A Google Earth Question …

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Someone here is sure to know … but I don’t

What ‘co-ordinate system’ is used for the identifier

7J9R+P9 Saint Asaph

… as pictured here:

?

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I don’t like not knowing !!

and popping it into a Google search just locates it

MichaelG.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

It’s a plus code. A bit like “What Three Words” but a Google version. It’s for places that do not have an official address so that you can still get deliveries.

https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/learn/#case-studies

Martin C

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, Martin … much appreciated

MichaelG.

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P.S. __ What really got me wondering was the fact that just searching for 7J9R+P9 [ without Saint Asaph ] finds a different place.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

I’ve been having a play myself, and on a PC at least, it’s not as obvious as I’d hoped, even viewing the help files.
Sorry about lots of screenshots, I know they annoy some people, but it seemed the easiest way to explain; I just hope they don’t all go AWOL.

I might be missing the blindingly obvious, but I can’t find a way to generate a + code from my normal Google Maps front page; this one just links to Buxton generally.
e.g. I can zoom in to the tourist information, right click and get a Lat/Long, but can’t fins a + code anywhere

If however, I use a +code Google Maps front page, I get a different interface, note the different URL
I can now zoom in on the same location and find the box at the bottom of the screen, which is mentioned in the help pages;

Just copy/pasting that into the normal Google maps page is less than helpful, as unlike W3W, it’s not unique

Even specifying England doesn’t help that much

But add Buxton, and it works fine, even though “Buxton” vanishes from the search box when you press return

The odd thing, which took me a while to get my head around, if you just use the general Google search engine, rather then Google Maps, to search for the +code, you get an extra help link on the final displayed map.

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, Bill

It was just that I suddenly noticed its existence whilst using Google Earth, and wondered what it was all about.

For your amusement … I have just returned from a 35 mile round trip [actually spirals] looking for that wretched Airfield, and never actually finding it.

It may have been beyond the very private-looking gate protecting a driveway, which the GPS wanted to send me down … but I shall probably never know!

I did, however locate the cell-phone tower in an adjacent field [which is what I was really looking for]

MichaelG.

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Edit:__ https://www.alfs-airfields.com/home/uk/bryngwyn-bach/

 

 

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Looking at the grass pattern on the aerial photo, I suspect you found it.
Now just a grass landing strip, once used by a gliding club
This gate in the NE corner??

GSV Here

From Anquet OS maps Local Colour

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

No, not that gate, Bill … According to the GPS on the ‘phone it was a named road, but in reality looked like a private drive with metal framed close-boarded gates.

By this time, I was probably on my fourth lap of some very narrow roads, had given-up on the car GPS and was letting Apple have a go.

Too weary at the moment, but I will have a look on the Street View sometime and see if I can locate it, just for the record.

MichaelG.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Glad you found it, I had all sorts of amusements locating them when I was recommissioning cell sites for the original 3G rollout all over the south of England.
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but they are all due to be decommissioned soon.

Personally I’d settle for anyG at the moment. O2’s local mast was vandalised early December. Latest updates are at least end of Jan before a fix.
I ended up driving up the Cat & Fiddle a couple of weeks ago, so I could receive a text for 2 factor authentication on my bank account, in order to set up a new DD for Jane’s Plusnet to EE mobile transfer.
I could then phone home, so she dould enterit back here before it timed out.
This was due to Plusnet/EE turning off 3G soon.

The lesson for this one, is that if you have 2 factor authentication set up on any account, make sure there is a method available if the mobile signal goes down. 4G/WiFi calling will probably work, or email etc.
In a big city you might be OK,. as a text will often get through, on a weak signal where a mobile call fails, but if there is only one mast in the area, you’re out of luck

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I’m having fun & games at the moment, Bill … a triangulation exercise:

As you probably recall, I have next to no signal [of any G]  at the house, and that Android App that you kindly recommended a while ago, basically reports the whole of my morning walk route as being ‘not’

Since I got the iPhone, it’s rather better … in that I can get a 4G connection within a couple of hundred yards of the house … but it’s not been obvious which tower it’s using.

So I have OpenSignal installed … which points a big fat arrow in the direction of the  best available signal … and I am slowly building a map of which towers are useable.

Trouble is: it only points to one tower at any one time, and doesn’t identify it … so as I walk around the circuit, it switches between towers.

MichaelG.

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Ref. https://www.opensignal.com/

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

No, not that gate, Bill … According to the GPS on the ‘phone it was a named road, but in reality looked like a private drive with metal framed close-boarded gates.

These ones?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/AuyeGsBiDFiYqqi56

There is a public footpath down there that runs down the far side of the “airfield”.

The gates that @Peak4 posted above are the entrance to the old gliding club. They are about 100 yards down the small road from an un-numbered exit from the West bound carriageway of the A55 between junctions 30 and 29 (if you don’t want to go around the lanes – it is a bit of a maze up there).

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, Andy … but no

Possibly the right location [?] but, as I said, the gates were close-boarded, so I couldn’t see the driveway beyond.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Still can’t find the gate … but here, for Bill, is the little tower:

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MichaelG.

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

Not directly relevant to present discussion… I haven’t played with Google Earth for some time (a dangerously time-consuming rabbit hole…), however I was fascinated by its ability to display historical images, including those stitched together from circa WWII aerial surveys. These showed the WWII airfields in the east of England – all over the place! Turn the control to the present day, and so many become housing estates, or ‘vanish’ – like the one you’re seeking, perhaps. It might ‘appear’ if you look at historical images. I lived near Peterborough for a time, and cycled around places where, from the ground, all that was to be seen of wartime ‘fields was a few lumps of concrete. So much change in a few decades!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

another one for Bill …

If you want to ‘re-visit’ your old stamping-ground, this is really useful [albeit a little clunky] …

https://public.tableau.com/views/UKCellTowerData/UKCellTowerMap

 

 

I grabbed the locations of all the realistically local towers and then entered them manually into Google Earth as a KML Project, so now I can extrapolate any of my direction-finding sight-lines in the hope of finding a tower at the end of it. … A long and laborious exercise, but I’m doing it in small doses.

MichaelG.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Searching by airfield name came up with its usage at one time by a gliding club

Club History

But more interesting that the field owner bought a 2 seater conversion spitfire in 1997

I stumbled across  a discussion about spitfire experience costs (on facebook?) which gave some suggested owners costs that were eye watering and claimed to justify the £2-3K per experience flight. Notable was the suggestion one needed to own a second merlin engine to keep the thing airworthy while they got alternately stripped and rebuilt every few hundred hours.

pgk

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Michael,

I dare say that you’ve already come across this website, but I’m posting a link anyway:  https://www.ukairfieldguide.net/airfields/Bryngwyn-Bach

Not much in the way of added information, however it does show aerial views going back to 2006, the latest being from 2021 which indicates that it was still in use then.

A comment below suggests confirmation of the two-seater Spitfire owner’s use of the strip.

John

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks for the additional posts, pgk and John

Just for clarity [not that I had very much of that, yesterday] … I am pretty sure that I drove several miles on roads within easy walking distance of the airstrip … but at no time could I see it: The roads are narrow and are mostly hedged or walled.

I had wrongly assumed that there would be some reasonably prominent feature visible, so had set-off with just the PostCode LL17 0TE entered into the GPS … that was my big mistake.

MichaelG.

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Most GPS’s, google earth and what3words, all get my  position wrong from my post code. I live on a main road, all the above direct me to a side street about 100 yards away.

Roy

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

I am pretty sure that I drove several miles on roads within easy walking distance of the airstrip … but at no time could I see it: The roads are narrow and are mostly hedged or walled.

I had wrongly assumed that there would be some reasonably prominent feature visible, so had set-off with just the PostCode LL17 0TE entered into the GPS … that was my big mistake.

MichaelG.

No,  don’t think you can see any evidence of it from any of the nearby roads. You can catch a glimpse of it from the hills to the north of the A55. I don’t believe it has been used for quite a few years – we went to an open day at the gliding club (probably 30 years go!) and I think it stopped fairly soon afterwards. My wife had her turn in a glider, but I’m still waiting for mine as we ran out of daylight following repair of a broken winch cable.

I didn’t realise the link, but there was a spitfire outside what is locally referred to as “the lottery winner’s house” which is very nearby – I had assumed it was a replica. There were also life-sized sculptures of giraffes and other animals.

I think they have closely boarded sliding gates, but these don’t show on google street view.

I’m pretty sure that this is the place I’m thinking of, but it is a 15 year old photo.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/DSUsF7s7DoY4r4ZD7

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, Andy … I drove past those Lions ‘several times’ yesterday !

Now that I know the lie of the land, I will get uphill sometime, just to satisfy my curiosity.

MichaelG.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

another one for Bill …

If you want to ‘re-visit’ your old stamping-ground, this is really useful [albeit a little clunky] …

https://public.tableau.com/views/UKCellTowerData/UKCellTowerMap

 

Cheers for that, I’ve been looking for something similar for ages.
I suspect it might be a bit out of date now.
Have you found a way to make the colours of the map a bit more useable?
I can just make out white lakes and watercourses on a pale grey background, plus as I zoom in, the cell sites shrink to a single pixel size on the screen.

Bill

[Andy_GParticipant @andy_g]

I just typed a reply and I got a ‘forbidden’ message!?

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I’ve just found this image on Google street view:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ue4zWfMdXNJgNXKN9

The ‘airstrip’ is the green field that you can just about see through the hedge in the middle of the picture. It ran roughly parallel to the hedge and is on a significant slope. The ‘hangar’ building is visible at the top of the hill. The photo was taken from a small road that runs parallel to the A55. It is now designated as a bridleway / cycle path, but is also used for farm access. You can get to it from the un-numbered junction I mentioned previously. The end that joins the old Rhuallt road has removable bollards in it (though the farmer often leaves them out), so you may need to proceed on foot.

I think your best chance to see it from a car is from here:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/crdbWkr6tgsXcRPP7

It’s one of the fields on the distant hill, roughly above the chimneys. I can’t make it out from the google photo, and I haven’t looked recently, but the ‘strip’ used to be noticeable to the naked eye.

Good luck with your quest!

P.S. If you’re in the area, did you know about this?

https://www.dyserth.com/halifax.html

ETA: There is a small memorial. If you would like a native guide, let me know 😉

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

You are an absolute Star, Andy !!

To be honest, I’m not particularly bothered about the Airstrip … I just thought [foolishly] that it would be a convenient waypoint for finding the cell-phone tower.

I would, however, be very interested in walking up to that Halifax memorial to pay my respects … sometime when the weather improves.

I will send you a P.M. with my eMail address

[ assuming that the forum is still offering that service.]

Thanks again

MichaelG.

[Andy_GParticipant @andy_g]

Thank you Michael – Reply in the post 🙂

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Nothing to do with airfields, but we finally made national news; looks like we need a whole new mast;
Second one in Buxton recently

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-68107624

Bill

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