farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

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Metradio
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by Metradio »

Out of interest the Ofcom WTR front page can be circumvented using a program called "WTR Browser", it allows you to edit searches off line, with the ability to change Licence type, Frequencies etc :

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wtrbrowser/

Mike
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by bigbloke »

Ive edited the latest quarterly , filtered out the c**p and uploaded it into an old copy of microsoft map-point2011

judging by the sheer number of pins in the North sea like flaoting green algae theres a lot of duff data in the CVS file :-)

Regards

BB
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by paulears »

Off felixstowe? Don't forget the greater Gabbard wind farm - loads of VHF out there offshore, all licensed separately - mind you according to that data there is a Police Airwave system right in the middle of a greenfield collection of football pitches. The actual site is a mile NE!
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by mattdcooley »

Anyone working on these CSV's? If so send me a PM to exchange ideas. I had some luck many years ago manipulating the ITU list that came out before the WTR was even around... But these's CSV's are many times bigger and hold much more data so it will take a lot of thought. It's quite a similar layout however.

A few things i've noted. Every frequency is seperated onto 2 lines as a tx/rx pair. Rx pairs naturally have no ERP. Repeaters take up 4 lines with different ERP for the transmit side of the repeater and the handhelds, plus 2 rx lines in addition for the rx side.

Simplex licences generally only take up 2 lines if they are licenced for handheld's only, but some take up 4 (possibly more) lines and have 2 different ERP's on the same freq. These are the simplex licences that have handhelds with a fixed base station or more.

My thought being that at least half if not more of the data can be stripped away if we can find a way. If we know the tx/rx freq is the same we know it's simplex and don't need 2 (or 4+) lines. We don't even really need to know if there is a fixed base station or not, just whether simplex or dual on a single line.

It's also pretty simple to do a area search in Excel for a square. If you sort by latitude then select all rows from 52.90 and 53.10 and copy and paste them to a blank sheet. Then sort what you've just pasted by longitude and select rows between -1.10 and -1.30 and copy and paste them onto a blank sheet. What you are left with is a list of licences that only cover the Nottingham area. Obviously you can Google your own corner coordinates and adapt the ranges you copy and paste for your own needs ;)
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by bigbloke »

import to excel

Select cell A1
ctrl A
Data tab
filter
in cell C1
untick select all
select "BR tech assigned"
then use the goto advanced tool to copy only the visible data into a new sheet

then do the same again for area defined

the file drops to 10mb !!

Regards

BB
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by bigbloke »

I then manipulated the dataset into mappoint 2011:
mappoint.jpg
regards

BB
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by mattdcooley »

Thanks for the reply BB,

Nice map there, does that allow you to actually click pins and provide a frequency or any details about the licence?

I presume as well that if you have copied all licences as you said you end up with 4 pins in the same location on most licences?

I know the CSV file is bloated, simply opening it and saving as a .XLSX cuts it from 83 to 39 meg. Did you use the NGR's or the lat/long to map the pins? I've noticed how NGR is more slightly more accurate as the lat/long's have been truncated to 2 decimal places in the dataset. Just trying to think what else could be done. It's also annoying how the 2016 'Extract All Others' file has the extra column with the address but the newer ones don't.

Off topic but am playing around with a RT82 at the moment. It is a step up from RT3 because it has a monitor mode and VFO tuning. Monitor mode seems to ignore not just colour code (and gives out the code) but it also spits out the TGID and the radio ID's like the hacked RT3 firmware but better. It also ignores timeslots and whether freq is simplex or not so you can listen to the input or output of a repeater and a simplex channel in VFO and it still decodes the audio and gives the info.

As the radio also supports this 2nd gen Motorola DCDM I plan to test whether it will pick this up on monitor mode as well without having to specifically tick the box in CPS and choose a timeslot. I want to test it on a RAS system as well as it could well be that it ignores most of the signalling and just decodes like DSD. Might be hoping a lot on that last point though.
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by Admiral »

Getting rid of <30Mhz and >500Mhz trimmed it significantly, but that's just my preferences, a lot of you guys go into the nanosphere.
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by mattdcooley »

Fair point Admiral. I salute you especially as your way hasn't got rid of the CSR marine licences which no doubt some people will be interested in, but going into the nanosphere...? It's open data mate and discussing how best to work with it benefits everyone. Respect to BB for actually mapping it and uploading a pic. I say there is more that could be done. Who needs Ofcom to provide a WTR if it can be done ourselves?
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by Admiral »

'Nanosphere' as in 30-500 is cool for me, but not everyone.
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by bigbloke »

mattdcooley wrote: Nice map there, does that allow you to actually click pins and provide a frequency or any details about the licence?
indeed it does
mattdcooley wrote: I presume as well that if you have copied all licences as you said you end up with 4 pins in the same location on most licences?
no One pin, with a drop down list , click the drop down list entry and out pops the balloon with the data
mattdcooley wrote: I know the CSV file is bloated, simply opening it and saving as a .XLSX cuts it from 83 to 39 meg. Did you use the NGR's or the lat/long to map the pins?
Mappoint europe 2011 supports lat / long and NGR but yes I used NGR .
mattdcooley wrote: Off topic but am playing around with a RT82 at the moment. It is a step up from RT3 because it has a monitor mode and VFO tuning. Monitor mode seems to ignore not just colour code (and gives out the code) but it also spits out the TGID and the radio ID's like the hacked RT3 firmware but better. It also ignores timeslots and whether freq is simplex or not so you can listen to the input or output of a repeater and a simplex channel in VFO and it still decodes the audio and gives the info.
yes I reckon they stole Travis' mod :-)
mattdcooley wrote: As the radio also supports this 2nd gen Motorola DCDM I plan to test whether it will pick this up on monitor mode as well without having to specifically tick the box in CPS and choose a timeslot.
Ive only ever seen one simplex DCDM system. it lasted 2 months , then they went to a second TIER 2 repeater. the trouble with DCDm is one radio has to be the master to decide where the timeslot boundaries actually lie all the other radios are then slaves - loose range of the master, clock wanders , net collapses .
mattdcooley wrote: I want to test it on a RAS system as well
let me save you the effort - it doesnt . in fact I have a local frequency with a tier3 CAP+ RAS and tier 2 system both within range - firmware 3.031 actually locks up completely on that channel after about 30 seconds of idle mode requiring a full unplug of the power to even turn off the radio - another bug im afraid :-(

Regards

BB
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by bigbloke »

this is what it actually gives you ...
balloons.png
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by phillmobile »

I contacted ofcom about a issue with hiring out radios on my system, i was told that in order to hire out radios off my technically assigned licenses that i neded a dealer license, then i read the dealer license says you can only rent out to a user for 12 months so i quiried this with them and was told yes only 12 months, then i was told by a ofcom engineer that thats not true and i dont need a dealer license to rent out on my own TA just on the hire channels, so i have had 3 different answers to the same question and 2 of those people where engineers for ofcom.
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by mattdcooley »

Nice one BB. I think i'll have to source Mappoint and have a play thanks for the idea. I reckon i'll do as Admiral though and keep the CSR licences in just to be complete.

Yeah they have surely taken some of the mod or the idea anyway. I've took delivery of a second one today for a friend and not impressed. It's a much higher serial number to mine and the quality is bad! The trackball lights up dimmer, the P2/back button has so much give you can press it in about 2mm without a click. The whole keypad is quite spongy in fact as is the PTT. Oh and it doesn't even have the Retevis sticker at the top?! Will be returning that for him once i've had a play.

I see what you mean about DCDM. My aim was to be covered if I ever came across any systems using it but monitor mode doesn't like it unless the channel is ticked with the box, shame. I'll just program a zone up with DCDM full of spare channels to edit if I ever come across some. The leader/MS setting doesn't seem to make much difference actually. I set up channels to test and even when both MS it worked from fresh power on. Even with one as leader txing first the MS would do a little burst back and 2 leaders just sent back and forwards several times and still worked lol. Have to be careful because the RX only box will probably get ignored.

Figured RAS would be a no go but bad if it crashed. I'm on firmware 3.040 so hopefully that won't happen. Regards
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Re: farewell to the WTR - hello to the monthly spreadsheet!

Post by mattdcooley »

phillmobile wrote:I contacted ofcom about a issue .....
Lol! I don't see why it would matter on TA. Yes suppliers licence to put people on those freqs but your own shouldnt matter at all. Hows the net going anyway Phil?
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