Australian article?

[ka3jjz]

I see an article on Victoria 10 codes (and this time I'm pretty sure this is Australia) has been added. Are there a lot of files, maps and so on in the Australian portion of the database? If there are, I will build an Australian template along with a section in the collaboration gateway for this country.

Australian DB managers, please review and advise.

73 and thanks...Mike

 

[Comint]

I see an article on Victoria 10 codes (and this time I'm pretty sure this is Australia) has been added. Are there a lot of files, maps and so on in the Australian portion of the database? If there are, I will build an Australian template along with a section in the collaboration gateway for this country.

Australian DB managers, please review and advise.

73 and thanks...Mike

Had a quick look at the "Victoria 10 Codes" and they are codes used by Victoria Police (Australia).

I think the New South Wales area has a number of maps of Police LACs (Local Area Commands), and I have been trying to locate some decent maps of the Queensland Emergency Services Regions, to post, so it would probably be a good idea to go ahead with an Australian Template.

Also, on Lindsay's recommendation, we will probably have to post MPT1327 Talkgroups in the wiki, as their format doesn't really fit in the existing Talkgroup template in the Database. All we need is some way of having a direct link from the TRS database entries to the applicable Talkgroups in the wiki.

--
Comint

 

[radioaustralia]

I see an article on Victoria 10 codes (and this time I'm pretty sure this is Australia) has been added. Are there a lot of files, maps and so on in the Australian portion of the database? If there are, I will build an Australian template along with a section in the collaboration gateway for this country.

That article you refer to is indeed an Aussie one, I've also added another one and will do a few more up as time permits. The whole Wiki concept is relatively new to me, so until I spend a bit more time working out how to set the pages up I do ask that you bare with me!

I tend to agree with Comint that it would probably be a good idea to get something sorted out in the way of an Australian page, while there is currently limited files/maps in the database it shouldn't take long to pull some information together and to make it look lively.

 

[ka3jjz]

Hmm. Interesting - I'll get started on building the templates and pages as soon as I finish up moving Alaska and Hawaii's files out from the database to the wiki.

The templates and pages will look very much like what we have built already, unless there's something special that's needed. I don't see why the admins couldn't add a link from the database to the wiki article, once they are built. You could put it as part of the 'news' items, or perhaps as a hard coded item somehow. I'll leave that construction up to the Australian DB team.

However in the meantime take a look at the collaboration stuff that has already been built. Let me know if there's something special we need to do to accomodate Australian listings and I'll see if I can get that done. I will need to build an Australian template (shouldn't be too hard), and create a page for each of the 9 state/territories in the database. The templates are based (from left to right) around pointing to each state's entry in the database, 3 entries to help folks understand the Mediawiki environment, and a direct link to the appropriate forum.

Keep in mind that you can upload maps and so forth into the wiki - let me know when you are ready and I'll give you as much help with that as I can.

I have one more table to code for Hawaii (hopefully I can get that done in the next night or two) then I should be ready to tackle the Australian collaboration stuff. My email is ka3jjz@netscape.com

73 Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

That article you refer to is indeed an Aussie one, I've also added another one and will do a few more up as time permits. The whole Wiki concept is relatively new to me, so until I spend a bit more time working out how to set the pages up I do ask that you bare with me!

I tend to agree with Comint that it would probably be a good idea to get something sorted out in the way of an Australian page, while there is currently limited files/maps in the database it shouldn't take long to pull some information together and to make it look lively.

Don't worry I can bear a little punishment

Anyhow, for the time being, just insure that for all the pages you code, the following statement is at the end of the article...

[[Category:Collaboration]]

You can copy that as is. We may end up creating a few new categories for things that are Australian specific, but for now, this will do. Like I mentioned before, please review the current collaboration structure and see if there's something that is Australian specific for which we need to account. You already know how to reach me

73 Mike

[edit] I can see one thing that will need to be done. For those articles that will list talkgroups for MPT systems, we're going to need a way of pulling at least the frequency information and putting that on the wiki article. Otherwise it could extremely frustrating having to flip to one environment for the freqs, another for the talkgroups. Fortunately the current wiki extensions can handle this need easily...

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/RR_Wiki_Extensions

We have LOTS of examples of how this works in the Sports category of articles.

I can also see a need to add a reverse link on the article back to the original database page from which you came (in case you aren't using something like FireFox that allows you to open more than one page at a time). If you tell me that this is circular logic, you're absolutely right - it's clumsy but manageable.

I had thought we could put the Australian stuff in the Pacific Region category, but I can see where that could easily get confused with the American/Canadian stuff already there (particularly since there's a Victoria in British Columbia). Put it in the Collaboration category for now until we decide what to do with it

 

[ka3jjz]

OK the Australian environment is constructed. You can access it either by state/territory through the collaboration link in the database, or use the wiki pulldown and select Collaboration. Then click on the Australian States and Territories index at the top of the article. Either way now works.

The templates are installed and are functional.

Be thinking about unique categories - that is to say, groups of logically related articles - that you can build for your data (I can show you how to do that - it's quite easy). Right now everything is in the collaboration category, but that isn't going to be a permanent home. For example, do Australian fire stations use FTOs that the current crop of Uniden scanners can recognize? We already have a FTO category for US/Canadian content, I can't see any reason why an Australian FTO article couldn't also be built.

Take it away! 73 Mike