NWAPRS serves: Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories,
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana

APRS® is a registered trademark of Bob Bruninga, WB4APR. All trademarks referenced herein remain the property of their respective owners. The copyright to the name "easyAPRS" is owned by James. D. Wagner.

This is a slightly re-worked version of documentation for the program "easyAPRS" being developed by Jim, KA7EHK.

All of the links referenced here were checked on Jan 29, 2001.

Here's a link to maps for the APRS/CE for Windows Mobile PDA: http://radioroom.org/public/APRS/Maps/

Map Images

There are many sources of free images which are usable as map backgrounds for easyAPRS. This list is by no means an exhaustive one. It is also likely to change as they all involve the internet and internet sites can change dramatically.

• Johns Hopkins University: A particularly nice set of U.S. state map images can be found at Johns Hopkins University's "Color Landform Atlas of the United States". The URL is http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/states.html These images are substantially rectangular and have a lat/lon grid around the outside edge. There is a shaded relief map (a bit gaudy, but crisp), a monochrome satellite landform image, and a color satellite landform image (strangely non-uniform in resolution for some states) for each state. Many also include a color satellite landform image with county boundaries. Not all images of a single state are at the same scale; different states may also be at different scales. Larger states such as Alaska and California are also provided with regional maps. To use one of these maps, view it with your internet browser, then copy it to your own computer; make sure that you save the full-size version of the image. Be careful with these maps because there is a border around the map, and the boundaries refer to the actual outer edge of the image; you need to figure out the effective lat/lon of the outer edges of the image, not the map inside the borders! In these images, corners frequently turn out to be difficult points because the scale at the bottom of the image is rather course. Make life easy; forget about the corner and click directly on a tic-mark.
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• There is a related set of map images from the same data source. This is at the Andrew Birrell U.S. Relief Map web page in the U.K. It includes a map for the entire U.S. and three regional maps (West, Central, and East). These maps are also in a variety of resolutions.
• TerraServer: Another interesting possibility is to use aerial photos from TerraServer at http://terraserver.microsoft.com. These are USGS aerial photos for parts of the United States. It would be necessary to gather smaller-area photos, then group them together in a mosaic using image-editing software. A problem is that lattitude and longitude are not indicated, you have to cross-reference between the images and another source of information. Most of the U.S. is now covered by these photos, and they do provide some fine-scale images that could be very desirable for APRS maps. The aerial photos could be particularly useful in search/rescue work, forest fires, etc, where you need details which are absent from road maps. You do need to be aware, however, that these photos are not recent and will not give a good representation of streets and roads in areas with recent change. In the west, some of them are old enough that land-use patterns, including logging, may now appear quite different from the picture. For example, logging clear-cuts in the pictures may now be grown over. Or, stream-courses may have changed as the result of recent flooding. The images are, themselves, mosaics, so grey-scale is not uniform. But, they are "free"!
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• GeoComm: An incredible source of map images can be found at GeoComm. From this page, click on "GIS Data Depot". This site makes maps available for download, free, or will "burn" a CD-ROM with the maps of your choice for a rather nominal fee. To go to the country selection, click the "Free Data" link in the left column. The next page allows selection of a country based on the first letter of its name; click "U" for United States or "C" for Canada. This click gives you a list of all the countries whose name begins with the letter you clicked. Clicking "C", for example, gives you Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, and more.

  For some countries, you have only "Nation wide Data" available in the next window. Some others, such as Canada and U.S., have further subdivisions. Most of the Nation wide Data maps are NOT usable for easyAPRS unless you have the ability to translate them into a usable format (TIFF, JPG, GIF, etc). Check the Data Translators on the initial page for one that might work in your case.

  As mentioned, with some countries, there is a second selection on the first nation page. For Canada, the choice is "Province wide Data" and for the U.S., it is "State wide Data". There is a similar choice for Australia. Clicking this item gives you a list of states or provinces. Most of these outside of the United States have the same map format problem as the Nation-wide Data maps; the format cannot be read by easyARPS. Translation is required.

  In the United States, however, we are in "luck". Choose a state, lets say "Ohio". The next page give you the choice of "State wide Data" or "County wide Data". Most of the State wide choices have our, by now, familiar format problem, or are available for sale, only. But, click on the "County wide Data" option. Here, it becomes interesting. The next page gives you a list of all of the counties in the state. Click on any county name you might want. Now, we get a very different list of map types than what have appeared in the previous windows. Here is a list of the available maps, what they show, and their usability for easyAPRS. Understand that this list may be different for different states or counties, though many or most of the choices should be present for most counties. For more information about map formats, check GeoComm About GIS Data.

  1. County USGS Bundles are purchase-only on CD-ROM.
  2. Administrative/Political shows the county boundaries, city boundaries, township boundaries, etc. The format is "DWG" which is an AutoCAD format not usable by easyAPRS. AutoCAD can convert a "DWG" into a "DXF".
  3. Geologic shows geological information. The format is "DXF" which is also an AutoCAD format. easyAPRS MAY be able use this format.
  4. Transportation shows roads, railroads, etc. These maps are often from the state highway department so the format may vary from state to state. There is often also a US Census Bureau "TGR" format map which is not usable by easyARPS.
  5. Administrative/Political Boundaries - 24K are the same scale as the familiar "7.5 minute topographic maps" (about 3" to 1 mile). They are in "STDS" or "DLG" format, neither of which is usable by easyAPRS.
  6. Digital Elevation Models (DEM) - 24K are also the same scale as the 7.5 minute topographic maps. They, however, have only elevation information, and are in "STDS" format (unusable). In states checked, there are only a few of these for any county.
  7. Digital Raster Graphics (DRG) - 24K is finally one we can use. These ARE the familiar 7.5 minute topographic maps. They are in TIF format and easyAPRS CAN display them. Size is moderate (1Meg to 4Meg) but they don't cover a very large area. This is great for search/rescue situations where you are able to view exactly the same map used by field searchers. Be aware that some of these are noticeably rotated within the image frame and this might cause problems, especially near the corners.
  8. Hydrography - 24K DLG shows water information. They are not useable since the format is "STDS".
  9. Hypsography - 24K DLG shows topography (elevations) using the 1929 Vertical Datum of the United States. These are "STDS" and so are unusable.
  10. Public Land Survey System - 24K DLG are small "STDS" format maps which show the locations of bench marks and other surveying reference information.
  11. Transportation - 24K DLG are small "STDS" format maps showing roads, highways, railroads, etc.
  12. Administrative/Political Boundaries - 100K DLG - shows city and county boundaries over a much larger area than the 24K maps. The scale translates to 1 map inch for every 1.5 miles, approximately. These are "STDS" format.
  13. Digital Raster Graphics (DRG) - 100K. These take a few to cover a common county, usually just because the county boundaries don't coincide with the map boundaries. These are TIF format and easyAPRS CAN use them. They are large (typically 5Meg-8Meg) and have a moderate level of detail. Most roads are shown and coarse topographic information is shown.
  14. Hydrography - 100K DLG. See comments about hydrography, above.
  15. Hypsopgraphy - 100K DLG. See comments about hypsography, above.
  16. Public Land Survey System - 100K DLG. See comments above about public land survey system.
  17. Transportation - 100K DLG. See comments above about transportation.
  18. Digital Raster Graphics (DRG) - 250K are even larger scale than 100K. This scale is about 4 miles to the inch. Only a few maps are required for an average size state so the listing for each county commonly only shows one. Check the other counties for the remainder of the maps for full state coverage. There is less detail than 100K maps - fewer roads and less topographic detail. The file size is about the same as the 100K DRGs. Like the other DRG maps, these are TIF format.
  19. Landuse/Land Cover - 250K are "GIRAS" or "CTG" formats and can't be used by easyAPRS.

  You will get faster and smoother operation if you convert the TIF-format image into almost anything else. Most desirable would probably be JPG, GIF, BMP, or PICT. Even though the latter is a Macintosh-oriented format, easyAPRS can use it on either Mac or Windows platforms. The Macintosh share-ware application "Graphic Converter" is outstanding for this. In Windows, "Internet Explorer 4" handles these TIF files very poorly; later versions might be better. Something equivalent to "PaintShop" is probably desirable.

• Local Maps: With a little work, you can also create pretty good map images from the maps available through internet search-engine sites such as Yahoo and AltaVista. Many of these use an address or other location descriptor (city/state) as a starting point. But once there, you can usually scroll to adjacent areas. Here, in no particular order is a list of a few of these sources:
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  • AltaVista
  • Yahoo
  • MapQuest (world-wide)
  • MapBlast
  • Microsoft Expedia (world-wide)
  • AltaVista Looksmart World-Wide map index
  • TopoZone (topographic maps)

  You can get fine-scale maps down to the block level (for some areas). You can copy these small maps to your local computer, then join them with any image-editing software into a much larger image. This gives you the capability to zoom well out, yet in to the finest detail you choose. It takes some work, but it is fairly straightforward, and inexpensive! On Macintosh computers, the share-ware application "Graphic Converter" is excellent for this purpose. In Windows, you can even do it with MSPaint!