[57north-announce] 57North Newsletter Winter 2014

[Tom Jones]

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Hello Hackers,

Welcome to the Winter 2014 Issue of the 57North Newsletter. 

The past three months have seen an uptake in radio activity by members of the
club. With members getting their first and more advanced radio licenses. Hibbie
ran an Open Street Map mapping weekend with visitors coming from across
Scotland to help map Aberdeen.

We welcome Tom as editor for the newsletter going forward.

-----
Membership 

September:  15  
October:    18
November:   17
December:   12

Current Account Balance:    £1,624.81

-----
Since the last newsletter:

Sep 13th:   EGM[1][2]
Oct  5th:   New Board of Directors announced[3]
Nov 22nd -  
	23rd:   OSM Mapping Weekend
Nov 30th:   Radio Field Trip
Dec 13th:   ARRL 10M DX Contest 

-----
Reports from members:

A Radio Field Trip

On a chilly but clear Sunday adventureloop, irl and Derecho went on a radio
field trip. The three of them went on a journey to Cairn 'o Mounth, but not
before visiting the Water of Feugh first. Having glanced at several locks on a
bridge railing and observed the water passing underneath the bridge, the space
members in question continued their quest to the cairn.

Once arrived at Cairn 'o Mounth, irl and Derecho set up their radio equipment
and got ready. Derecho used the magnetic loop he constructed at the hackerspace
and irl tuned a long wire that was running between a fence and some scrub. Both
of them were receiving many transmissions from other ham radio operators. If
you'd want to find a bit of unused radio spectrum, you'd be up for a challenge.

Several hours and a few frozen limbs later, a total of four contacts had been
made. The stations that were contacted were in The Netherlands, Belgium and
Sweden. Likely it would've been possible to get more contacts, but irl was
operating QRP (low transmitting power) and Derecho never advanced from the
mag loop to a dipole as his initial intention was.

All in all, the field trip was a success and will likely lead to more radio
experimentation in interesting locations by our space hams in the future.

-- Derecho 

Open Street Map Mapping Weekend

The weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of November saw the first Aberdeen Open
Street Map Mapping weekend take place at the hackerspace. This was
organised in partnership with others from around Scotland to draw on
their experience after a chance meeting at EMF Camp.

There were several purposes for the weekend: 
To give people a chance to learn about Open Street Map, learn how to 
gather information and submit it to the project.
To give those already involved a chance to work on certain areas they're
interested in, and collaborate with others on surveying others.
To stimulate discussion about not only open mapping, but ways to use 
the data contained within the OSM database.

We saw faces both familiar and new - there were attendees from Edinburgh
and Glasgow, as well as from around aberdeen. 

Day one opened with introductions, teas and coffees. There was a
discussion about what OSM is, and we moved on to demonstration and
discussion of how information is displayed, what information can be
added and some tools that are commonly used to record and sumbit data to the
project.

Once we were finished this, those of us who were new to the project went
on a short survey around the Market Street and shiprow area, logging the
walk with GPS traces (exported in gpx format), images and notes. 

During and after a brief working lunch, the recorded data was submitted
using either the in browser editor or josm, the dedicated osm developed
program. 

Following this, the attendees split off to do their own survey and
submission - some used historical data to add building outlines to the
map, some went to survey phone booths to add to the map, some got
excited by the prospect of adding bars and nightclubs to the map. Those
that remained enjoyed further discussion and learning about the OSM
project. 

The evening saw a chinese delivery for dinner, a few drinks in the
hackerspace and bed for all.

Day two was, for the most part, a much more focussed day of survey and
submission - national cycle route 1 was traced and updated, Castlegate,
Market Street, Marischal Street, King Street and Shiprow were all
studied and updated, and more building outlines were added.  Plenty of
discussion was had about lots of different elements of the project - map
projections, accuracy of information on the map, submission checking,
licence terms and adding information from sources that may not be
compatible with the OSM license were a subset of the topics covered.

All those that took part had a great time learning about OSM, ways to
contribute to the map and some of us picked up a new obsession to
continue playing with.

-- Hibbie

-----
Upcoming Events:

December 2014:
Thu 18th:   Christmas Pot Luck Dinner, bring a dish to the space for our own
            spin on a Christmas dinner. Note: There is no need for the dish to
            be Christmasy.
Fri 26th    57North goes to 31C3; Several members of the space will be heading 
- 2nd Jan   to Hamburg, Germany for the 31st Chaos Communictation Congress. 

-----
This newsletter cannot happen without the members of 57North, Hate it? It can
only be made better with your contributions. Something missing? Only things I
am told about are included. Love it? Awesome, make it better by submitting
articles.

[1]:	https://github.com/hackerdeen/meetings/blob/master/2014/2014-09-13-EGM-minutes.md
[2]:	http://lists.57north.co/pipermail/57north-announce/2014-September/000061.html
[3]:	http://lists.57north.co/pipermail/57north-announce/2014-October/000081.html

S2VlcCB0aGF0IGhhc2ggZm9yIGxhdGVyLCB0aGVyZSB3aWxsIGJlIDUxMiByZWFzb25zIHRvIHVzZSBpdA==

-- 
Tom
@adventureloop
adventurist.me

#pragma summon cthulhu
:wq
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