Tag: Wisconsin

Seen & Heard: Launching weather balloons and tracking endangered wildcats

“Seen & Heard” is a monthly feature of GPS World magazine, traveling the world to capture interesting and unusual news stories involving the GNSS/PNT industry.

Photo: Milos Bjelica/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

Drawing with GPS

According to Guinness World Records, a 982.53-mile, seven-day ride by David Schweikert was the “largest GPS drawing by bicycle”. His drawing of a cross spanned three U.S. states: Wisconsin, Nebraska and South Dakota. “GPS drawings,” or Strava art, are growing in popularity, with two other notable record attempts being made in the past 12 months. Schweikert completed his ride in May, but for Guinness World Records to consider a record official all documentation and data must be verified. There are also strict rules and regulations relating to mileage that deviates from the course. To stick strictly to the profile of the cross, Schweikert rode 35% of his trip on unpaved roads.

Photo: MattGush/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

Location Data and Accountability

The Connecticut State Police is under fire for failing to archive vehicle location data. While all police cruisers are equipped with location technology, only live data is available, reported CT Insider. Officials can locate a police cruiser when the vehicle is in use but cannot determine where it has been in the past. Experts and lawmakers told CT Insider that not archiving location data for some period of time is unusual, and they are worried that it could make it harder to hold troopers accountable when their conduct comes into question — including in multiple ongoing investigations examining allegations of ticket falsification within the force.

Photo: davemhuntphotography/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

Collars and Cats

The Saving Wildcats conservation project, based at Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands, is using tracking collars to study endangered wildcats. For the project, 19 wildcats were released into the park while a field research team monitored movement data and was alerted if any of the animals were hurt or killed. This project is a collaboration between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scotland, and the Cairngorms National Park Authority. The new kittens, born at RZSS’s Highland Wildlife Park, will be released into the wild next summer once they are aged six to eight months.

Photo: Croydon High School

High School Launches Weather Balloons

Croydon High School, in partnership with the University of Bath, has completed the Astrogazers project, which involved launching a weather balloon into space. On September 12, a team of girls from grades 5 through 11 successfully launched two meteorological balloons that ventured to an altitude of 32,380 m. The balloons carried essential equipment, including cameras, data loggers and GNSS receivers — all designed to explore how different materials respond to atmospheric conditions.

December 26, 2023
Companies achieve extended-range 5G data call over mmWave

Photo: JamesBrey/E+/Getty Images

U.S. Cellular, Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and Ericsson have successfully achieved the first extended-range 5G NR millimeter Wave (mmWave) data call in the U.S. on a commercial network.

The extended-range data call milestone was completed in Janesville, Wisconsin, over a more than 5-km distance with speeds greater than 100 Mbps. According to the companies, the achievement redefines the perception of 5G mmWave spectrum as an urban- or high-density-only deployment technology and offers new opportunities to use current infrastructure for broader 5G coverage.

This milestone demonstrates that mmWave can help close the “connectivity divide” and expand broadband services throughout rural, suburban, and urban communities. This breakthrough gives communications service providers a cost effective way to expand their coverage and deliver 5G experience to communities that previously were not serviced or may have lacked a reliable connection.

It will also open the door for new use cases, which will bring 5G benefits to homes and business everywhere, from urban to rural communities. For example, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) installations can provide a cost-effective way to deliver fiber-like internet speeds wirelessly over mmWave to institutions such as schools, hospitals and town halls, and for addressing some of the “last mile” challenges in rural areas. FWA provides the bandwidth required to support high definition streaming services that can improve experiences like remote education and remote healthcare in suburban and rural environments.

Mike Irizarry, chief technology officer, U.S. Cellular, said, “This is a key strategic milestone in our 5G evolution. Expanding 5G mmWave coverage enables us to offer high-speed broadband services to consumers and businesses in rural areas and underserved communities and reinforces our commitment to technological leadership for rural America. It is a concrete example where U.S. Cellular is driving innovation leadership in extended range technology from Ericsson and promoting the high-power device ecosystem enabled by Qualcomm Technologies.”

“This major milestone of using mmWave for an extended-range 5G data transfer is paving the way to implement fixed broadband services for broad coverage in urban, suburban and rural environments,” said Alejandro Holcman, senior vice president, engineering, Qualcomm Technologies. “With the introduction of the Qualcomm QTM527 mmWave antenna module as part of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System, we are empowering operators and OEMs to offer high-performance, extended-range multi-gigabit 5G broadband to their customers — which is both flexible and cost-effective, as they can leverage existing 5G network infrastructure.”

Per Narvinger, head of product area networks, Ericsson, said, “Ericsson is constantly pushing the boundaries of 5G technology to bring its benefits everywhere across the globe. Ericsson has a long and successful track record in extending coverage across generations of mobile technologies. Working with our partners, Ericsson has now demonstrated the commercial viability of long-range 5G radio capability for mmWave spectrum.”

The milestone was achieved by applying extended-range software to commercial Ericsson hardware — including AIR5121 and Baseband 6630 — and a 5G CPE device powered by the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System with the Qualcomm QTM527 mmWave antenna module.

September 17, 2020
Updated US Topo maps for Wisconsin add Census Bureau road data

Updated 2015 version of the Madison West US Topo quadrangle with orthoimage turned on. (1:24,000 scale. (1:24,000 scale).

The USGS US Topo map program has entered its third, three-year cycle of revising and updating the digital US Topo maps. To start this new cycle, the USGS National Geospatial Program is excited to announce the inclusion of U.S. Census Bureau’s Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) roads data for the new US Topo maps, starting with the state of Wisconsin.

“The addition of TIGER’s roads layer into the US Topo maps is a great example of how data from one agency can benefit another agency,” said Timothy Trainor, Chief, Geography Division, U.S. Census Bureau. “The Census Bureau and the USGS have a long history of collaboration and sharing. This is another win for the American public.”

The TIGER database is provided by the U.S. Census Bureau and was created before the 1990 census to provide over a million unique maps sheets to census enumerators. The TIGER was the basis for the first coast-to-coast digital map to modernize the once-a-decade count. Since 1990, TIGER has evolved into a dynamic mapping system that helped catapult the growth of the geographic information system industry and improve Census Bureau data products.

The TIGER database contains all geographic features — such as roads, railroads, rivers, and legal and statistical geographic boundaries — needed to support the Census Bureau’s data collection and dissemination programs. The TIGER/Line Shapefiles are constantly improving, updated annually, and available for free download.

TIGER’s roads layer includes 6.3 million miles of roads. The original TIGER GIS vector data are available for free download from the TIGER products page. TIGER data are public domain, so using these road data on US Topo removes a previous use restriction from this USGS map product

Other improvements to the new Wisconsin US Topo maps include the addition of the crowdsourced trail data from the International Mountain Bike Association, increased parcel land data (PLSS), and most recently, trail data from the U.S. Forest Service.

Additionally, segments of The Ice Age Trail, one of 11 National Scenic Trails, will continue to be featured on select US Topo maps. The USGS partnered with the National Park Service, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Ice Age Trail Alliance to incorporate the Ice Age Trail onto Wisconsin’s maps. The NPS is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

These new US Topo maps replace the second edition US Topo maps and are available for no-cost file download from The National Map, the USGS Map Locator & Downloader website , and several other USGS applications.

To compare change over time, scans of legacy USGS topo maps, some dating back to the late 1800s, can be downloaded from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.

January 4, 2016