Adding Projection to ECW files ?

[Bill Binko]

Hi everyone,

First, enjoy the conference: this can wait, but I wanted to ask while it 
was fresh.  Wish I could join you.

I have had some recent success with my raster project...

1) I have gotten GDAL & ECW to work on Linux (bug in ECW) 

2) I have gotten gdaltindex to generate a tileindex of my DOQQs 

3) I have gotten Mapserver to show my images (YAY) if I set the projection
to UTM Zone 17N in the mapfile

The problem is that the ECW files don't seem to have the UTM 17N
associated with them in any metadata that GDAL reads.  They come with
.aux, .ecw, .ecw.xml, .ecw.aux.xml, and .html files for each image.

Now, when I run gdalinfo on the file, I get this:

[bill at fastcat ecw_rgb]$ gdalinfo dq4517ne.ecw
Driver: ECW/ERMapper Compressed Wavelets
Size is 6199, 7064
Coordinate System is:
LOCAL_CS["LOCAL",
    UNIT["Meter",1]]
Origin = (397031.442000,3277747.800000)
Pixel Size = (1.00000000,-1.00000000)
Corner Coordinates:
Upper Left  (  397031.442, 3277747.800)
Lower Left  (  397031.442, 3270683.800)
Upper Right (  403230.442, 3277747.800)
Lower Right (  403230.442, 3270683.800)
Center      (  400130.942, 3274215.800)
Band 1 Block=6199x1 Type=Byte, ColorInterp=Red
  Overviews: arbitrary
Band 2 Block=6199x1 Type=Byte, ColorInterp=Green
  Overviews: arbitrary
Band 3 Block=6199x1 Type=Byte, ColorInterp=Blue
  Overviews: arbitrary

So, I know that it has the boundary info, and I don't need separate .tfw 
(or equivalent).  However, notice the LOCAL_CS -- it didn't find the 
projection information.

Is there any way I can add this to the files?  It should be the same for 
all of them.

Without it, gdal_merge.py blows up, and I can't create summary images :(

I know this is long winded, but can anyone help?

Thanks
Bill