Map trading / Government freeze on public sales
From: Timmus (nospam.timmus_at_no.spam)
Date: 12/23/04
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Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 07:48:27 GMT
As some of you may know, the Department of Defense announced plans to cease
selling aeronautical charts to the public by October 1, 2005 (pending
public comment). It's pretty much the top item on the page at
http://www.nima.mil and was carried in the Federal Register on Nov. 18.
Since most of their charts are available on CD-ROM in ADRG format, viewable
with ArcReader and shareware GIS utilities, I figured this would be a good
time to start a trading ring, which I've created here:
http://www.ngamaps.com/
http://www.ngamaps.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10 (FAQ)
I can't even begin to describe what a loss the TPC charts would be... if
you want to see a samples, look at this sample from the UT Perry-Castaneda
online map site, for Astrakhan, Russia:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/astrakhan_tpc_91.jpg
The TPC map series can be found on a lot of journalism, research, and
adventuring sites, and comprise about the best topographic and road/rail
detail that can be obtained for any foreign country, short of buying maps
from that foreign country. The problem is there are 548 maps we all have
to get CD-ROMs for just to get all the TPC maps. :)
Even if the plans to shut down public access are aborted, this will help
diffuse these great charts far and wide, as the government currently
charges $14 per disc, and that buys 50 CD-Rs.
The more map geeks that find out about this trading site, the better.
Admittedly this is not as fun as trading MST3K or baseball cards, but these
are darn good maps. Many thanks if you can pass on the link to anyone
interested.
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