Woosh Access Point Locations

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BarTender

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Topic # 11304 15-Jan-2007 12:45

Hello

I think a number of you will be interested but I found a fantastic page http://spectrumonline.med.govt.nz/ which details all companies who have a registered radio frequency in NZ, plus the frequencies etc.

In there there is the "Spectrum Search Lite" which is an access database that has every transmitter that is registered with them. Plus the Lat/Long in different tables. After a bit of fun with Access I extracted out what I wanted.

So I extracted all the 2067.5Mhz registered frequencies (which is what Woosh uses) and matched them up against the Lat/Long so now I have a list of every location that there is a transmiter, built a quick and dirty Google Maps page with the results.

To be found at: http://wooshinfo.googlepages.com/locations.html

If there are better google maps person out that that could write nicer code I would love to see it.

Thanks

Peter

(moderator edit (BG) - Added hyperlinks)

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Juha
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Reply # 57949 15-Jan-2007 15:49

Nice work.

Juha

Rickles

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Reply # 57953 15-Jan-2007 16:32

BarTender,

Brilliant, well done.

R.

xrajux

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Reply # 57958 15-Jan-2007 16:57

good work man, cheers

ajobbins

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Reply # 57980 15-Jan-2007 20:30

Wow, thats cool. The list doesnt appear to be complete tho as I know of one tower that wasnt on the list.

Maybe some of them operate on a slightly different frequency, or maybe they decomissioned the one I am referring to

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sbiddle

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Reply # 57986 15-Jan-2007 21:47

adamj: Wow, thats cool. The list doesnt appear to be complete tho as I know of one tower that wasnt on the list.

Maybe some of them operate on a slightly different frequency, or maybe they decomissioned the one I am referring to

While the PRISM database is supposed to be accurate there are issues with inaccuracies in it. There are Vodafone sites listed that don't exist, Vodafone sites that do exist that aren't listed and some of the newer Woosh sites in Wellington aren't yet in the database.

BarTender

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Reply # 57990 15-Jan-2007 22:16

I just hope that woosh themselves will some day release a detailed list of sites.

Working with a friend of mine to put the sites through SPLAT (http://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/splat.html) for Path Loss Analysis and link to each cell site with signal strength information to know if people should get a booster or not etc.

Also plan to add GPolygons for all the microwave links that Woosh sites as well.

The other issue with the Prism DB is that all the Latitude/Longitude locations are calulations from the NZMS260 Grid references and not exact locations.

Any additional sites people know about just post the grid refs and I will add them.

sbiddle

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Reply # 57991 15-Jan-2007 22:22

Ever thought of doing another version for for Voda & Telecom? Would obvously require only minor changes!

BarTender

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Reply # 58007 16-Jan-2007 07:00

Dude, you are way ahead of me.

Yes I was planning to include Voda/TNZ/Other wireless providers.

Once I figure out layers with Google Maps then it can be a single page and you can turn on / off / have different colours for different providers / different colours for AMPS,DAMPS, 1xRTT, EV-DO, GSM, GPRS, HSPRD, IP Wireless etc...

For the interium I just plan different pages for TNZ/Voda.. and take it from there.

Need to find someone understands the Google Maps API more than I.

Rickles

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Reply # 58029 16-Jan-2007 10:36

BarTender,

Whilst something is better than nothing

, I'm in Thorndon, Wellington using Base Station 12 ... the map tends to indicate that the transmitter is somewhere opposite the Portland Hotel, which would be St Mary's College.

To my knowledge, the transmitter is actually in the middle of the Hawkestone Street overbridge.

R.

ajobbins

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Reply # 58032 16-Jan-2007 10:46

Rickles: the map tends to indicate that the transmitter is somewhere opposite the Portland Hotel, which would be St Mary's College.

To my knowledge, the transmitter is actually in the middle of the Hawkestone Street overbridge.

BarTender: The other issue with the Prism DB is that all the Latitude/Longitude locations are calulations from the NZMS260 Grid references and not exact locations.

The Portland Hotel is on Hawkestone St Rickles, so if the map is indicating opposite this is a pretty close match considering BarTenders reference above.

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sbiddle

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Reply # 58033 16-Jan-2007 10:48

Rickles: BarTender,

Whilst something is better than nothing , I'm in Thorndon, Wellington using Base Station 12 ... the map tends to indicate that the transmitter is somewhere opposite the Portland Hotel, which would be St Mary's College.

To my knowledge, the transmitter is actually in the middle of the Hawkestone Street overbridge.

R.

That's a Vodafone panel on the bridge. The Woosh site is actually on the hotel. If you look towards the roof you'll see the panels.

Rickles

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Reply # 58110 16-Jan-2007 19:43

Guys,

Thanks for the comments ... all noted and appreciated.

R.

BarTender

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Reply # 58137 16-Jan-2007 22:43

Two things to bear in mind when thinking about the Google Maps links.
1) The Lat/Long that is calulated in the Prism Database is only an estimate as per the NZMS260 Grid Reference, which I think is ~+-20 meters or something silly like that.

2)Google Earth doesn't exacly match up to the Lat/Long co-ordinates all the time either. Anyone taken a GPS to certain points of interest in NZ and tried to match up those references to Google Earth will also be sadly disapointed by the +-3-5 meters that the map can be out simetimes.

Anyone (who is based in Wellington like me) remember when WCC supplied VERY VERY poor quality imagery to Google Earth back around mid July 06 or so and noticed how all the grid references moved by about 2 meters... <sigh>. It's all very much an estimate really.

Here is a good example how Google Earth "match" up two different sets of aerial / satelite photography. The bottom imagery is from WCC and is out of focus and flown from a plane, whereas the top imagery is from Digital Globe taken by a satelite......

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=apple+terrace,+wellington,+new+zealand&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=28.749334,57.65625&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=-41.146467,174.845256&spn=0.003329,0.010557&t=h&om=1

But looking at the Aerial shot of Portland towers I can't see where the dish/panels are, if anyone has correct co-ords I will update that site.

http://www.wellington.govt.nz/services/rates/search/popup.php?type=map&account=1120028

The WCC Aerial shots for Rates (which is different than the photography that the WCC provided to Google Earth <sigh>) are the most up to date (think they were flown late 04/early 05) and don't show anything I can see on the roof.

paradoxsm

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Reply # 58144 17-Jan-2007 00:40

Very good! Great info! I could never get the "spectrum search lite" to work. I just get a "cannot open previous database version"

How did you place the html page directly in googlepages by the way? i can only seem to select from the google "pagewizards"

also..... Does anyone still have about a copy of the old (deprecated) "prisms lite"

BarTender

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Reply # 59988 7-Feb-2007 12:40

The Prism database is just an Access 97 Database, so you can easily open it up with access 97 or higher and do with it what you want, perhaps you are running some other version of access on your PC which is causing the conflict with Spectrum search lite.

On the googlepages all I did was upload the HTML file I wrote in notepad, plus the XML file with all the locations using the upload file thingie and then just linked to that page.

Busy renovating the house, when that is done I plan to use Google maps to draw lines between the uplink and downlink sites, and as we all know the info in Prism doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

Now if Woosh were smart they would install transmitters in popular holiday destinations such as queenstown / Ohakune / wherever so us lowly sorts that spend 3 weeks or whatever in a location we don't normally live in can get highspeed internet without needing to pay premium dollar to Vodafone/TNZ card and can continue to have highspeed internet.

I think they would pick up a lot of new customers as well by saying "we are in these popular locations as well so you don't need to be without the internet while on holiday".

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