AirNav Systems Forum
AirNav RadarBox and RadarBox24.com => AirNav RadarBox and RadarBox24.com Discussion => Topic started by: Storm on August 29, 2008, 10:59:09 AM
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Hi,
We have 4 boxes set up and feeding in Kuwait. However, on the live feeder map none show. Well one shows near Kuwait but on the map it is showing as in Iraq. My question is where are the others?
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The locations shown on the feeder (network) map are based on where your IP address resolved to, not the physical location. SO, for example, my Radarbox is located in the far north of Scotland, but shows as being located in London on the map, because that's where my ISP is based.
Try using http://www.geobytes.com/ipLocator.htm from the PC.
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Fair enough tarbat. So how come there is only 1 feeder here (which shows it to be in Iraq) where are the rest? There are 4 feeders here.
Thanks for the help tarbat.
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That's interesting. Using tarbat's link, my IP location comes out at London.
I've just used http://whatismyipaddress.com/ (http://whatismyipaddress.com/), and it comes out as Skipton, Yorkshire.
They're both wrong, but Skipton is a bit closer - seems to be a black art!
I'm hoping that AirNav will allow us to enter our own lat/long to whatever accuracy we like for the Locations map in the next release.
Rod
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Mine shows Kuwait. But it isn't on the map?
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We use a geotoip look up table. Some won't find a country and hence are not shown. Anyway this topic has been discussed many times, use the search feature in the forum to do dig out the results.
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Mines Skipton too Rod!
Im about 60 miles away from there though.
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One day this may be addressed? I know there have been lots of posts (many have been mine!), but it's never really been resolved. I notice in another current thread that users have problems with identifying if and where feeds are occurring. The current IP map is a nonsense, and an alternative way of achieving this is desirable in my opinion - I'm in central France, but nowhere to be seen (IP in Germany!). Judging by the frequency at which the subject crops up, it must be worth taking another look...
DC
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I like the Planeplotter approach. You send a request to the Planeplotter server, and it replies telling you how many aircraft you uploaded and downloaded during the last sharing cycle.
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/2810786734_2bf1746ab3_o.jpg)
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This really is a request that actually won't really be used much we feel as is therefore not high by the list.
If it were to show accurate locations (by permissions by individual station) a customer would probably check it once just for the novelty factor and then never again. Furthermore we have received many emails from customers worried about the location data they enter. So therefore the map would be incomplete anyway.
The network map display is just approximate example of the coverage.
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AirNav keep saying that few people would use this feature, but it keeps coming up in the forum, so I'm not sure they're right!
Despite its great limitations, I admit to using the Network locations map quite a bit (the one without the blue coverage circles) as it gives a nice quick overview of what's available around the world.
Nobody's privacy would be compromised by an option in Preferences to tick if you want your location shown on the map, and allowing you to enter your location to whatever accuracy you wish, separately from their actual Home location.
People who don't tick the box would have their location shown from their IP address as happens now.
I think it would be interesting to allow people the option to identify themselves (by forum name, for example), when their pin is clicked on the map, so that we can see who's where.
All totally optional, and people will possibly enter wrong locations (accidentally or on purpose), but that's still an improvement on what we've got now, and I think it would be an enhancement for the many of us who bought RB partly because of the superb network feature.
Rod
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Agreed. An option to display either the actual coordinates inserted in the options menu or IP address would be good.
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Despite its great limitations, I admit to using the Network locations map quite a bit (the one without the blue coverage circles) as it gives a nice quick overview of what's available around the world.
Can you give us further detail on what you looking for, either just where the locations are countrywise or are you actually checking to see which airports they are close to and hence some due to IP location may be wrong?
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Hi Support
I use it first to see what areas of the world are currently being covered - I saw on the map just the other day that there was a box in Kenya - an area that I wouldn't normally bother looking at as we've never had coverage there before.
I also like to see the whereabouts of the box is that is giving particular coverage - for example I saw yesterday coverage extending far into the Atlantic west of Ireland - looked at the Location map and saw no evidence of a box anywhere near.
It's very frustrating to see no pins near, for example, the Azores, only to discover that we are in fact getting returns from there. Likewise Sao Paulo, where the pin is way up the Amazon, hundreds, possibly thousands of miles from where the returns are actually coming from.
Accuracy to within about 30 miles would be fine - I don't want to be able to pinpoint someone's house or office, but the current situation where ISP locations can hundreds of miles from where a particular box is will be just as miisleading to your potential customers as it is to your current ones!
I am aware that because the entry of a user's location would be voluntary and not necessarily very accurate, the map will not be perfect, but any improvement over the current situation must be worthwhile.
I regard the Network Locations Map as an integral part of your network service, summarising what's available and displaying what's going on. I do hope that you will be able to make these improvements (though I'll still LOVE RB if you don't!).
As an added extra, I think it would be nice to know that a particular person is sending network data - hence my idea of optionally entering a username that could be discovered by clicking a pin on the map. Our various travelling RB users could then be tracked (if they wanted to be). The RB Forum is a pretty good community and it would enhance it to know when particular people are online.
Just one user's opinion - hope it helps.
Rod
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In our specialised arena of interest, this current inept pinpoint map is farcical, and of little use to anyone. Airnav, surely you can recognise this?
What is required is the ability to locate a network contibutor - just a town would do (to accommodate the ultra shy). There is absolutely no point in blithely trumpeting how many units you've sold, and how many people populate the network if the information gleaned from this silly map is inaccurate, and can't even resolve which country we're in.
Personally, unless you can come up with a more useful solution, I think you'd be better off abandoning the current map completely.
DC
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Deadcalm,
The current map was NOT designed to be accurate, it just to give a example of what was on the network in the early days so please stop thinking that it is.
The shy customers do get very concerned about this (especially outside UK). In fact I am viewing the stats on the network at the moment and quickly looking down the towns and details entered about 20% have blanked them out which indicates they don't want to give any location information.
Taking on the ideas mention in this thread, we can add an option to allow to use your home location in RB. However looking at the above stats we would estimate 20%+ would not tick the option (even if the GPS location is not rounded up). So the map would not be accurate then either (but we could have accurate map pins in red and IP map pins in blue)
One of the arguments the shy customers give is why do other customers want to know my location when the aircraft picked up will be displayed in the network anyway.
The answer for that from the posts so far don't really add a great deal, we haven't seen such a big benefit from it.
Anyhow it has and has always been on the request list however I think we should all agree there are probally more features request in the actual RadarBox software which are probally best spending more time and discussions about :)