this topic. Seems to be getting popular.

73s Mike

 

[fmon]

I have discovered a plugin for OpenOffice that converts text to the wikipedia document format. Does anyone use it or know whether its output is compatible with the RR Wiki?

Looking for it Dave. What part of office is this in. I have Office 2007.

Thanks,

 

[DaveNF2G]

Not Microsoft Office, but OpenOffice, an open source alternative.

 

[fmon]

Got ya, thanks.

 

[ka3jjz]

It appears the Wiki is down - I time out when I try to connect. Anyone else having this problem?

I'm going to send a note to the chief. 73s Mike

[edit] Check that - now I can connect. I'm going to send a note anyway - it seems the last day or two the server has been rather sluggish.

 

[cubn]

I brought this up a few months ago, but it continues to be that the talkgroups for LTR systems don't display correctly on the Wiki pages when you include them with the RRextensions.

See this section as an example...http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/National_Football_League#Chicago_Bears

I just wanted to be sure this small issue is still on the agenda of things to check into.

Thanks.

 

[bezking]

It appears the Wiki is down - I time out when I try to connect. Anyone else having this problem?

I'm going to send a note to the chief. 73s Mike

[edit] Check that - now I can connect. I'm going to send a note anyway - it seems the last day or two the server has been rather sluggish.

Server fine and speedy as usual by me.

 

[ka3jjz]

I brought this up a few months ago, but it continues to be that the talkgroups for LTR systems don't display correctly on the Wiki pages when you include them with the RRextensions.

See this section as an example...http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/National_Football_League#Chicago_Bears

I just wanted to be sure this small issue is still on the agenda of things to check into.

Thanks.

You might want to bring this to Lindsay's attention, cubn. I don't have much control over
how the extensions are set up to work with the db. I would hope the upcoming 3.0 changes would be the time to fix this, but I don't exactly know what is on Lindsay's
plate lately -probably a lot . 73s and thanx...Mike

 

[cubn]

You might want to bring this to Lindsay's attention, cubn. I don't have much control over
how the extensions are set up to work with the db. I would hope the upcoming 3.0 changes would be the time to fix this, but I don't exactly know what is on Lindsay's
plate lately -probably a lot . 73s and thanx...Mike

I had brought it up in a separate post and Lindsay said he'd look into it. It's not urgent by any means, but I didn't want the issue to be forgotten. I love using the RR extensions as much as possible but the fact that it changes LTR talkgroup formats always bugged me.

 

[ka3jjz]

Here's what is new in the Wiki over the last 30 days or so....

• As it is with any hobby, we have many terms with which a newcomer, or even some old hands, may not be familiar. Our wiki has descriptions-some of them are lengthy - that define them, but no way to access them easily. Our first step to creating something to serve that process is the
  RR Glossary. This is a Category page that lists numerous terms - over 100 as of this writing- in alphabetic order (remember I introduced the concept of the Category in the last report). This glossary barely scratches the surface, but is certainly a good start. Unfortunately there's one major weakness; there are several abbreviations listed, but actually point to another page. These are referred to as redirects; MediaWiki acts on these immediately, and ignores any commands that follow on the article. This means that it's difficult to add these abbreviations (like CTCSS) in our glossary. While the redirects article is listed, it's difficult to use, since the names are not sorted. We'll be thinking about how to fix this shortcoming in the coming weeks.

• Capn Clint and N9JIG have been tag teaming on a new article called
  Finding Air Traffic Frequencies

• Bala and Stick0413 has been adding photos of various fire/ems apparatus. Too many to list here - see our
  Police fire EMS Apparatus Photos article

• cubn has been adding more information on the
  Illinois Location Specific Page and
  Sports groups in the Midwest

• Kcrick has added some data in our Location Specific Pages on the
  Kansas City area

• Mikeoxlong has added data in our Location Specific pages on various
  Ontario communities

• LouMagg has editied the Scandata FAQ from the late Bill Cheek to change it to a more wiki style. This article is invaluable if you have an older scanner and wish to add a discriminator tap to it. Note; if you have corrections please add them after the text for the article. Try to avoid changing the text in the original article as much as possible. Adding numbers as foot notes or superscripts is one way to do this.

• Lindsay added a brief article on
  Link-11 (a mode commonly reported on HF, and mostly used by the military- it's not decodable...)

• Grcjrsc and RescueComm are working on a new article that lists
  Ham repeaters in SC SC hams please feel free to jump in and add known frequencies to this article.

• Luix added a link to our R-7000 article in the related pages section to some information - in Spanish - on this old receiver. We don't often see entries like this one...

• I've put up a few new articles as well;
  
  - The majority of questions I've gotten have to do with how to start a new article, Well, we now have the
  New Article Guidelines to help that process along. Note that the last section stresses making sure that the article can be readily located by users. Burying it in the wiki doesn't guarantee that it's going to be read. With over 500 articles on this site, it's really important that we keep all pages, where we can, indexed to some degree so it can found and read;
  
  - A new article on the
  Control Channel Only mode available on the newer Uniden, RS and (evidently) GRE scanners. This allows the user to conserve memory space by only needing to set up the control channels for a system. Note that this works only for 800/900 Mhz
  systems;
  
  - Many people who buy one of the newer Uniden scanners have lots of questions about DMA and how to set them up. I've drafted a
  Uniden DMA FAQ that addresses about a dozen of the most common questions. Note that there is a category link to additional topics at the end of this article. If there are other questions that you feel belong on the FAQ, feel free to jump in and add something

That's it for now. As always, a tip of the Fedora to those that contributed! 73s Mike

 

[loumaag]

...- A new article on the
Control Channel Only mode available on the newer Uniden, RS and (evidently) GRE scanners. This allows the user to conserve memory space by only needing to set up the control channels for a system. Note that this works only for 800/900 Mhz
systems;...

Mike, this is not quite correct. If the scanner is capable of CCh only mode, then it will function that way on any band that it will trunk a Motorola system on. That is the purpose of providing the base/offset/spacing for the VHF/UHF trunking system. I am not aware of any CCh capable scanner that does not allow CCh in VHF/UHF (providing of course that it trunks in VHF/UHF at all), I know that all of my CCh capable scanners will do this. The Plans required in the older Uniden scanners (like the 796) are only required for the 800 MHz band; 900 MHz, UHF, & VHF do not require a Plan, but the UHF & VHF do require the proper base/offset/spacing to be set.