Introduction

In order to support our continued growth, both in scale and global coverage, we are in the process of doing some cleanup and reorganization in the way the Programs, Locations, DX Entities, and Parks are stored in the database.

Parks are managed by governments, and governments are based in countries and subdivisions (eg: states/provinces/prefectures, etc). Thus, the design decision has been made to base our primary organizational structure on ISO-3166-2 which “defines codes for identifying the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries”.

We implement a mapping to the ARRL DXCC list to assist our users in working with other aspects of the hobby. This implementation is purely for reference purposes and may or may not be complete and/or be 100% accurate to ARRL’s DXCC list.

To date, we have not been entirely consistent with one method or the other, which has led to some prefix/name conflicts and a few issues with getting parks in the right place.

There will be changes to the park numbering scheme and other areas in the POTA program. Skip to the bottom to the see types of changes. Continue reading for more details.

About Our Data Structure

To understand the data improvements we are working on, it is helpful to understand the basic structure of our database. This is a very simplistic breakdown purely for the context of data improvements and changes.

Program

This is our top-level organizational heading, and should ALWAYS align with ISO-3166-2. This is an internationally created and managed specification for the organization of countries and their primary subdivisions. This means that each Program will have a two letter prefix (eg: US for the United States, EC for Ecuador, GB for United Kingdom, etc).

All Programs require:

Code (aka prefix)
Name

Both of these values should come from the ISO 3166-2 standard.

Location

This is our second-level organization heading, and aligns with ISO-3166-2 whenever possible. In cases where this is impractical (eg: where the subdivision code is purely numeric and would therefore overlap with park reference coding), we refer to statoids.com or, as a final option, create codes to fit our requirements.

All Locations require:

Code
Name
Latitude
Longitude
Entity

Code and Name values should come from ISO-3166-2 standard whenever possible. Codes are a 2 letter prefix plus a 2 or 3 letter location designator. The Entity value refers to the Entity object the Location is part of.

DX Entity

DX entities refer to DXCC entity prefixes as published by the ARRL. POTA relates Programs and Locations with DX Entities, but the DX Entity is not part of the organization structure, as it does not map directly to ISO standards, prefixes may not be unique and/or overlap, etc.

All DX Entities require:

Name
DXCC Prefix
Program

Name and DXCC Prefix should come from the ARRL’s DXCC list. The Program links it to the proper POTA program.

Park

The primary unit of measure for Parks on the Air is, of course, the Park. All parks require the following information:

Program
Location(s)
Name
Type
Latitude
Longitude

Parks may have multiple Locations. Parks are mapped to Entities through the Locations. Types are selected from a pre-defined list of park types. The Name should be capitalized as per the language requirements, but should never be in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

Types of Changes

Cleanup

These changes are being done by our park administration team, mostly in batch actions. Once the main cleanup and reorganization project is complete, these changes will be more rare and only appear as we ADD to the system.

Program Name - Update all Program names to match ISO standard.
Program Code - Update all Program prefix codes to match ISO standard. Since Park reference codes are based on this prefix, this requires park references to be updated as well.
Location Name - Update all Location names to match ISO/statoids as needed. Also fixing typos, misspellings, and inconsistent language choices.
Location Code - Update all Location codes to match ISO/statoids as needed.
Location Lat/Lon - Update all Location latitude and longitude where incorrect or missing.
Location Entity - Update Entity mapping to best match ARRL DXCC list where possible.
DX Entity Name - Update all DX Entity names to match ARRL DXCC list where possible. To better align with Program and Location names, we do not abbreviate certain word such as Island, unlike the ARRL DXCC list.
DX Entity DXCC Prefix - Update all DX Entity DXCC prefix values to match the list. Where the ARRL list defines a range or multiple prefixes (eg: 5Y-5Z, 4X,4Z), we use the first one.
DX Entity Program - Update DX Entity mapping to Programs to best link the two systems.
Park Reference - Update Park reference code ONLY when the Program code changes.

Quality Control

These changes are done by all of our park editor volunteers in an ongoing manner.

Park Name - Update Park name for accuracy whenever possible.
Park Type - Update available Park type options as we encounter new types.
Park Lat/Lon - Update the Park latitude and longitude where incorrect or missing.
Park Info - Update additional information such as Websites, Accessibility and Activation methods, etc.

Ways You Will Notice These Changes

Most of these changes, particularly the batch work, will be very noticeable.

Large numbers of parks will get updated reference codes. Most of the time, this will simply be the prefix changing, while the numeric portion remains the same. Some groups may require renumbering as they are merged with other park groups that may already contain the same reference numbers. A good example of this will be the cleanup on Great Britain.
Parks may appear to “move” as Program/Location/Entity data is updated and more accurate.
Awards will eventually shift around to match the new Program/Location organization. Entity based awards will eventually map to DXCC entity organization.
It may require some time (potentially weeks) for various statistics and metrics to update.
At this time, all awards which are currently earned will remain in your award list. In the future, some awards may have more or less requirements. These changes should be known as more data is updated. Future communications will inform of specific changes to awards logic.