[Phillip Beall]

All,

I have been looking at how we might use Google “My Maps” in support of emergency preparedness in general, weather observation, EOC tactical awareness, search and rescue (people in the field having the ability to look at an iPad or other device showing these details), etc.

I have started a map titled Red River Valley ARC Area of Operations located at this link:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1EzEk4ljawbEM-poNm5_h7U7oWYDEWnY&ll=33.66133412576772%2C-95.57590515869138&z=11

I made the map where it could be edited by anyone.

In between the million other things I am doing I want to further develop that map with the following characteristic layers:

1) Northeast Texas to a little north of the Red River as the base map. Parts of all the surrounding counties as a part of it. – Basically complete.

2) Lamar County and adjacent counties, at least part of them, outlined as a layer. Here is a link to a map showing that, but I don’t know how to put that outline into a layer on the map above.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lamar+County,+TX/@33.660355,-95.5829049,10z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x864aff581439a97f:0xbd1cf5fd509de4c2!8m2!3d33.75694!4d-95.6457951!16zL20vMG1yMGg?entry=ttu

3) A layer with gridlines. We will have to fool around with the size of the grid squares. Too small and it gets cluttered. To big and you catch too much area to make it really useful.

4) A layer mapping out all medical facilities, fire stations, police stations and sheriff’s offices. There may be only one “sheriff’s office”, but they maybe have a substation somewhere. I want this layer to capture all of those features.

5) A layer with a pin ???? showing where each Club member and repeater users live and a pop-up flag that gives some detail about the contact.

So that we can enhance the situational awareness of our EOC element(s) and frankly, everyone that is participating, my thinking is that we get this map developed and add these layers and then during an “event” everyone knows where everyone is, what resources may be available and what facilities and area features are involved in the event. If we can add an APRS layer, all the better.

There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. If something like this already exists, please point me to it. Looking at the Fannin County ARC website I see this map:

It is kind of hard to look at, out of focus and all, but their map generally represents a low-tech version of two layers that I have described.  What I want to do is to elegantly put something together with lots of additional capability beyond what a static image can be used for and then have it be an interactive feature of our site.  I want to be able to zoom in and out, in the process displaying more or less detail. And this dovetails with something else I am working on, getting together details for what I hope will be a feature rich weather radar component to this project. More on that later.

Have we got someone in the Club that would be interested in tinkering with this for us? I am looking at some resources such as these:

Import Data in Google My Maps with Custom Info

MyMaps: Layered Map Basics

My Maps-Add title, layers, labels to Google Maps

If you are willing to work with me on this please drop me an email or give me a call.  I really think this could be a quite rewarding project for someone looking for a way to make a meaningful contribution to the Club’s efforts.  Even if you just pecked away at it a little bit at a time, just having one person devoted to at least trying to advance the project would be very helpful.

Thanks,

Phillip (W5EBC)
phillipbeall@beallz.net
Cell: 214-729-6182

• This topic was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Phillip Beall. Reason: Corrected first link
• This topic was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Phillip Beall.

[Danial Beard]

WOW!

How the ‘ell did I miss this?!

I’ll see what I can do here.   A thought, though.   Not everyone is willing to allow/invite Google scripts of any kind onto their machines (and I don’t blame them at all for that.   The more you know about Google, the less appealing they get.)   Ergo, let me tinker a bit with OpenStreetMaps, too.   I doubt it will come up to the level of function you’re looking for, but it’s worth a lookey-loo.

Contact Jerry.  (WA5KZY)   Early on he was working on a locator map of all the hams in the area.   I don’t know the status of that, nor if he would want it made public, but again, it’s worth chasing the rabbit.

 

Dan

[Danial Beard]

If one is willing to use Windows (or a Mac) … This application is a long-standing tool available from EPA.    the coresponding softwares, CAMEO and ALOHA, are also available, but not particularly relevant to us.

That being said, given the times in which we live, methinks it’s a good idea to revisit those and re-familiarize with them.

https://www.epa.gov/cameo/marplot-software

 

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