Ham Radio Repeaters

Rick,
I'm here for the same reason, I just got my login. Have you posted on QRZ or eham? If there's some kind of coordinated repeater directory w/ lat long, surely we could import it to a POI file.
Darrell
Garmin Zumo 550
KE5EXE

Would you guys like me to make a Open POI file project for you in the project area?

Miss Poi

Miss POI,
Thanks for the offer. I think we can find a list, the issue's going to be the location info. I'm thinking that the FCC has this info somewhere, but I don't know how to get to it. Any ideas?

Darrell
Garmin Zumo 550
KE5EXE

There is a list of repeaters at:
http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/

with some location data.

The FCC sight is at:

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/genmen/index.hts

You can look up data based on several different criteria.

Jeff

Sounds like a tough project - just found one listing at http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/ that might be helpful, but I think then that you might have to pull owner call signs from that site, then look them up on QSL (http://www.qsl.net/) or similar site for e-mail address if any and if current, and then send e-mails to get each location. I'd be really interested in this if I were still active, but I am not, so I can only wish you all the best luck with it! In a small state like DE I suspect any one of the responders would likely know all the other locations though. Anyway, good luck!!! Sounds like a tough and lengthy project.
Gene (KB4LM)
Garmin C530

Thanks Gene, it's too time consuming unless you can import if from another source, for me anyway. I think Jeff's link to the FCC site is the way to go, if you can pull the right info. I'll have to play with it and see.
Darrell
Garmin Zumo 550
KE5EXE

I just downloaded and looked at the FCC ham database for anything that might help. It's an 82mb zipped download, and contains several files, some an address list of hams -- what appear to be 943,678 listings including addresses -- some, using my own N8HAA listing, showing data of licensing, renewal and modification, but none with long-lat listings.
Three of us on this site have been working on POIs for listings of NPR, religious and other FM stations. For those, the FCC has long-lat listings, and it's possible to use data-handling procedures to match lists and come up with a reasonably accurate guide to tower locations.
But from looking at that database, I doubt that the FCC has any precise idea where a repeater station is housed. It knows who's responsible for the repeater, and I think that's sufficient for the agency.
I see that http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/ in its state lists has long-lat for a few, at least in Michigan. In the absence of an FCC location database, in order to come up with some comprehensive POI list without handling entries individually, you might try to match repeater licensee addresses from the FCC file with a database of repeater callsigns and frequencies. You might then use whatever on-line service finds coordinates for a street address, all in the hope that the repeater isn't too far from the licensee.
I hope someone has a better idea than this!

thanks

Sorry folks I have been out of town and with no internet access for a while. The FCC does have a data base on the repeaters that I have seen before but can't find it now. I know this data generates from the repeater cordinators for each section. Maybe finding and contacting the cordinators directly would be of help. I also thought that the reason some LAT/LON are not listed is the repeater owners do not want the exact location known for security reasons, for coverage reasons I think the center of the town listed should be good enough. Just a few thoughts. Miss POI, thanks for the offer, we may need that.
Rick, N8VCF

Hard to see how repeater locations would be a security concern when they're so precisely located for all commercial and educational TV, AM and FM stations.

I emailed the American Radio Relay League to see if it might have anything to add to the discussion, inasmuch as it publishes the most comprehensive directory of repeaters. I dislike using it, because its sense of intra-state geography seems haphazard.

I took one more look at the FCC site after I sent the email, including the FCC's site map of amateur-related web pages. Nothing that suggested it has a database of repeaters.

I think N8VCF and other hams have the best alternative, using the city's coordinates, which means city center, as the POI for a repeater.

The city coordinates would be fairly easy from a decent list - that NPR stations list I did was a breeze - just took the station list from a PDF on NPR's web site, copied the text, pasted it into Excel, did a concatenate formula to combine a few fields, then cleaned it up & then batch geocoded the final csv file for the coordinates - took me less than 3 hours start to finish.

I didn't download them today. My father use to be big into Ham Radios but not much any more. I'll have to look through my POI's and see if I did download them.

I sent about 2 hours earlier today looking for different POI's. I guess you can find anyting on the net if you use the correct wording.

Michael

ARRL emailed me that the list in the directory isn't copyrighted, although the format is. I've asked if a database is available from them, even with fewer fields than they put in the directory. My guess is it's not available.

USRepeaters.com seems to have the most comprehensive list of repeaters, perhaps most or all with latitude/longitude. It charges a fee or a donation for downloads, $5 per band, $50 for all bands, in .csv format. But its limits of usage seem to prevent reusing the data for distribution as a POI list, at least without permission.

I've emailed USRepeaters to ask about permission. My guess is it won't be forthcoming.

I pointed out to both ARRL and USRepeaters that poi-factory.com does not charge for the information it makes available.

Assuming neither of these approaches pan out, the next step might be contacts with the repeater coordinators who appear to be the source of the database.

Some of the repeater owners I know do not like letting know the exact location of their repeaters because of theft and vandilism. A few are on private towers, the others are on commercial towers with good security. Either way I respect the owners wishes for if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have repeaters to use.

The database you mention would be the deal if it works out. I started entering by hand repeaters here in WV, work on it for about 3 hrs and only about 1/4 done.

The next thing is how do you set a popup for the repeaters when you get within say 25-30 mile radius of the repeater(or further for known large coverage machines)?

I guess I am doing this for the ham community. It won't help me because I am using a Garmin 376c and it is not compatible with POI Loader, anyone have any other ideas of getting poi's into the 376c?

RickV

Surely someone here who knows Garmins and PCs can help you load POIs into that machine; a Google of the model number indicates POIs can be loaded into it.

And if we strike out getting a full database to convert, I suppose several of us could do a kind of manual "distributed computing" deal -- like the SETI@home project which uses thousands and thousands of computers to hunt for intelligence in the static received by a radio telescope at Arecibo, except one at a time.

The developer of this product, http://www.schoolhousemultimedia.com/ARF , has posted his site on QRZ. His approach seems to be to use the zip of the coordinator and rely on his users to develop the database and update it.

The developer would certainly have preferred to have more precise coordinates for the repeaters in his database. That he wasn't able to locate more closely than zip code is instructive.

I will soon be posting to this site a poi for all 10m, 6m, 2m, 1 1/4m, and 70cm repeaters in Nebraska. The repeater locations are the city or town general locations not the location of the repeaters. I used the ARRL Travel Plus for the repeater information and Garmin Mapsource to get the locations. Please give me any feed back as I plan to make poi's for some of the states around Nebraska.

Jerry
KC0QR

I have moved this thread to the project area so that we can keep track of who is doing what so we avoid overlap.

Miss Poi

Hello

I found some Tom Tom Ham Radio Repeaters. I used POIEdit and was able to convert them to a CSV file.

They cover 70cm, 2m, 6m: 2mrep, 6mrep, 70cmrep

If you are interested let me know. I can't tell you anything more about them. I found them at http://www.hamradio-badarc.co.uk/link1.htm

Hope they help someone

Michael

It's a list of UK repeaters. I've emailed the author to tell me where his data came from, whether owners, licensing authority or postal codes.

I just want to be clear about how I'm proceeding with this project.

I use the ARRL repeater directory and an up-to-date ZIP code database. I correlate the City/State in both tables to the Lat/Lon given in the ZIP database. Since this has its limitations, my hope is that folks will contribute over time to making it more accurate. If not, the database is still there, with a mix of accurate and approximate locations. As it stands, you can make very good use of the repeaters that my product locates, since whether the repeater is 10 miles or 12 miles from you usually doesn't make too much of a difference as to whether you can use that repeater or not.

It seems this problem is one that is being "solved" in a variety of ways...all outside of the ARRL. I'd love to learn more about what other folks have done about this!

Regards!

W8LEV

I don't know if this would be interesting to you or not (realizing I'm pushing my own product)

http://www.schoolhousemultimedia.com/ARF

It's just one way to deal with mobile repeater issues...

73,

T

Hey, I just posted this here http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=79807&..., and I find that you guys are already doing this. I am looking for both Minnesota and Wisconsin and here is Minnesota. Thank you!

Jim NØJS

I have posted Ham Radio Repeater POI's for Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Kansas. I have POI's for Western Missouri and Oklahome ready to be posted and I am working on New Mexaco, Arizona and Colorado. I hope to complete POI's for Navada, Utah, Wyoming in the future.

Jerry
KC0QR

Jerry,

Nice job and thank you for doing the Minnesota list. Can you e-mail me at jimdianes@frontiernet.net please? Also, here is the most current MN list

http://www.mrc.gen.mn.us/
http://www.mrc.gen.mn.us/MN_List.pdf

and here is WI

http://www.wi-repeaters.org/
http://www.wi-repeaters.org/news/06_11listing.pdf

Do you have any interest in doing WI?

Jim NØJS

Hi,

I'm new here, also relatively new to GPS. I was disappointed some when I discovered that my Garmin eTrex Legend is not supported by their POI loader software. I did read somewhere on this site that it may be possible to load in POIs as waypoints, I guess I'll have to look into that. In the meantime, I was wondering if anyone was working on a POI for New York repeaters? After a long, drawn out divorce, I'm getting back into some old hobbies, ham radio (N2LCX) and hiking. I hope to do some hiking in the Adirondacks and other locales this summer, and it would be nice to know what repeaters are where, relative to my location. I don't want to duplicate efforts fi someone's already working on NY.

thanks & 73,

John
I just posted the Repeater poi for New York to this site. I don't know why I didn't post it before but it is here now. Enjoy.

Jerry,

Talk about quick service, thank you very much.

73,

Why do we need a POI file of repeater sites? Most of the sites are remote and have secure access. If the purpose is to see if there are any repeaters in or around your location,wouldn't a database of repeaters be easier to create?
De W9WOW

With the added ability to point out on the unit the ones closest to you.

And - here's where I part company with the purists here...I think the city & frequency and any access tone info should be enough, one does not really need the exact coordinates of the transmitter for a POI file of repeater locations to be useful...but as I said, that's just my humble, lowly opinion that's probably not worth much...

There are many repeater directories available and I have tried a few of them. They are OK if you are a passenger or in a stationary location, but don't work well if you are driving. The poi's are a database of repeaters with the ability to show the ones nearest to you. Great feature. I agree that the only information needed are the location (city or town) not the exact location of the repeater, frequency, and access tone.
In the files that I have posted, I also included the repeater call just for information and listed only the open repeaters.

In use, it is very convenient to have a repeater directory sorted as to the nearest repeaters and displayed in an easy to read form.

Recently I loaded a POI file on Ham repeaters over to my GPS with mixed results! The GPS I'm using was a Garmin Legend Cx. Only part of each entry can be read on the Cx, why is that?? Question; Can I modify the POI file with Excel to correct my problem?
I need a course in building POI custom files, any suggestions??

Jerry, you have done a terrific job of posting the repeater files. But for the states that I have looked at (Washington and Oregon), there is something terribly wrong with the Lat/Lon for the sites. They are apparently scrambled somehow. E.g. the Bellevue sites are in Everett; Lynnwood's are in Seattle (they aren't actually); Olalla's are in three different places, Anacortes, Yelm, and Bremerton. The list goes on.

Something happened in the data manipulation between your data sources and the final file. Can you check it out?

Richard, KR7L
Maple Valley, Washington

Jerry I just want to add my voice to the choir and say thanks for your hard work. I've loaded several states into my TomTom without any trouble and they've been a great help when traveling out of state!

73,
Mike L.

I used Jerry's California repeater list and chopped it down to cover only the SoCal area, plus added a few that I knew about that was not on his list.

I also did something else you guys might think about. I build an IRLP POI for the SoCal area. On the IRLP website you can download the Lat/Long of IRLP nodes withing XXX discance from your home or what ever Lat/Long you reference. I then took that and build a POI. So now I can punch in the IRLP POI and pull up all of IRLP nodes from where every I happen to be with my Garmin C340.

Jim
N6AJG

I just looked at the IRLP web site. This shouldn't be too hard to do. I'll try and have the US and Canada IRLP Repeaters POI up in a few days.

Jerry, as they say in the vernacular, 'You da man'!

73 DE ML

Jerry,
Can I contact you direct? Tried with your AOL address on QRZ, but, apparently it has been changed.

Thanks

Many hams are also scanner buffs. I started (in the Boston area) making a POI file with police and fire frequencies. I like to bring up the local police/fire frequency when I'm in a town. For someone like myself, it would be nice to have a scanner built into my GPS. If I'm in a particular town, I get up the local POI, then hit a button to listen to either the fire or police frequency.

Striper, while us HAMS might find a file like that useful, you just might open a can of worms regarding the legality of non-HAM's using scanners when in a mobile environment. By federal law an FCC licensed HAM can own/operate equipment that is capable of receiving those frequencies and use said equipment in their vehicles as well - non-HAM's don't have that luxury.

I'd hate to hear of a non-HAM Factory member downloading a .csv of PD/FD freqs., listening to 'em on a scanner while mobile, and getting cited for illegal use of a scanner and having their equipment confiscated.

Perhaps if said POI's were emailed to HAM's with valid call-signs that requested them it would be better for ALL parties concerned?

Just one man's opinion!

'73 DE
Mike L.

It would be a great project, but hopefully not too overwhelming. Could you directly import the coordinate information from the FCC webpage?
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/reports7/

I am new to GPS and thinking I wasted my money untill I found the Ham-Repeaters POI files. Did not understand how valuble this could be untill i loaded the Texas file on my C330 and saw how it lists Repeaters by distance and directions. This is great, maybe the best reason for me to keep this GPS.

On this site is a list of almost every city and the frequencies for police, fire and others.
http://www.radioreference.com/
If you import one of the listings say for Chicago and give it a general lat/long of W87.63220 N41.88385 for Chicago, you would have a poi of scanner frequencies for that city.

Hello all,im new to the site love it so far,

The Amateur Radio POI's, although far from complete (since there seems to be no one absolute clearing house of active repeaters at any given time) gives a lot of cool information to those of us who just love to keep our hands and ears on the radio!

It is nice that you not only get the call sign and the line of sight distance to the repeater, but offsets and access tones if needed. No more fumbling through various repeater guides and directories just to find a few repeaters to add to your radio memory for trips off the beaten course!

To those who keep these files up to date, many thanks!

Rob KB2PSM

I am new to Amature Radio, and would love to have a fairly accurate location of repeaters. I found a cool device that someone designed to auto-program the 8 closest repeaters to your location. http://www.circuitcellar.com/library/print/0804/Worstell_169...

More accurate information makes this a better tool. Also having the altitude is a good feature. I travel a lot to CA, AZ, and VA so I'll be checking out the databases everyone has posted here. Thanks for the hard work. I hope to have some spare time to donate some POI's myself.

73
Chris.(KE7OWN)

Chris,

Good luck getting a more accurate location on amateur radio repeaters. I had that as a goal some time ago and I was shot down by fellow hams. I thought it was ironic that public safety and commercial repeaters are listed in the FCC database, but amateur radio repeater locations seem to be a secret.

Jim NØJS

I understand why the Amateur repeaters are not in the database and the sites that do list them and have lat/lon information are not very precise. Equipment is not cheap and this is amateur so most of the time spent on this is spare time done as a hobby for the enjoyment. Now if the information on the Web was very accurate then you run the risk of theft and vandalism, so I understand why it is not. To get anything more than I have now I would feel very lucky.

Chris (ke7own)

Perhaps an insight: actually, it's the FAA that wants the location data -- seems they have this 'thing' about towers, and commercial users tend to use BIG towers. So, the FCC 'requests' the info for the licensing process, and passes it along.

Amateur licensees are 'assumed' to not erect such 'hazard to air navigation' obstructions, and are exempt; a repeater hanging on someone's monster tower is covered by the owner's tower registration certifications.

Clear as mud, eh? Your gubbament at work.

And.. yes, HAMs tend to keep a low profile with their toys - hi. Your 'city-center/zip-code' approach is fine.
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