AURORA VIRTUAL RADAR 3D
Despite excitement mounting due to the impending release of the new Aurora Virtual Radar 3D receiver, things have been very quiet on the Mode-S decoder front. I say that, but there has been some activity despite the holiday season.

After a long an interesting conversation with Michael Waddicor at Aurora Eurotech, he confirmed that yes, his receiver will support PlanePlotter via port 30003. In fact, he is working close with Bev at COAA at looking to add MLAT support. He has also asked anyone who has produced their own outline files or bmp flags to contact him if they would permit him to use them as he is keen to support third party developers!

The Aurora product sounds very interesting and I look forward to reviewing it towards the end of January. As it is pitched between the RadarBox and SBS Basestation as far as user ability is concerned, I think it will fill a big gap in the market. Roll on the end of the month.

PLANEPLOTTER
Over at COAA.com, Bev has released yet another version of PlanePlotter bringing it up to version 5.4.4.9c. New facilities and options include the introduction of the F9 key to toggle prediction. SMS text alert length trimmed to 160 characters. Select 'Ctrl and OSM' to download a map larger than the current window. This enables you to keep an aircraft in view which is being tracked without having to reload your chart. The F7 key now searches for the best chart/map covering the present chart centre. The F8 key now toggles the GPX overlay. A 4th status bar counter displays raw data acquisition. Shift and left click drags labels of aircraft to the desired position to save overlap. New OLE/COM method GetPlaneInfoFile(BSTR filename). A provision for a secondary server/script for sharing, and in the aircraft list you can now view that have a Mlat possibility.

As far as coverage is concerned on PlanePlotter, it is growing by the week. A user survey just prior to the Christmas period revealed a peak of 138 users sharing data on the Saturday and 140 on the Sunday. In total 362 were viewing which is a record.

I have been asked a number of times now, how to perform a few tasks that appear complicated. Top of the list has been how to create a line of text to display a flag in the 'aircraft list' view. This is a very easy task, but if it has a drawback it is because it is labour intensive.

PlanePlotter comes with a .txt file named 'bsflags'. Open this file with a text edit program such as Wordpad/Notepad, and you will see lines of text such as:

004000 004000 C:\Program files\Kinetic\BaseStation\BMPFlags\RAF.bmp

The first set of number is the aircraft hex code you require to have a flag displayed for. The second set with be the same as the first if it is just one aircraft, or the last hex code in the essence of codes for multiple aircraft.

Following the hex codes is the path within your PC where your flags are located. In the above example they located within a folder named 'BMPFlags' which is located within BaseStation which its self is located in Kinetic and that is located in Program Files which is in C Drive. The last reference, RAF.bmp is the actual flag name. The only thing that needs attention is that you leave no blank spaces after the last entry in the file.

When an 'Outline' file is not available for an airport, how do you make one?' That is another common question and the answer is I cheat by using a superb tool; 'Jordan's Outline Maker'. To use it, go to the following URL, locate the area you want, select 'satellite view', and then just click on the salient points to create a drawing of the runway, taxiways and perimeter tracks. Then, open one of your existing outline files. Remove the Lat and Longs, then paste in those from Jordan's program. Rename the file to your liking and save it. It's as simple as that, but a thank you must go to Jordan for making his application available. His URL is:

http://www.acme.com/jef/outlines/

NEW USER
I often hear praises about software which in most cases they are reports from users who have got to know the software and overcome the initial setting up. However, I have just has an email from a PP user who related his experience in setting up his PlanePlotter as a new user. I found it very interesting and hope that software developers such as Bev at COAA bear some of the comments in mind, for they are far too easy to over look when you are an experienced user.

In this case our new user is into his 60's and is not alone in this hobby. He accepts there are many people in these age groups who can give the young computer whizzos a run for their money but there are also the likes of himself who classes himself as 'very computer illiterate'.

However he managed to download and installed ran the program then ran it. In doing so used the 'Help' page, but even struggled with that! It listed;

Connecting to a radio receiver
Using with Kinetics SBS
Using with Air Nav systems
Understanding the ACARS system

But there was no mention of what to do if you intended using PlanePlotter as a stand alone. When he explained he could not follow the help pages he was informed that 'The Help files assume a certain level of understanding because it has to start somewhere. If it assumed a start from absolute zero, then it would have to explain terms and actions that most people would already know about and so they would stop reading out of boredom'. However, he overcome with assistance some of his problems but was still not up and running.

After a lot of head scratching he thought maybe calibrating some charts might help. He referred to Help again and it gives the URI of an American website BUT, but one that had been withdrawn during 2006. He overcame that problem when he located some charts in the PP files section, but feels strong that the PP help instructions are hard going and is sure they put off a lot of potential users, as they do not put themselves in the place of the novice user (which one should always do). However, he admits that having got the system up and running it is a shame about his views as PP is really a superb piece of kit.

Since emailing me he has joined the Yahoo Plane Plotter Group and also downloaded Mike Cogan's Adobe document for SBS users. Again however he felt it did not enable him to get up and running on his own, as he found that several areas could well have eased some of the confusion if it had given him more of an insight - especially into charts. He also prefers Adobe documents to the Help document, which are generally provided from within the programme.

So, software developers I hope you digest the above and take into account the frustration of new users who do not always know the basics.

Sam