User talk:Wenslayer

Welcome to the area!

Greetings! It's nice to see another Western BC geohasher. - Elbie 18:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wenslayer, fabulous. Do you have a bicycle? Vancouver geohashers come to your graticule all the time. SO cool to have a local there. There have been some excellent Victoria geohashers. Too bad you weren't active a few weeks ago when you could have joined us for Geohashing Day! -Robyn 19:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the nice welcome, Elbie & Robyn -- I've read a few of your adventures, and yes, it's unfortunate I didn't join up a month earlier. Yes, I have a (road) bike, but no kayak :-). Oh, and no GPS (yet) -- any advice? Weekend hashes will be the easiest for me to pursue since I work full time. --Wenslayer 19:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I was able to do a no batteries hash in Saanich using Google Maps print-outs. It's a bit inexact, but works on land. Pick a closeby landmark and use the map legend to determine its distance from the point. I then use my bike's odometer to measure it out. As for getting GPSes, you can find old ones on eBay for cheap (>20$), or head over to MEC to get one new (120$). Also, if you're doing it on a weekend, you can opt meet up with me or another hasher with a GPS. I hop over to your graticule on weekends fairly often. - Elbie 19:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hehe! Your wiki page is less than a day old and you've already been mobbed by Vancouver! Glad to hear we finally have someone on the island! I already can't wait to get back to Canada to meet you! And don't let the lack of technology stop you, google maps are more than accurate enough. I bought my GPS on sale at London Drugs for really cheap, and geohashing really doesn't require anything fancy. Looking forward to your first expedition report! Thepiguy 22:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Generator

Can you please generate one of those retrohash diagrams for 49 -123? How do I tell the date of any particular one? -Robyn 00:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I've submitted the script to the Perforce Public Depot; the script can be downloaded here: gen_geohash_kml.sh. Usage is here:

Usage: gen_geohash_kml.sh -g <graticule> [-s <source file>]
        -g: specify the graticule of interest (form: <latitude,longitude>)
        -s: source file to use (file format: YYYY-MM-DD,<DOW>,<LAT>,<LON>)
                default: '-' for standard input

Notes:
* You can get *all* retro Geohash data from:
  http://www.amipsychic.net/geohashing.html
* Resulting KML file is displayed to standard out.
* You may wish to pre-process the source file to only show dates of interest.
  E.g.: grep "^2009" allcoords.csv | gen_geohash_kml.sh -g 49,-123 > 2009.kml

Reference:
* http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/

Using the source data, Geohash coordinates can be generated for every day since October 1st, 1928 (over 80 years worth), so with a little filtering, you should be able to generate a KML file for whatever date range and graticule you'd like. If you like, I can generate one for you; just let me know the date range you're interested in.

--Wenslayer 01:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)