A Number of New Features
By Trip Ericson on Sunday, May 15 2011, 10:18 - Site Updates - Permalink
Hello, all:
Over the past few weeks, I've been adding a lot of things here and there around the site. In case you cannot read my mind and thus don't know where they are, here's what I've added.
- Mobile RabbitEars - This isn't terribly new, I just haven't sent anyone but a few select people to it. The way it works is that on your cell phone or other mobile Internet-enabled device, it will use GPS to find your position, then do a channel search for your location. It defaults to a standard search, but you can have it do a strength search for distances up to 105 miles around, and it can also auto-reacquire your location once per minute for people who are traveling. Bug reports are appreciated. Down the line, I'd love to tie it into the DX Tool somehow and possibly make a more mobile-friendly version of the listings as well.
- Digital Reassignment Requests - This isn't new either, but was recently revamped. It went from being a hand-managed text-based page to being database driven. As a result, not only is it a lot neater and easier for me to manage, but I've added a couple of nifty features. For example, clicking on the desired channel number can now take you to a coverage map for the proposed facility. Give it a try, and again, bug reports are appreciated.
- Ownership and Licensee Information - Another not quite new feature. I changed the Ownership portion of the Historical dropdowns in the listings so it now lists the actual licensee as noted on the FCC license, while changing the actual owner to the "Operator" to account for LMAs and the like. There's also now automated code to determine sister stations, so that information should now be complete as well.
- Channel Election and Petition Data - Another not-so-terribly new feature. The recent site performance problem was tied directly into this feature, so it was disabled for a few days while that was figured out (ultimately by Bruce). Anyway, in the main listings, for any full-power stations, expanding out the Historical section will now provide information on the station's channel elections, as well as any post-election petitions to change channels that have been filed. I'm planning to add pre-election petitions at some point as well, but that will be more work so I'm holding off for the time being. In addition, for petitions, I'm planning to have the docket number link off to a page that describes the filing in detail, which was part of the reason for making the Digital Reassignment Requests page into a database-driven page in the first place. I hope someone finds use in this feature.
- Weather Radio Transmitter Sites - Here's a new feature. I imported the transmitter sites for the various NOAA Weather and Canadian WeatheRadio transmitters into my database and created a page for viewing them and details about them. Clicking the icons on the map will give you information on the transmitters located at those icons. Eventually I may add coverage maps for these transmitters, but I'm currently undecided.
- Stations Not Mapping to Analog Channels - This is a list of all the stations which have abandoned mapping to their analog channels. I am 100% sure there are errors or omissions in this list, as it was quite literally tossed together over the course of about three hours, which was how long it took to code the page and add a field to the database called "analog channel" and hand-enter in the various analog channels from memory (thus the certainty of errors). Please notify me of any you spot.
- List of Deleted Stations - This is a list of all the television stations, translators, and LPs which have been deleted by the FCC, sorted by date from most recent to least recent. I'll likely add some sorting features, and I don't consider this one to be done yet, but I figured I'd make it public anyway since it might find some use.
- Facility Comparison - This is a bare-bones list of stations on a given channel with the power and HAAT listed along side. This feature was requested by re_nelson who was trying to compare the power levels of the Media-General stations which recently petitioned to move from VHF to UHF to other VHF stations in the US. I think it now works well for that purpose. Bug reports welcome.
So let me know of any bug reports, feature requests, or any opinions on these new features. In addition, if you, like re_nelson, have an idea for a feature you'd like to see added to RabbitEars, do let me know. I take all requests into consideration, even if I can't implement all of them for one reason or another, and I love having ideas for things to add when I have free time to do so.
Thanks, all!
Comments
OK...you asked for feature requests. So, here goes. The worst you can say is no. :-)
The channel election and historical information is very interesting. What would be great (if you can mine the data before it vanishes forever) would be to show the final, pre-transition facility information: power and HAAT. In an ideal world, this could be used to link to a L-R contour.
In the wake of the Media-General requests, I think it would be cool to see a before/after comparison of what a station HAD vs. what they ended up with.
My personal nemesis is KFWD. I think they had a far better pre-transition facility on channel 51 than the current QRM prone plant on channel 9. Being able to compare the final pre-transition facility to the anemic reality of what they have now would prove the old saying, "you never miss a good thing until it's gone".
I appreciate the weather radio icons and locations. It would be great if you included coverage maps also for those who travel or dx weather radio.
Thanks for the great site,
73, N9YSW
The big problem with generating the weather radio maps is that I don't have a source for antenna heights. I have the power levels and the coordinates, but I don't know how high up each one is, you know? That's a serious problem when trying to make an accurate map.
And Bob, go look at KFWD's historical listing.
> And Bob, go look at KFWD's historical listing.
WOW! What a rapid turnaround on that request. I see you're populating others as well. This is a great tool to show "what WERE we thinking?!?!". KFWD had channel 51 as a fallback when they "successfully" negotiated for the trouble-plagued channel 9. Was a lower light bill REALLY worth it?
Where are you getting the old data from since it's been scrubbed from the FCC's main page?
It's all still in the database, just with the "Archive" flag marked.
And I'm glad you like the feature. It was really easy to implement, so I just went ahead and added it. I still want to tweak it, but it works well enough at the moment, I think.
Nice to see the mobile site finally get launched. FWIW, it's not just restricted to GPS. It depends on your browser to get your location data so it can get it either from regular IP geolocation or other location technology. Mobile devices that support location information via GPS (or aGPS) will of course get the data that way. It should be of note that some Apple devices (iPod touch, iPad) get their location info via wi-fi triangulation, meaning that they cross reference the MAC addresses of nearby access points and get a fix that way. The fix is less accurate but it can be "good enough." iPhones tend to do it "hybrid" meaning they can get a rough fix from the wifi or aGPS then a more accurate fix from GPS.
I'll see if I can find out where the data for the NOAA antennas are. I have a friend who does work on the sites so he may know if there's a database. NOAA weather radio I think is governed by the NTIA though.
Thanks. Please let me know if you happen to get some heights for the NOAA transmitters. If I can get that info, maps become easy to generate.
Trip, William: Don't you guys know that the National Weather Service web site (www.weather.gov) has very good coverage maps for each station in their "Weather Radio" section. I feel there is little room for improvement to those maps.
I'm aware of them, but their maps aren't colorful, overlaid on Google Maps, nor do they allow you to zoom in. =)