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Unified Code For Airports

ocarina_21

By ocarina_21
in General geocaching topics

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ocarina_21

ocarina_21

Posted
Posted

Often times there are caches by airports. This is good for weary travellers and jetsetting travel bugs. But I think there should be some sort of unifying code to put in the cache title so you can search for airport caches when you're out on a flying trip and have some time to cache. It would be much easier than finding the postal code of the airport. What do you think? :)

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StarBrand

+StarBrand

Posted
Posted (edited)

Best to mention it in the cache descriptions - I don't think we need any more attributes added. Also I kind of like the unique names of caches - many make a lot of sense after visiting the area.

 

BTW - can't find it now but I once saw a website that had the Lat/Long for many airports around the US.

Edited by StarBrand
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The Leprechauns

+The Leprechauns

Posted
Posted

I own several caches near Pittsburgh International Airport, but there's no way I want to be forced to add "PIT" into the cache names. All my caches follow a common theme with their names, and "PIT" just don't FIT.

 

I would not mind having an attribute like "Convenient to an Airport." This would help attract out of town visitors to these caches, which are in suburban parks just minutes from main traffic arteries in and out of town. Fizzymagic fell into my evil trap when he found one of them. :)

 

In considering this issue, we should be mindful of the fact that caches "at or near" airports are "off limits" under the listing guidelines. I wouldn't want a feature that would lead to misunderstandings, i.e., improper cache placements. All of my "convenient to an airport" caches are more than a mile away from the security perimeter.

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Elde

+Elde

Posted
Posted

Often times there are caches by airports. This is good for weary travellers and jetsetting travel bugs. But I think there should be some sort of unifying code to put in the cache title so you can search for airport caches when you're out on a flying trip and have some time to cache. It would be much easier than finding the postal code of the airport. What do you think? :)

If you can get acess to Geocaching.com, you have acess to Google. Find the zip codes simply isn't that hard. It took me 22 seconds (measured) to find the zip code for my nearest airport - and I didn't even know the correct name...

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Confucius' Cat

+Confucius' Cat

Posted
Posted

Lots of good ideas here, and putting something in the cache description would be a good idea, it should just be put forward to the powers that be that it should be possible to search for anything in the cache description.

 

Great idea!

 

Keyword search.

 

Perhaps a little processor intensive, but certainly doable.

 

What are the arguments against this, hmmm?

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robertlipe

robertlipe

Posted
Posted

I was going to open with witty remark about what Mopar does like, but I decided to save our Forum Moderators some effort...

 

This totally seems like a job for a computer. It's not like airports move around a lot. At least in the US, the FAA like them to stay still and they like to know where they are. Thus lists of airports with coords are plentiful. There are big lists that have every grass field (I was shocked at how many airports there _really_ are) and there are small lists that have the bigger airports. From those lists, building a table of linky links to the 'search by coordinates' page is easy.

 

Start with a data set like http://www.geneseeab.com/Hobbies/airstuff/FAA%20CODES.htm

or http://www.faa.gov/arp/planning/npias/npia...dB/ArptMaps.xls

 

Pick your favorite aiport. I choose "Ketchican, AK"

KTN KETCHIKAN, ALASKA 55.35557 -131.71374

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.asp...1.71374&dist=10

 

Obviously, the dist param would be picked based on your mode of transport, density, etc. What works well in Ketchican works poorly for Los Angeles.

 

The same technique works for "caches near state capitols" or "caches near TA rest stops" or anything else that has lists of published coords.

 

Anything that requires a field to be populated by the placer is doomed to fail. Building a dynamic page to get the caches within N miles of airport X is an afternoon job for a PHP/ASP programmer with something to prove. The pieces are all there; it's a mere matter of assembling them, and not even terribly hard to do for the single special case if done manually.

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fizzymagic

+fizzymagic

Posted
Posted
Building a dynamic page to get the caches within N miles of airport X is an afternoon job for a PHP/ASP programmer with something to prove. The pieces are all there; it's a mere matter of assembling them, and not even terribly hard to do for the single special case if done manually.

The real issue here is whether a page full of such links would somehow violate this site's TOS. IANAL, so I don't know, but I am kinda paranoid about that.

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Chamma

+Chamma

Posted
Posted

I visit many countries. I fly into many airports. It is easy enough to find the lat,long for them on the internet. When I find out I'm going someplace new I do the research my self. I consider it part of the search. I agree with robertlipe airports do move very far once the are place.

 

I took a cruise recently. I do think there needs to be an icon for ports were cruise ships dock. Ohoh and one for major interstate/autobahn intersections. And rest areas they are good places oh I have an idea lasts make an icon for what planet they are on.

 

Ok I might have gotten a little carried away. Do the research your self, its part of the fun.

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sbell111

+sbell111

Posted
Posted (edited)

There is only one way to do this that makes sense:

 

Groundspeak should have a database of airport codes and their coordinates, and then you can just search based on the airport code. This would work exactly the same as zip code search.

That would be so cool. :mad:

Its too bad that there isn't a button to click on and pull up 'caches near here'.

Edited by sbell111
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The Leprechauns

+The Leprechauns

Posted
Posted

If sbell111 posted to this thread, he would probably point out that it would be cool if the Waymarking pages each contained a link to the nearest geocaches. I would agree with this. There is not yet a lot of integration between the two sites, but the Waymarking site is in its infancy. We've already witnessed the recent addition of a "nearby waymarks" link on each cache page, so who's to say that there won't be a "nearest geocaches" link someday on each waymark page?

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edscott

+edscott

Posted
Posted

I own several caches near Pittsburgh International Airport, but there's no way I want to be forced to add "PIT" into the cache names. All my caches follow a common theme with their names, and "PIT" just don't FIT.

 

How about GCPIT1, GCPIT2, GCLAX1 or GCPHL1 etc as the waypoint.. not the title of the cache?

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robertlipe

robertlipe

Posted
Posted
Building a dynamic page to get the caches within N miles of airport X is an afternoon job for a PHP/ASP programmer with something to prove.

The real issue here is whether a page full of such links would somehow violate this site's TOS. IANAL, so I don't know, but I am kinda paranoid about that.

 

Yeah, I don't suggest taking legal advice from me any more than I'd accept advice on how to write an interrupt handler from my attourney, BUT this seems OK. After all, you're just building 'deep links' to the search page, you're not actually acquiring or republishing any information from the site itself. There would be no opportunity for stale data since you're just 'helping' to index the site in another way and referring back to the mothership for the actual cache data.

 

I agree that the TOU of this site make it very difficult to provide value added services, but a page of links that would take you effectively take you straight to the results of a search page with coords/distanrce filled in doesn't seem evil.

 

If I post a link the says "I like to cache in Anchorage" I can't see that as violation.

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StarBrand

+StarBrand

Posted
Posted

I was going to open with witty remark about what Mopar does like, but I decided to save our Forum Moderators some effort...

 

This totally seems like a job for a computer. It's not like airports move around a lot. At least in the US, the FAA like them to stay still and they like to know where they are. Thus lists of airports with coords are plentiful. There are big lists that have every grass field (I was shocked at how many airports there _really_ are) and there are small lists that have the bigger airports. From those lists, building a table of linky links to the 'search by coordinates' page is easy.

 

Start with a data set like http://www.geneseeab.com/Hobbies/airstuff/FAA%20CODES.htm

or http://www.faa.gov/arp/planning/npias/npia...dB/ArptMaps.xls

 

Pick your favorite aiport. I choose "Ketchican, AK"

KTN KETCHIKAN, ALASKA 55.35557 -131.71374

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.asp...1.71374&dist=10

 

Obviously, the dist param would be picked based on your mode of transport, density, etc. What works well in Ketchican works poorly for Los Angeles.

 

The same technique works for "caches near state capitols" or "caches near TA rest stops" or anything else that has lists of published coords.

 

Anything that requires a field to be populated by the placer is doomed to fail. Building a dynamic page to get the caches within N miles of airport X is an afternoon job for a PHP/ASP programmer with something to prove. The pieces are all there; it's a mere matter of assembling them, and not even terribly hard to do for the single special case if done manually.

 

Sounded like a challenge

 

Quick and a bit crude but it works. Hope nobody thinks this violates the TOU

 

StarBrand's Rendition of an Airport Search Page

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Mopar

+Mopar

Posted
Posted

Best to mention it in the cache descriptions - I don't think we need any more attributes added.

That would be a fine idea, if it were possible to search on cache descriptions.

It seems like it would be a pretty harsh load on the servers to allow an open-ended search of the entire cache description, since the current keyword search looks at every non-archived cache in the database.

 

Of course, it is possible to search the full cache descriptions offline, using any number of free, shareware, or cheap programs and PQs. Guess that could be considered another perk of becoming a premium member. :D

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robertlipe

robertlipe

Posted
Posted
Building a dynamic page to get the caches within N miles of airport X is an afternoon job for a PHP/ASP programmer with something to prove.
Sounded like a challenge

 

Yes, it was indeed meant to be a "see, this really isn't a terribly hard thing for a programmer to stamp out" challenge (I hope you'll agree) and not a "nanny nanny boo boo nobody can possibly do that" challenge. I see you had the right impression. What you've built is very much what I imagined.

 

I wish I could talk more people into implementing these kinds of ideas. :-) Thanx for tackling it.

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StarBrand

+StarBrand

Posted
Posted
Building a dynamic page to get the caches within N miles of airport X is an afternoon job for a PHP/ASP programmer with something to prove.
Sounded like a challenge

 

Yes, it was indeed meant to be a "see, this really isn't a terribly hard thing for a programmer to stamp out" challenge (I hope you'll agree) and not a "nanny nanny boo boo nobody can possibly do that" challenge. I see you had the right impression. What you've built is very much what I imagined.

 

I wish I could talk more people into implementing these kinds of ideas. :-) Thanx for tackling it.

 

No wasn't hard once you gave the hints to get me started... Thanks!!

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