Would you like to find FTO or RID/UID info?

[ka3jjz]

Occasionally I'll see questions about how to find out whether we carry Fire Tone Out (FTO) or RID/UID (Radio ID/Unit ID) information. While we don't carry this in the database and you should not send this information through the submission process), we do carry it in our wiki.

If you take a look at this page, under the 'Scanner Information' topic, click on the Fire Tone Out and RID/UID links in the table.

Collaboration Categories Page 2 - The RadioReference Wiki

The data in this, and other tables that have been built in the reorganization project (documented elsewhere), is gathered around a wiki concept known as a Category. A category is nothing more than a gathering of articles with a common theme. Clicking on the above links shows that we have over 500 articles devoted to FTOs, and over 250 with RID/UID information.

For a newcomer this is likely to be a bit overwhelming. It would be better to isolate this information by state, and that can be done with just a few statements. Here are a few examples of what can be done to make this simpler...

Maryland - the RR Wiki

Virginia - the RR Wiki

Delaware - the RR Wiki

Look in the Conventional section at the top of the page for a link mentioning Fire Tone Outs. For RID/UID information, look in the Trunking Section for a link mentioning RIDs/UIDs. You will notice that because there is rather little data for Delaware, I simply built links, rather than categories, but the effect is the same. It makes it very simple to find this information

In addition the same kind of thing can be done to identify articles with unknown talkgroups. Each of the above articles have examples of this (usually near the bottom of the Trunking section) as well, and with over 300 articles in the Trunking Information category (where this data is housed), it falls under the same idea about finding this information being a bit unwieldy.

Anyone can construct the categories necessary to build this kind of structure - it literally takes only 2 or 3 commands to get this done. The hard part is scanning the lists in the table to isolate that stuff that applies only to your state.

Remember that a wiki article can have more than one topic - so don't expect it to always be the only thing there. You may need to look in the table of contents (if it has one) or just speed-read the article to find the data, if it exists.

If you're interested in doing something like this, please let us know. This is a great place to start if you have never done anything in the wiki, and want something simple. Don't worry about damaging an article or two - we've all done it, and the results can be easily undone

Mike.

 

[ka3jjz]

A tip of the old fedora to QDP2012 who tackled breaking down the RID/UIDs by state (and 2 or 3 provinces for our Canadian friends)

Now I can start distributing those categories to their respective state (province) pages - I'll start that tomorrow eve after work.

Let's see if someone will step up to do the fire tone outs....Mike

 

[QDP2012]

Good afternoon Mike,

Thank you for the big strides in restructuring the categories. That'a a lot of work.

Some items for your review:

• The FTOs also are now grouped by state.
• On a different thought, would it make sense to change/rename the category "CSX Transportation" to "Railroads - CSX", since (as far as I know) it is a railroad-only entity?
• It looks like you have started subcategorizing "Raiilroad Frequencies" by states (e.g. "Florida Railroad Frequencies"). Is this something that should be continued across the other states also? (I almost started to finish this, but wanted to make sure the plan had not changed.)

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

No that Florida railroads stuff is something someone else did, not me. If someone wants to sub-divide that category by state, that could be done.

We could redo the CSX category if someone feels strongly about it - there aren't that many articles in that category. But I like the specificity of the category - I didn't start that (someone else did), as I'm not a big railroads fan. Someone had a good reason for creating it, but who that was I don't know

I see that you did a pretty fair amount of work on the RIDs and FTOs - helluva job. This evening I'll begin distributing these categories to their individual states (provinces), then we can put a fork in that part of the restructuring.

The only other critical items I see on the list are to go through the Trunking Information category and create a category for unknown talkgroups by state. The other related item is that there are a few articles that subsititued Trunked Radio Systems (which is really the top level) with Trunking Information. The 2 are correctly related, but should not be substituted for one another (i.e. an article that has nothing but the Trunking Infobox should be in Trunked Radio Systems, but there's very little Trunking Information there, as I would like to reserve that category for research items, such as unknown talkgroups, and news items). One could also make the point that most of the Regional Programming articles also belongs in this category (maybe as a related sub category), since all of them have to do with special instructions for trunktracking, such as wierd custom tables (very different from the standard rebanding tables that everyone knows about). One good example is Grundy County Illinois' system.

We're making a lot of progress here....Mike

 

[AK9R]

Yes, you both are making great progress. This was a vision I had a few years ago but the two of you figured out how to implement it. You guys deserve all the credit.

Technically, CSX Transportation (CSXT) is a subsidiary of CSX Corporation. CSXT is the railroad operation. Other subsidiaries are into intermodal freight, perishable freight, logistics, real estate, technology, etc.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[QDP2012]

Each of the categories Railroads, Railroads Frequencies, and CSX Transportation are now sub-grouped by state.

 

[ka3jjz]

I also see you've broken down 'Trunked Radio Systems' by state. That's redundant, because each state's page has a broken down listing of all the trunked systems within the state in a table on a separate article (someone else did this, not me). But what's done is done.

I'm up to Ohio insofar as sending the FTO and RID links across to their respective states. I should be done with the rest of them sometime today or tomorrow. Then the rest of this stuff (railroads and trunked radio system stuff) will need to have the same thing done to them

Mike

 

[QDP2012]

Trunking Information and Trunked Radio Systems are both subgrouped by state now.

I also see you've broken down 'Trunked Radio Systems' by state. That's redundant, because each state's page has a broken down listing of all the trunked systems within the state in a table on a separate article (someone else did this, not me). But what's done is done.

I've seen those pages, too. I have found that many of them are filled with errors related to redirects and the piped-renaming feature (e.g. [real article name | some other description] ). Also, most of those articles are filled with many, many, red placeholders for planned articles. I greatly prefer using the categories to navigate through the Wiki because the category-based lists are dynamic/system-driven, show the correct article name, and represent only existing articles.

I'm up to Ohio insofar as sending the FTO and RID links across to their respective states. I should be done with the rest of them sometime today or tomorrow. Then the rest of this stuff (railroads and trunked radio system stuff) will need to have the same thing done to them

Ok.



Regarding the "Unknown Talkgroups" categories:

Instead of using the "Unknown Talkgroups in (state)" naming convention,
I would like to use the "(state) Unknown Talkgroups" naming convention,
so that each "(state) Unknown Talkgroups" category-name sorts with all of the other "(state)..." categories for that given state.

Are you ok with that change? If so, I will try to assign those categories today and tomorrow.

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

Yeah, OK on that category change. I was trying to be more English-like so that the category describes itself, but that's fine too.

Be careful as you wander through the Trunked Information stuff. I'm quite sure I saw some instances where the Trunked Information and Trunked Radio System categories were logically reversed - i.e. the Information category was placed where only the Radio System category is appropriate. As you map, repair them as needed.

I finally finished the FTO and RID dissemination - now onto the Railroads stuff...Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

How about slowing down a bit so us folks that can't spend all day doing this can catch up? I see you're now splitting up airports....

I feel a little like Sisyphus (look it up if you don't recognize the reference)...Mike

 

[QDP2012]

How about slowing down a bit so us folks that can't spend all day doing this can catch up? I see you're now splitting up airports....

I feel a little like Sisyphus (look it up if you don't recognize the reference)...Mike

I humbly apologize. After grouping the Trunked systems by state, I wanted to do a "quick" experiment while I had the time (which I don't always).

The "Business" category's 800+ member-list seemed like it also would benefit from a state-subgrouping. So, I started grouping the "Business"-related categories by state. I went about half-way though (A - L) just to get a good idea of how it was going to play-out. I was hoping that the practical results would not approach the maximum number of theoretical subcategory-combinations. I was wrong. It did.

So, I undid all of the experimental state-subgrouping in the "Business" categories, but did not undo any changes you had made in the interim to those pages. The articles in the "Business" categories are back to the way they were, but still retain any changes you've made.

It wasn't until I was undoing the experiment's changes that I realized it had occasionally overlapped the portions you were working on for the unknown talkgroups. For that I also apologize, and for not seeing this post sooner. Normally I am logged into both the Wiki and Forums -- this time apparently not.
.
After a break, I will help with the unknown talkgroups.

Again, my apologies,

 

[ka3jjz]

I'm about 1/2 the way done with the unknown talkgroups - hopefully I'll get those done in the next couple of days.

Sure, absolutely take a break. You deserve it - nothing wrong with that. In fact it might be wise to take stock of where we are and what the next steps should be after these trunking categories have been distributed to all the various state pages (which is what needs to happen after all of the unknown categories have been created).

The next steps, I think is to do a little cleanup.

a. Check ALL the categories that we've created and put descriptive writeups on each. It doesn't have to be verbose - even a couple of sentences will do - but a brief description of the purpose of each category will be important, particularly for the newcomers.

b. I have withheld trying to find all the duplications because of the sheer volume of the articles. However, now that we have a certain amount of structure in place, this becomes a much more doable task, since we could pick/choose which categories we want to do. Once we're all done then Bob can put a photon torpedo in them en masse, since we'll be deliberately creating orphans. We might just do the state categories for this at first.

c. My thinking here is that if we're going to do something with the business categories, that it be done one category at a time. But what that is remains to be decided. We have to be very careful here; there's too much capability here for one of us to step on the other's edits inadvertantly. In addition I'd suggest we do anything with the 'business/business frequencies' categories last - because most all of the categories are subbed to it, we should, by working each of the other categories, take care of the largest one at the same time. It won't be easy, to be sure - there are almost 1000 articles - but we should only have some minor cleanup in that category once all the others have been parsed. This is such a monster that I would say that this would be a winter 2014 project - the holidays are coming up, after all, and I have to go back on the job market.

No problem with the experiment - that's what development is for. Mike

 

[QDP2012]

A passing thought:

Would it be better to structure each "(state) Unknown Talkgroups" subcategory under its related "(state) Trunking Information" category instead of the general "Trunking Information" category?

Just a thought,

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

hmmm...maybe that is better...but I've gone so far now, it's going to be hard to back track. I'm down to NJ now...Mike

 

[QDP2012]

Let me rephrase.

The articles should still get the "(state) Unknown Talkgroups" as you are doing.

If you agree that "(state) Uknown Talkgroups" should be children of the "(state) Trunking Information" categories, I am willing to assign different parents to the "(state) Unknown Talkgroups" categories later tonight.

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

Have at it. I won't do any more until you've caught up to me. That way we're not crossing each other up

Mike

 

[QDP2012]

I think the parent-category of each existing "(state) Unknown Talkgroups" category has been updated.

Hope this helps,

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

With the exception of Texas (I left that one for last since it has nearly 60 articles in that category), all the states have been mapped. I think we're finally starting to see the end of the tunnel. Now the disbursement of all these trunked categories to their respective state pages can start (except Texas - that's going to take a little time to finish up).

With that, I've seen that we've now got over 500 (!!) categories. That's just too many for a newcomer to be expected to navigate. The tables on the collaboration pages do a good job, but now we need to show that some of these categories are broken down by state. Not everyone is going to understand the concept of 'sub categories' and linked categories within the data (which we have a lot of)

To that end, I've coded up a table for the FTOs, RIDs, Trunked Radio Systems and Trunking Information categories (I'll do one for the unknown talkgroup category after I've mapped Texas). Each one will have a little writeup at the top, and uses the color template to flag states with no information in red. I'm undecided, though, as to whether we want to put all of this after the US map on page 4, or establish a whole new page.

Attached is an example using the FTO data. It will be very easy to maintain - if someone adds a new category to this list, it literally takes one line of code to include it. What do you guys think?

Mike

 

[QDP2012]

With that, I've seen that we've now got over 500 (!!) categories.

Quite a few of those were created during my recent "Business"-category experiment. Depending on which way we go with organizing the "Business"-related categories, the ones from the experiment could get used, or removed; at the moment, they are blank--have no parents, no children, and no articles.

Hopefully, this weekend I can spend some time catching-up with all of the work that has been done. Earlier today, I noticed that Mr. Blanton updated the MilCom category.

Thanks for all the hard work,

 

[ka3jjz]

Finally - the mapping of all the unknown talkgroups per state is complete. However it's not without some problems. There are many articles that don't have the 'Trunked Radio System' category that should, and there's some mixing with the 'Trunking Information' category. That's something that's going to need some attention in the next phase of this project (next year...)

So it's now time to distribute everything to the various state pages. The RIDs and FTOs have all been done already, so all that's needed now is to distribute the Trunked Radio Systems, Talkgroup Information and Unknown Talkgroups categories.

I don't know if anyone looked at the table I built and attached on the last message, but I was thinking that perhaps it would be best if the FTO table was kept on the same page as the US map, then a new page could be coded to house all the trunked information by state i.e. RIDs by State, Trunked Radio Systems by state, etc. . That would keep the 2 themes separate, since FTOs are generally found on conventional systems, while everything else is trunked in nature

Mike