This program shows a polar-projection map of all the medium-wave
broadcast stations in Region 2 (Western hemisphere) that are shown
in the FCC database. This includes North America, Central America,
South America and the Caribbean. The patterns of all stations on a
user-specified frequency are shown. The map is centered on a
user-specified home location with a user-specified map size.
- All stations on an entered frequency are
shown. The U.S. stations are shown if they are licensed; outside
the U.S. all stations are considered licensed and so are
shown.
- Click on "Frequency" to select the channel for
display. An option at that point is to clear the map and show
only the stations on that channel, or to add another channel to
the map. A third option on that page is a single button-press to
add the adjacent channel stations to the display.
- Click on "Hours" to show only daytime signals,
or only nighttime signals or both. Unlimited and critical-hours
operations are always shown.
- Click on "All" to show all stations on all
frequencies. This is especially useful while traveling, to find
stations while zoomed in to your immediate area.
- While you are on that screen, choose a
frequency and add the station's pattern plot to the map. Do this
for each of the indicated frequencies and you can see all the
stations in that area, their calls, frequencies and
patterns.
- Click on "Home" to set the map so that you are
at the middle of the screen. You can simply select from a list
of cities, or select from a list of callsigns or enter the
latitude and longitude.
- Click on "Hets" to see the stations in other
regions that may be causing a beatnote to the target frequency.
Both the frequency of the beat and the interfering carrier
frequency are shown.
- Click on "GetData" and you can retrieve the
data for an entered call; this includes city, state, country,
latitude, longitude, power and number of towers. Then click on
one of the lines of data in the resulting listbox and see the
pattern for that operation (day, night, etc.) along with a map
of the antenna array. This information can be sent to the
printer.
- While you are on that GetData screen, click on
"Maps" to see a small map with the station in context. This
plotted map is rescalable.
- While you are on that Maps screen, click on
the "GoogleMap" button to call up Google's mapping routine to
see a map of the site.
- Another option on the GetData screen is the
"Towers" button. Click on that to see tabulated data about the
towers in the array.
- Click "Zoom-in" or "Zoom-out" to change the
size of the map. Pattern sizes track the maps size.
- Click "Larger" or "Smaller" to change the
stations' pattern sizes relative to the map of the states.
- Click "Options" to change the colors of the
various pattern types - Day, Night, Unlimited, Critical and
Adjacents. A button is available to restore default colors. Also
available on the Options screen is the Google Maps language
selection: French, English or Spanish.
- Click on "Distance" and you can find the
bearing and distance from the home location to an arbitrary
latitude and longitude. Output is in miles or kilometers.
- Click on "Compass" to overlay a compass rose
on the plot to show the direction of a station from the home
location.
- The outputs to the printer are from separate
routines which closely duplicate the outputs as seen on the
screen, but in very high resolution, without rastorization or
pixelation. To send a plot to the default printer just press the
"Print" button.
- At program exit the setup data is saved for an
easy restart.
- The program has an aspect-correction
capability to accommodate monitors with varying degrees of
shape, vertical to horizontal. The correction factor is saved
for use during the next session.
- The database currently covers all Region 2
stations in the FCC database that are licensed as of 1 December
2009. Excluded are "New", "STA" and "XENVA2" stations.
- The program does an enormous amount of
computation to replot a new screen and so for a reasonable
reaction time to a request for a change (new frequency, new home
location, etc.) a fast computer is needed. The reaction time is
about one second for such a complete screen replot on a 2 GHz
machine (and so is about ten seconds for a 200 MHz machine,
which is the slowest recommended). If a slower machine is used
the program may be installed and used but a warning message will
be displayed and program operation may prove annoyingly
slow.
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