• Intro
• OSMTracker v0.7
• Fixing the Photos
• OSMTracker v0.6.11 loses 42% of Photos

Well, it just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?

In the intro I pointed out what had kept me prevaricating & not surveying for 22 months.

Next was the discovery that OSMTracker v0.7 was utter tosh since it would not produce viable tracks on my phone.

Next was that in addition v0.7 also had most GPS missing from the photos, and that diary was a howTo Fix the Photos, putting GPS back into them.

Finally this diary sees me re-install OSMTracker v0.6.11 and go out tracking recently-built houses within Stonebridge Estate on March 21. There were a number of discoveries:–

1. The Mpow 059 Bluetooth Headphones mostly seemed effective but could not cope with wind-noise (rumble).
    
   It blows a lot in Britain (one of the windiest places in the world) and low-pitched rumble from microphones is a deal-breaker if you work outdoors. The headphones were extremely comfortable, but the microphone was a teeny little hole with no easy means to apply a dead kitten to it. The wind was actually very modest on the day, but nevertheless there were occasions when I could not hear what I was saying in the recording. I’ve returned the headphones to Amazon, and have ordered a Jabra BlueParrott B450-XT Headset to replace them:  
2. After discovering that OSMTracker v0.7 is actually OSM-does-not-track I checked out v0.6.11 more carefully. It is losing 42% of all photos.
     
   OSMTracker maintains a separate database of photos + voice-notes + GPS track (“track1”). The android smartphone also saves a copy of those photos within the standard camera location (2x) (DCIM/Camera). Having finished a track (or before) it is possible to “Export a GPX track” which also places JPG + 3GPP + GPX files within their own directory (“osmtracker/2019-03-21_10-34-15”) (now 3x the space). I checked out the number of jpegs saved by osmtracker cf the smartphone:
    
   → OSMTracker: 107 photos
   → Smartphone: 183 photos (42% extra)
    
3. As best as I can tell OSMTracker is also losing some voice-notes. However I cannot quantify the extent of that problem.

What a bummer.

Updates 2019-03-21

The Blue Parrot boasts a 97% noise reduction. My experience is that the wind-shield (black foam-piece) is mostly ineffective. I am going to create a Dead Kitten for it & I anticipate solving the wind rumble at that point.

→ OSMTracker: 51 photos
→ Smartphone: 52 photos (2% extra)

I checked after a short session for photo loss. It was just one from 52 photos (2%) on this occasion.

Updates 2019-03-29

→ OSMTracker: 13 photos
→ Smartphone: 26 photos (50% extra)

Updates 2019-04-02

→ OSMTracker: 107 photos
→ Smartphone: 110 photos (3% extra)