A couple of years ago I was searching for a decent database to look up repeaters, nodes, beacons etc. To my surprise, such a database didn’t seem to exists. As a matter of fact, the only available data for Norway was a hand-written .pdf from the Norwegian node-manager. The temporary solution I came up with was a semi-automated import to a database-table, rendering the data more accesible.
Last month I started my quest to find an updated band plan, preferably in matrix-gantt chart like form factor, alternatively some database format I could use to render such chart myself. Again nothing really satisfied my needs, so I started to sketch up a database schema to store this and some other data, making life a little easier.
When I explained my plan to LA1FTA, he immediately set his gears in motion. “What if..” he started, noticeably engaged, “What if we could combine this with APRS data?” Not quite sure where he was headed, I asked him to continue. “You have lat/long data on your repeaters and nodes, we could use that to calculate communication-routes between two callsigns, if they are both pressent on the APRS network with positions” he said.
By now I had most of the application charted, and after we had boiled down our ideas to a more concrete matter, we could start the work of collecting and processing data, in addition to the core programming. The project is named freqDB for now, and can be found under projects/freqDB. Once the first beta is done, what will be available under tools/freqDB.
We started this work last week, so don’t expect too much yet. Just wanted to share our thoughts with the world. Hopefully we’ll get some suggestions for features or other inputs from you along the way.
Great idea! For each band, recommended modulation and maybe even frequency shift for repeaters could be specified. Suggested use and contract information could be optional fields. How could we connect it to nrrl and digital manager information sources to avloid double updates?