Talk:Tag:man made=beacon

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Objection to deletion

The tag "beacon" is usefull for navigation, sometimes even for people on the landside a beacon can be a "landmark" (watermark?).

According to 'Tagwatch' today, there are 296 tagged beacons in Europe. Informations based on the Europe excerpt from the 16-Sep-2008

http://tagwatch.stoecker.eu/Europe/En/tagstats_man_made_beacon.html

--PaulBe 15:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to import the italian VOR and NDB information

in this way:
        <node id='-1' lat='40.62806' lon='08.24389'>
                <tag k='man_made' v='beacon' />
                <tag k='beacon:code' v='ALG' />
                <tag k='beacon:frequency' v='113.8'/>
                <tag k='beacon:type' v='VOR' />
                <tag k='name' v='ALG' />
        </node>

according to tagwatch we have just 36 beacond tagged in the planet and no one is a radio-beacon.
So, before to put the datas, i would like to have some comment. --EdoM (lets talk about it) 10:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


IMHO, the beacon:frequency=* tag should include a unit of measure, e.g. MHz or GHz. If not, it can be mislieading.
Also, the term "beacon" can be ambiguous. Why not radio_beacon?? Ivansanchez 11:13, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
aeroway=navigationaid ; type=VOR and type=NDB seems to be preferred C2r 09:24, 24 April 2011 (BST)
I disagree: you need something much more explicit than these 3 letter acronyms which may mean anything. Please don't suggest such bad tags (I know, there's "type=TMC" but it's well known in GPS navigation in motorized vehicles, for tagging location areas; it is not the case at all for "VOR" or "NDB"; also using the tag "type=*" is strongly discouraged (it should remain only for generic relation types, not specific to countries). — Verdy_p (talk) 21:43, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Both the information are implied in the type tag. --EdoM (lets talk about it) 11:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Adding a source tag in a more explicit way? Simone 14:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

landuse also - communications tower

Hi, the page needs to be fixed, as the beacon does not necessarily need to be on the water.

I would like to use this tag for a communications tower which is; Communication "A tower used in the transmission and the reception of radio waves." --acrosscanadatrails 20:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

There are "beacons" that act similar to a lighthouse. For example, LORAN transmitters are used for reference points in a fixed place, and are used for navigation purposes similar to GPS transmitters. In fact, this can arguably be called a predecessor to the GPS system. My point is that a beacon is not necessarily just for two-way communication either, but are typically used for navigation. Similar kinds of beacons are used in airports with instrument landing systems, to give another example. There is a role for this tag that is not necessarily a lighthouse. --Robert Horning 13:14, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a use of landmark=beacon as well. --Skippern 22:47, 12 September 2012 (BST)

Newly added photo

The newly added photo will fit better to man_made=survey point I think. Can you correct that please. --geozeisig (talk) 17:01, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Leading lights

Is it possible that it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daymark ?

Definition is still unclear

While the first line of the wiki page currently suggests that "man_made=beacon" is mainly a "historic objects ... fire was used as the signalling method. Beacons take the form of a pole, pile or small mast with a light on the top," but a review of current tags shows that many features with "man_made=beacon" are also tagged with "seamark:type=buoy_*", and there are several hundred "airmark=beacon" (radio / radar beacons for planes) and hundreds of `aeroway=navigationaid` (lights at airport runways). Unfortunately this makes it difficult to use this tag for rendering. See also github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/3669. --Jeisenbe (talk) 13:24, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I suspect that this tag is a lost cause due to mixing of vastly different kinds of objects, related only by name Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 20:39, 27 August 2019 (UTC)