RE: NO AMA RESPONSE AFTER TWO E-MAILS ??
Hi Guys - Well first in response to JR's questions. I choose two names out of different AMA departments that I thought would have something to do with this type of info. It's been over two months now, but I also realize we just went through the election of officers during this same time period.
As far as Bill Lee's fantastic Club Locater, I think it is great. I would highly recommend this tool for everyone when trying to find a club in a certain area.
As far as each club being required to produce coordinates for the 2005 charter membership paperwork, I heard about that about 1/2 way through gathering this info. What I have not seen is any type of consistent coordinate format. Longitude and Latitude can actually be represented in 3 different formats. They are Decimal Degrees, Degree's - Decimal Minutes (which is the most common) and then Degrees - Minutes - Decimal Seconds. Accuracy of course can vary depending on equipment, the knowledge of what projection to ask for the coordinates to be taken in, and when shown on paper how many decimal places are presented.
Taildragger - Thanks for the comment. I also like going to the source when I can't get it done any other way. May be the next option, but in a friendly sort of way, I am only wanting to share this info with everyone. If you go to AMA's site and look for clubs with links to Club Homepages, you'll find about 300+ that give enough info to actually find the club. Tower Hobbies site also has a similar list, but oddly enough it doesn't duplicate AMA's list. So what I have done is to tie these two list in together, and then add about 100 of my own.
scrcc_guy - I'm with you on this one, I don't think they know what to do with this much info. What I had a vision of was an interactive map, which you could start by clicking on to start zooming down into. As you zoomed in closer more details would show up, such as roads and city names along with the RC field locations I have. When you got close enough to determine whether your own field was on the map or not you could either click on it to see the info I've gathered or click a submit button which would bring up a form you could fill out which I would receive, and then enter your clubs info into the database. Kind of like one of those maps you see during vacation that asks you to stick a pin in representing your hometown. You could also then download either the excel version or one of the other streets and trip type formats for different software brands.
I know this map is kind of boring, but it will give you an idea of what 760+ sites look like, but I know it could easily go into the 1000's if I could find em'all. This data is a lot of fun during vacations. I've been able to show up at some fields in the middle of know where, and had a blast talking to the club members, and then explaining how I was able to locate them.
Thank you all for your appreciation of this info.
Edited to try and upload map second time.