Organising Scouting/Planning notes

[hunnymonster]

So, it's just struck me that my current system of a notebook (paper) where every place I'm scouting out (typically online using OSMaps, Gmaps, Geograph etc) is on its own page with a prominent grid reference, what's there (as title) and a quick synopsis of the (potential) shot(s) to take is not working any more because I'm running out of pages and that more than once I've overlooked a nearby opportunity because the GR looks distant (or the aforementioned abundance of entries)

I've tried putting some of them into Google Maps (as a list of POIs); Google Earth (again as a list of POIs) - those kind of make sense in that I can open up the app on the phone if I find myself out with the camera... Bingo!

Seems like a massive chew on to transpose them from paper to online... Does anyone have any other ideas?

 

[Mr B]

As nobody else as replied here are some thoughts.

Criteria

• Easy to migrate from existing method
• Open for growth
• Portable – can use on phone
• Resilient to lack of internet access

So thoughts

• Sort out all your existing sheets by area. Don’t know how big a patch you are talking about, but if Yorkshire Dales Wensleydale would be one area, Swaledale another. Basically based on communication routes.
• Give each sheet a reference number within area.
• Get a screenshot map of area OS Map via Bing etc. and mark each reference on map. Easiest tool is Irfanview. Repeat for each area.
• Scan all your existing sheets as jpegs. Name each file with Area / Reference
• Make folder on PC for each area under a master folder. Add area map jpeg and scanned sheet jpegs
• If phone is Android (work out yourself if on iPhone) make folder under SD card \ DCIM for area folder and copy contents over. Get a bigger card if necessary!
• Use something like QuickPic as a viewer. It handles multiple folders well.

Once moved over can maintain by adding new scanned sheets, updating map and recopying

Ken

 

[hunnymonster]

• Don’t know how big a patch you are talking about,

Thanks Ken - the _main_ area of interest is England north of the Humber/Mersey/M62, Scotland, Ireland & North Wales... But I have a few others outside that patch... thinking I might try arranging on county lines (and if one county becomes too busy, further subdivide)

Or maybe the right thing is to get a (road) atlas and stickers - sticker the locations and then cross-reference...

 

[sirch]

because the GR looks distant

Not that this really addresses your main question but one way of ordering grid refs by proximity is to combine the digits as alternating eastings and northings, for example 340330E 508892N becomes 354008383902, you then sort those numbers. If you could be bothered to type the GRs into a spreadsheet along with notebook page and perhaps location name you would have a proximity index.

 

[hunnymonster]

Abandoning the 100km grid letters?

1km square SU9879 is 2km from TQ0079 for instance - that's essentially the hurdle to overcome (there's nothing of photographic value at either square)

 

[sirch]

The letters also have numbers, NY = 35 - https://www.le.ac.uk/ar/arcgis/OS_coords.html

 

[Mr B]

Getting away from the joy of doing sums with OS Refs, back to areas...

Probably worthwhile outlining what I now do and how I got there
In the beginning I had a card index system of photos to shoot. Many years ago this was replaced by text files.
About 15 years ago moved into Word documents including photos.
More recently stopped including photos as only an aide memoire of things to be taken.

I have a Word document for each area, and likely to be broken down onto sub-areas.
At the beginning there is a map showing sub-areas.
Tend to organise things geographically along communication routes so less likely to miss places.
Although use OS Grid refs for ‘off the road’ places now use decimal Lat / Long for ‘on road’ as a) can get from Google or Bing Maps and b) put into SatNav.
[I know my approach with Lat / Long may not work that well if you are wandering over mountains, but my day doing that is gone!]

For each word document I have a folder of ‘to get’ images normally grabbed as screenshots from internet.
File names start with area number so can easily relate between the two.
The map of the area is included and is always the first file in the folder so I can easily check.
Export word document as PDF and put on phone; copy photos to folder in phone.
Once taken shots in new area any old ‘to get’ shots trashed and notes updated. Resynchronise with phone etc

How do I define an area?

I break things down into manageable chunks.
Occasionally they are a county, but more often they a geographical entity – like ‘River Great Ouse and the Fens’.
They may be a National Park; they may be a single town.

North of the M62 I have 5 areas - North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales, Lake District, Northumbria (roughly Tees to Tweed) and York.

The North York Moors is subdivided

The Northern Scarp – Osmotherley round to coast​

The Coastal Strip – Seaward of A171 from Saltburn to Scarborough​

The Northern Moors and Eskdale.​

The Southern Moors. The Corallian rock along A170 north of the Vale of Pickering, and the valleys running north from it. Roughly inland of Scarborough to Helmsley.​

The Hambleton Hills and Western Moors. Along and to the west of the B1257 Stokesley - Helmsley road.​

Look at this on a map and you will see the pattern.
Then look at your pages for that area and see how they fit

Ken