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I'm currently going through a bit of a transit map obsession, and these frequency allocation charts just feel like they tickle the same feeling. The way it code

I'm currently going through a bit of a transit map obsession, and these frequency allocation charts just feel like they tickle the same feeling. The way it codes information densely, into simple colors, in easily understood ways. Even the part where it distorts things slightly in order to depict them cleanly echos the way subway and metro maps often fudge geographical features to make their maps more readable. I wonder if there's anything one of these diagrams can copy from the other. Maybe the radio spectrum would make more sense if organized into "lines" of some sort

mlsu 4y ago
I have the same obsession, I think. Do you know of any place that sells high quality printed maps or charts, with (for lack of a better word) "engineering" data? I'm particularly interested in energy, transit, or natural resource maps and charts. Or even just a collection of nice looking, info-dense charts.
- IIAOPSW 4y ago
  Nope sorry. Now that I look at this chart for a bit I realize its the radio equiv of the Vignelli map of NY subway. It looks nice, it feels like good design, but its actually unusable. The Y axis within each spectrum isn't used for any meaning other than just dividing into halves, thirds, quarters whatever. Sometimes there's two or more boxes of the same color and label in the same spectrum with no explanation about what distinguishes them. It color codes every minor distinction in application with its own color, which actually makes it less clear. Here's my first pass at a redesign. All the categories are reallocated into a 2-feature category system, (Sea, Land, Air, Space) x (Science, Navigation, Communication, Broadcast). The first half-category goes on the y axis of each spectrum bar. So all the space stuff is along the top of the sub-spectrum chart, all the sea stuff along the bottom. The second half category goes into a color, of which there's only 4. The existing color stripe for federal/non-federal is good as is, but could perhaps also include operator type more generally (military/civilian/government/public, reserved etc).

mlsu 4y ago

I have the same obsession, I think. Do you know of any place that sells high quality printed maps or charts, with (for lack of a better word) "engineering" data? I'm particularly interested in energy, transit, or natural resource maps and charts. Or even just a collection of nice looking, info-dense charts.

IIAOPSW 4y ago
Nope sorry. Now that I look at this chart for a bit I realize its the radio equiv of the Vignelli map of NY subway. It looks nice, it feels like good design, but its actually unusable. The Y axis within each spectrum isn't used for any meaning other than just dividing into halves, thirds, quarters whatever. Sometimes there's two or more boxes of the same color and label in the same spectrum with no explanation about what distinguishes them. It color codes every minor distinction in application with its own color, which actually makes it less clear. Here's my first pass at a redesign. All the categories are reallocated into a 2-feature category system, (Sea, Land, Air, Space) x (Science, Navigation, Communication, Broadcast). The first half-category goes on the y axis of each spectrum bar. So all the space stuff is along the top of the sub-spectrum chart, all the sea stuff along the bottom. The second half category goes into a color, of which there's only 4. The existing color stripe for federal/non-federal is good as is, but could perhaps also include operator type more generally (military/civilian/government/public, reserved etc).