[aprssig] APRStt and SAR

[Jim Lux]

Many USAR teams use Garmin products and the associated mapping tools 
(Basecamp, etc.).  The departments with high dollar budgets tend to use 
GIS systems based on Arc/Info and they import the track files from the 
Garmin.

What's interesting is that FEMA is in the process of developing and 
promulgating a standard for various waypoint designations and related 
icons (e.g. victim located, Base of Operations, etc.).

As with all such systems, there is paperwork and reporting (metrics are 
important) generally taken care of by some group of folks in the 
Planning or Logistics sections at the base.

You probably want to interoperate with such systems, so some awareness 
of the databases generated would be useful.  There is a big, big push to 
get all this stuff together someday, even if today it's pretty ad-hoc. 
There is an expectation that you'll be generating data that can 
moderately seamlessly be imported into tools like Arc/Info or Google 
Maps, and if it can't, your idea will eventually be left by the wayside.

http://www.fema.gov/data-feeds

in particular, you may wish to look at this:
http://www.geoplatform.gov/
http://fema.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html
etc

There are, in fact, standards for how data should be presented, and in 
particular, someone needs to create an appropriate metadata description 
for whatever format you want to use, so that other tools can ingest your 
data.


https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/11053
is a document that describes "point symbology"

http://usngcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/DF109B_GPS_for_Disaster_Operations_Draft.pdf

is a document describing the use of GPS for disaster ops.

https://emgis.oa.mo.gov/dps/doc/GIS%20and%20WAS_web.pdf

is how GPS is being integrated into Wide Area Searches.


There's tons more out there..

73,
Jim Lux
W6RMK