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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.
Please note that no updates are planned for either this
program or the associated database files.
- 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.
- Please note that no updates are planned
for either this program or the associated database
files.
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