Hi Folks,

I'm interested in contributing to the mapping of Waterford (city and county), which I visit every 3-4 weeks, but I'm having some difficulties working alone.

I have a GPS unit that will record tracks (roads) and a voice recorder for making notes, and a camera (currently in repair shop) for photographing roadside signs. The difficulty is making notes and taking photographs while driving - not illegal (yet), but certainly more distracting than using a mobile phone, which is already illegal.

I'm interested in meeting somebody with local knowledge of the Waterford area, who would be interested in collaborating in mapping the city streets and county roads.

Regards
Dolphin3900

Background: I'm a retired software engineer and hobby sailor. I downloaded a file from CIL's (Commissioners of Irish Lights) website (www.cil.ie), with their written permission, with tech data about the AtoNs (Aids to Navigation) that they maintain around the Irish coast, approx 80 lighthouses and 200 other navigation marks. I used this to create entries in Google Earth (again with CIL permission), using MS Office to massage the data into GE's KML format.
See GE posting (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/812193)
and GE KMZ download (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=812193)
and in Google Maps at (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=812193&t=k&om=1)

I figured out the parts of KML that I needed by copying several examples from GE and pasting them into Notepad, but I don't see a similar facility in OSM.

I'd like to do a similar job in OSM, but am experiencing some difficulty in figuring out how to do it. I've gone through the FAQs and searched OSM help, but the best answer I can find (yet) is that I should probably use JOSM.

My question:
Part 1: Where can I find the file format, and some examples, for uploading waypoints (rather than tracks)?
Part 2: Can JOSM import bulk text data?

Regards
Dolphin3900

P.S. Some food for thought:

(1) GPS has been popular with sailors for much longer than with motorists/cyclists/trekkers, and I expect that there are plenty sailors with navigation and IT skills that would be interested in these answers.

(2) Maritime Navigators are interested in charts rather than maps, showing what's on (and under) the other 75% of planet earth (the seas), with details like lighthouses, navigation marks, water depth, hazards, tides, currents, harbours, anchorages, bottom type (different anchors for sand and rocks).

(3) Many modern boats can integrate PCs with GPS/radar/depth-sounders/logs(=speedometers)/weather instruments. Tracks that include depth data are common.

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