Best civie version of ATAK tactical mapping system for smartphone in Urban?

[Shogunater]

What the best app to use, for mapping stuff out in a city, where you draw out routes and boundaries of places you should stay in and away from, when traveling, maybe even notes and pictures for intelligence gathered for where you're traveling? Kind of like applying the "study the fire escape plan" to google maps?

Also, is it possible to look up fire escape plans for specific buildings you'll be living in/visiting?

[Hasher]

Google earth is your friend here. Print it out and laminate it either before or after you draw on it. Laminated and a couple of dry erase markers or wax pencils for route planning. It also lets you see non traditional routes such as walking/bike paths, greenways and utility easements and railroad tracks and waterways.

Most buildings if they have a fire alarm have a GZM (Graphic Zone Map) posted near the entry for firefighters. A lot of other building a have escape route maps posted. Just shoot a pic with your phone.

[Shogunater]

Google earth is your friend here. Print it out and laminate it either before or after you draw on it. Laminated and a couple of dry erase markers or wax pencils for route planning. It also lets you see non traditional routes such as walking/bike paths, greenways and utility easements and railroad tracks and waterways.

Most buildings if they have a fire alarm have a GZM (Graphic Zone Map) posted near the entry for firefighters. A lot of other building a have escape route maps posted. Just shoot a pic with your phone.

I've taken screenshots of everything I could find of the place I'll be staying, including surrounding google street view...though I'm not sure how I ought to tactically assess it, beyond a basic idea of choke points.

Any general principles I should follow?

[Hasher]

1. You are probably way overthinking things.

2. I travel a ton and I pretty much know the areas around where I stay pretty well and I won’t stay in even marginal areas of a city. I’ll stay where it’s nice and drive.

3. When I do stay in a new place I take a couple of minutes and drive the couple of blocks surrounding the hotel just to see what’s what.

4. I tend to drive in jeans for meetings and put on a suit or dress pants if I have to in the morning. I leave my jeans with everything g still in them draped over a chair with my running shoes right there and any coat/jacket and I sleep in a t shirt and boxers. I also keep a Kifaru E&E pack handy and it fits inside my rolling bag so it’s discrete.

Not sure what scenarios you are worried about. I personally don’t see a room invasion happening and if the fire alarm does go off it’s over a 99% chance it’s a false alarm. I don’t bother with silly shit like trying f to memorize how many steps to the stairwell because that seems like tactical fucktardery. At the end of almost every hall is a stairwell. I will make note if there is a dead end hall. I also try to stay no higher than the 2nd floor if I can. Only place that is hard for me is in Vegas and I usually stay with friends anyway.

If the alarm does go off I can be dressed and out the door in 30 seconds or less. Rolling bag and laptop can stay behind. They are replaceable. Pants and shoes take about 10 seconds. 10 more to grab the rest of my gear and 10 seconds to stop and THINK!!!!!


I think the last “hotel” I had to evacuate was an all girls diem in college back in 1988 because some drunk ass pulled the fire alarm.

I think a lot of us over think some of these things.

Be aware

Don’t stay in shot hole parts of town or hotels.

Know the pet of town a little.

If I ever have to travel and my client is in a crap hole let if town I’ll stay 100 miles away if I have to.

[chipw]

Atak is pretty cool if you have the technical ability to set up a server. I dont but im friends with someone who does. He has all the TDOT street camsaround Chattanooga accessible from the tak server. All the local Ham repeaters too. Not sure about fire escapes though.

When doing team stuff in the field ATAK is pretty handy too. Shows everyones location who is on the server and yes, you can take pictures, video and even drone footage and share in realtime with the team members.
Attached are pictures of a chatt area street cam and also a couple from an impromptu surveillance mission we did one day while out doing team tactic stuff and realized there were some other people using the range.

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[Ryan Taylor]

Some of you guys need to up your nerd game. Google Earth? Really? Whats next, horse and buggy?

https://youtu.be/WXuQERL_e8M

[Shogunater]

Some of you guys need to up your nerd game. Google Earth? Really? Whats next, horse and buggy?

https://youtu.be/WXuQERL_e8M

I downloaded one of these, but I couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to.

[mrstang01]

Tag for interest

[chipw]

Pretty cool write up on atak being used for search and rescue. It doesnt take much imagination to see how relevant atak would be to any group operating in the outdoors. So far my group has only used cell service to access the TAK server but you can read in the article that access can be over radio with a gotenna pro. Were going to get there eventually
https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/west...b04710e5f.html

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