GIS info on the Internet

GIS is all about mapping stuff. I found some links to free GIS software. The US Census Tiger database is also available for download. Now all I have to do is think of things to map. Like our stations coverage in analog and digital transmission. Use your imagination.

http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/features/viewers2002/
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/index.html

Also, the coverage contour maps posted on the FCC website pointed me to an interesting method of generating maps using the tiger data:

http://tiger.census.gov/instruct.html

If you notice in the instructions, you pass all the info about what you want on the map in the URL, including a link to a file that can contain many marked points. If you had a mathematical function that would generate a coverage contour (like your station's 60 dBu) of GPS coordinates, you could create your own contour maps with any of the other TIGER data that is available.

Example of marking a single point, inspect the URL


Lastly, if you haven't looked at Google Maps yet, wow are they cool.
http://maps.google.com
http://dunck.us/collab/GoogleMapsHacking

I would really like to try some coverage map kind of stuff with Google Maps, but haven't had time to look at the Google Map hacks. I did try some of the other stuff with Firefox and Greasemonkey and I am very impressed by how programmable their service is.