Calibration Course Location Map

My advice to traveling measurers is to assume a cal course does not exist, especially if it’s more than a few years old and/or in an area with snow, unless you can contact the measurer of record and ensure the course is still functional.

For sure Jim. And it would probably be a good idea to measure the course once yourself just to confirm, regardless of the situation.

But at the very least, it will probably be a good location to set up a new cal course. When you are in an unfamiliar area, just finding a good location for a cal course can be time consuming.

For sure. When I was in Boulder last summer I located a cal course and contacted Benji Durden, who had origjnallly laid it out, and was good enough to check its existence and even mark the endpoints with neon orange paint.

Thank you for this great map, Mark. I even discovered a cal course on it that I was unaware of. If I send you street addresses for a few that I know of, will this be helpful?

I have now modified the process I use to create the map to allow for more precise location information. The map now shows a cal course location as a purple icon if its location is simply near the center of the town listed for the cal course, and it shows it as a green, or teal, icon if it is the actual street-level location.

If you'd like to help this effort by providing precise locations of cal courses near you (or anywhere actually), there is a fairly easy process to do so using Google Earth. At the top of the Calibration Course Location Map page there is a link detailing this process. It really is quite easy, with each course taking about a minute.

If you do plan to provide precise locations, please email me (runnermark@gmail.com) ahead of time to let me know what group you are going to be providing so we can avoid multiple people working on the same courses.

Thanks!

Yes street addresses would be helpful.

Another method for getting Lat/Long coords (in decimal degrees) for cal course ends is to:

1. Locate the course on Google Maps (use Satellite view as the Map Type)
2. Right click on one end of the course (your best guesstimate) and the street and coords appear in a pop-up box at the bottom of the screen
3. Highlight and copy the coords for that point
4. Paste as text into file
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for the other end

Here's an example from NY21004JG

Lyman's question about addresses inspired me to figure out an easier way to get precise GPS locations.

If you have addresses of cal courses (keep in mind that addresses can be actual numbered street addresses, but can also be cross streets or the name of a business along the cal course) you can simply enter them into the Google Sheet below and it will generate the GPS coordinates for you.

https://docs.google.com/spread...Nac/edit?usp=sharing

Actually you have only viewing permissions to the above google sheet. You will need to open it and then "Make a Copy" for yourself before entering addresses. Below is a link to the full instructions (also available at the top of the calibration map page).

https://docs.google.com/docume...vuQ/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for that additional suggestion Jim.

Although just to be clear, I just need one set of GPS coordinates per course, start or finish or middle or very close by or whatever.

I just made a couple changes to the map.

First, thanks to a suggestion by Lyman, I added a link to the description of courses with precise location information to get driving directions. Click on any green dot, and then click on the "Driving directions to course" link at the bottom to bring up google maps driving directions from your current location to the cal course in a new tab.

Second, when first opening the map it is zoomed in a bit on the continental US. So for most people it will save a bit of zooming in right at the beginning of a search.

Fantastic, Mark. Looks like my "cal course safari" days may be over. Thank you.

I just gave this map a try for a cal course ~ 30 miles from my house. The driving directions popped up immediately. Nice work, Mark!

If anyone would like to help find precise locations of cal courses I have now made it even easier. If you'd like to help I will give you Editor access to the spreadsheet located in the picture below.

The process is that you click on the cert ID in the second column to bring up the cert map of the course. You find cross streets on the cert map close to the cal course and enter them into the first column along with the city, state. GPS coords will appear in columns 3 and 4, and a link to a google map will appear in column 5. Click on the map link to confirm the GPS location appears to be the correct location. If any of the steps don't go well (sometimes there aren't obvious cross streets and sometimes the google map that comes up doesn't look like the correct location), just skip the course(delete the address you typed in) and go to the next one. Each course takes 2-3min, and most of that is waiting for the cert map to download, and typing in the address.

I am starting with courses certified in 2022 and 2021, since I figure those are the most likely to be well marked and have good maps. If you'd like to help send me a private message here or email me at runnermark@gmail.com.

I'm interested in helping, Mark. Once the course is located, it's an easy task to zoom in the find the address of at least one endpoint - for most locations.

Big shout out to Jim Gerweck for finding street-level locations for ALL the calibration courses in Connecticut. There's a visible green blob on the east coast now! We now have street-level locations for all courses in Connecticut and Michigan, most of them in Colorado (thanks to Duane Russell) and Arizona, and several in the Washington, DC area (thanks to Lyman Jordan). Also, most cal courses certified in 2020, 2021, and 2022 now have street-level locations.

I have added some new info in the window that pops up when you hover over or click on a course. It now shows the year that the course was last used. However, I have no way of getting that info other than measurers telling me. So I created a spreadsheet where everyone can add that info. It will literally take you less than maybe 2 minutes to do this, and it would be a big help to other measurers. The spreadsheet is at the link below.

https://docs.google.com/spread...Ce0/edit?usp=sharing

And here's the link to the calibration course map again below.

http://www.rrtc.net/Calibratio...alibrations_map.html

Thanks Mark it was a fun exercise while watching the Olympics. I’ve got at least 3 or 4 cal courses that have expired but still have the nails intact that I need to remeasure/renew but I’ll wait until it gets warmer - the temp. correction math is too tricky when it’s cold!

just used my “home” course today thanks to spring-like weather.

Street level locations have now been included for most courses certified 2014-2022. Courses certified 2012-2013 will expired within the next couple years, so it's probably not worth the time to find street-level locations for those.

http://www.rrtc.net/Calibratio...alibrations_map.html

There were a small number in the 2014-2022 range that had issues in the database (blank maps, etc.), and there were a significant number whose street-level locations were difficult to determine based on their certification maps. You can take a look at cert numbers of those "hard ones" at the top of the google sheet at the link below. You can open the certification map for those courses by clicking on the cert number. If you have knowledge of where any of those courses actually are, let me know and I'll give you access to add GPS coordinates or just a better location description to that file.

https://docs.google.com/spread...Ce0/edit?usp=sharing