Ham Radio 2000 #2

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(Version 1.9I released May 1997) Welcome to NEC4WIN v1.9 evaluation A user-friendly implementation of MININEC running under WINDOWS ------------------------------------------ For the latest information about NEC4WIN and accompanying files. Read this file with NOTEPAD (maximize the window for clarity). Important Note: The free evaluation version is fully functional EXCEPT ON ONE POINT: you cannot reload the projects you created and saved. Only our "demo" projects files can be loaded. You can however enter antenna, simulate them, save the project, print all diagrams, etc. Projects are saved in ASCII and easily re-entered. Distribute this version freely as long as you follow the rules outlined in the Help file. ------------ REGISTRATION ------------ To get a full version you can register via mail or compuserve. On Compuserve: GO SWREG, SWREG# 13216 If you don't have access to Compuserve, click on "Order Info" when you run NEC4WIN, then "Order Form" to print an order form and follow the instructions. Registered users will get full help and technical support. ----------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1. What's new 2. Installation 3. Running the program 4. How to Get Help 5. Limitations ----------------------------- 1. What's new in this version ----------------------------- Corrected BUGS ============== . Small antennas were not always displayed correctly in 2D. . Small heights were not saved correctly in the project file. . In Log file Radius replaced by Diameter. . Non linearity of Far Field printouts in graphic mode . Strange values in .INI created overflow problem at startup Additions, improvements ======================= A. Pattern info saved in Log ---------------------------- Text outputs from the Far Field plot are now saved in the log. This will allow you to keep track of Gain, Take off Angle, etc, changes in relations to modifications made to the antenna or height. B. Floating point entries ------------------------- We added a Fixed/Float Format option in the Options menu to allow floating point inputs, and made the following additions or modifications: - Fixed format can display up to 4 decimals instead of 3 - Addition of a Floating point mode to allow float entries in scientific format. The internal numbers are stored as before in float format. In float format entries are not truncated and will keep the number of decimal that was entered. Columns width can in some cases grow too wide and you will have to adjust them manually using Shift < and Shift > - Horizontal scroll bar in geometry grid. - In the Geometry grid entries can be typed now as +/-xxxE+/-yy and this in both formats C. Colors in 2D and 3D Display ------------------------------ Background, text, wire, current, source and load colors are now selectable and saved in the .INI When you are in the 2D or 3D display the following keys will change the corresponding color: B Background C Positive current F Text, Axis N Negative current W Wires S Sources P Pulses L Loads The same colors are applied to 2D and 3D. D. Mouse control of 3D display ------------------------------ This function was partially available in previous versions but not fully documented. In 3D display you can rotate and pan (shift) the antenna by using the Mouse. Mouse Left button and drag slowly Rotate Antenna Mouse Left & Right + move Shift up/down E. Graphic printout margins --------------------------- Graphic printouts of Far Field patterns are normally printed centered in the page with 1 inch margins. These margins cannot be changed from inside the program but you can edit the NEC4WIN.INI the value of PrinterX and PrinterY in the [Default] section to change these margins. F. Save/Load Far Field Patterns BMP ----------------------------------- In the Far Field window plot you can save the pattern in a BMP, or load a BMP as a BACKGROUND image by using RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON A small floating popup menu will appear with "Save", "Load". When you load a BMP it is loaded as a BACKROUND image and you can overlay new patterns on top of it. But DONT RESIZE the window after saving the BMP or grid won't overlay exactly. Clear the background loaded image with "Clear". Note: You can load any BMP as a background image. Warning ======= This feature is added on an "experimental" basis and may be removed in the future if it creates too many problems. It has the following "limitations": 1. It may crash the program if you are in TrueColor Video and don't have enough memory. BMP files are uncompressed and use Megabytes of RAM and disk according to screen definition and Color setting. In TrueColor (24 bits per pixel) and 800 x 600 this is a minimum of 1.4 Mb per picture. Temporary memory used during the save operation can be twice as high. 2. If you save a pattern in a file, change the window size and reload the same pattern the window WILL NOT READJUST TO THE old size. This means that if you start a new plot calculation the old and new grids will be shifted. Additions to 1.9D/E/F/G ======================= Standard Editing keys in Geometry --------------------------------- Microsoft standard editing keys are now supported in the geometry grid: CTRL-X for Delete/delete block CTRL-C for Copy/copy block (and save internally) CTRL-V for Insert/Insert Block (paste last saved block) Connect wires button -------------------- This is a new button. When pressed the last X2, Y2 and Z2 coordinates are used as X1, Y1 and Z1 when inserting new wire. This allows rapid entry of interconnected wires and you just need to enter X2, Y2 and Z2 each time. Addition of Height button in the geometry grid ---------------------------------------------- A height button in the geometry grid allows direct adjustement of the height. Detection of Zero length wires ------------------------------ Zero length wires are now detected and a warning displayed from inside the Wire grid when you type OK or try to display the antenna (calculations are performed transparently to generate the pulses and you will have to correct that. Detection of incorrect wires ---------------------------- When you are in the grid and press on "View" or "OK" a check is performed on the defined wires. In addition to zero length the new will detect and display wires that are laying on the ground and duplicate wires. New menu item in Options: Direct Print/Graphic Print ---------------------------------------------------- There was a printing problem related to 24 bits graphic cards in TrueColor mode (16M colors). The program has been modified to support these video cards. In case you have problems printing Far Field patterns set the "Direct Printing" found in "Options" which should work in any configuration. Direct printing works as in 3DPlot. When Checked you are in Direct Print. In Direct Print the printed document is proportional to your screen and not rescaled and you may have to maximize the window before printing.. By opposition when you are not in "Direct Print", graphic routines will stretch the Far Field picture to fit the page on the printer. If it works and you print in Landscape the printout will be rescaled to fit the width of the page. WARNING: There is a problem with definitions of 800 x 600 with more than 256 colors. That bug is caused mainly by Microsoft who recommends to run graphics programs in 800 x 600 256 colors (See Microsoft Knowledge base http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/q108/4/70.htm). Tips ---- Tips are the small yellow windows that are displayed when the mouse cursor stopped long enough on buttons. The text gives you some information and tips on the button or control. Tips can be a nuisance to some and can be turned off by going to <Help><Tips on>. --------------- 2. INSTALLATION --------------- Installing NEC4WIN on your hard disk: -------------------------------------- From distribution floppy disks: ------------------------------- 1. Select File|Run from Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.1x, or Windows NT. 2. Enter A:SETUP (or B:SETUP) on the input line. 4. Fill in the directory field, and SETUP will create the Windows groups and install NEC4WIN. Alternative installation is: 1. From the Windows File manager, select the distribution floppy. 2. Click on SETUP.EXE. 3. Specify the drive and directory for the target. Installing from ZIP files: ------------------------- A. Full Version --------------- 1. Decompress in a temporary directory the N4WZIP.ZIP (or execute autoextract N4WZIP.EXE). You end up with a number of files as listed below. the .XX_ are windows compressed files used by the program SETUP. 2. Perform the installation as explained above 3. Remove all setup files from the temporary directory. B. Upgrade ---------- Unzip the file and copy the files to your NEC4WIN directory. You can rename the old NEC4WIN.EXE to NEC4OLD.EXE or anything else if you want to keep the old version. Save any demo project that you modified. ---------------- Distribution ZIP ---------------- SETUP EXE 19,056 03-10-92 12:00a SETUP LST 42 10-01-96 12:00a SETUPKIT DL_ 3,657 03-10-92 12:00a VBRUN300 DL_ 276,684 03-10-92 12:00a DDEML DL_ 23,971 03-10-92 12:00a COMMDLG DL_ 54,547 03-10-92 12:00a VER DL_ 6,714 03-10-92 12:00a GRID VB_ 27,975 03-10-92 12:00a CMDIALOG VB_ 10,865 03-10-92 12:00a THREED VB_ 33,489 03-10-92 12:00a NEC4WIN EX_ 114,733 02-24-97 12:00a N4WSET EX_ 14,638 02-24-97 12:00a NEC4WIN HL_ 109,560 02-24-97 12:00a N4WDLL DL_ 13,260 02-24-97 12:00a NEC4WIN IN_ 542 02-24-97 12:00a 20DIP N4_ 415 01-01-97 12:00a 20VERT N4_ 276 01-01-97 12:00a 21DIP N4_ 391 01-01-97 12:00a 40INVV N4_ 248 01-01-97 12:00a FEEDLINE N4_ 420 01-01-97 12:00a 80DIP N4_ 221 01-01-97 12:00a B10M3EL N4_ 382 01-01-97 12:00a B10MINCH N4_ 350 01-01-97 12:00a B40M2EL N4_ 240 01-01-97 12:00a BEAM144 N4_ 548 01-01-97 12:00a DIP10M N4_ 290 01-01-97 12:00a DMS N4_ 415 01-01-97 12:00a K5RPMAG N4_ 465 01-01-97 12:00a QUAD1EL N4_ 324 01-01-97 12:00a QUAD1ELX N4_ 286 01-01-97 12:00a QUAD2EL N4_ 584 01-01-97 12:00a SHORT80 N4_ 702 01-01-97 12:00a DDRR N4_ 669 01-01-97 12:00a W8JK N4_ 236 01-01-97 12:00a 2ELVERT N4_ 245 01-01-97 12:00a DELTA40 N4_ 249 01-01-97 12:00a ZEPP75 N4_ 346 01-01-97 12:00a 4SQUARE N4_ 340 01-01-97 12:00a 4TOWER N4_ 480 01-01-97 12:00a BEACON N4_ 329 01-01-97 12:00a ENDFIRE N4_ 366 01-01-97 12:00a HRZLOOP N4_ 372 01-01-97 12:00a SKYLOOP N4_ 345 01-01-97 12:00a SLOPER N4_ 290 01-01-97 12:00a UNIPOLE N4_ 534 01-01-97 12:00a INVL N4_ 218 01-01-97 12:00a LISEZMOI TXT 9,430 02-24-97 12:00a README TXT 12,007 02-24-97 12:00a 48 file(s) 742,746 bytes 693,760 bytes free ---------------------- 4. Running the program ---------------------- Click on the NEC4WIN blue icon. The main window is displayed and you can open one of the demo projects found in the NEC4WIN directory or go directly to <Plot><Far Field> You will be prompted for a project name. To see how the antenna looks use <Plot><Antenna> or better <Plot><3D..> Display wire list and dimensions with <Setup><Geometry>. Unless you want to stare at long lists of numbers use the PLOT command. Plot displays the Azimuth (Horizontal) and Zenith(Vertical) fields. You can select Logarithmic or Linear display, and print the results. The "Compute" menu item provides access to far or near fields and currents calculations. Results are dumped in a log file which can be printed later. Compute is used for compatibility with MININEC. It uses the same angle description (-90 to +90 for zenith). IMPORTANT --------- NEC4WIN contains a context sensitive help activated by F1 or by HELP. When you do not know what a menu item does, or what buttons do Press F1. ERROR DLL Out of Date ===================== If you get an error message "xxxx Dll Out of date" when you run NEC4WIN this means that the specified DLL is not loaded correctly, and that the one you have in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM is older. To solve this problem copy the corresponding DLL from the NEC4WIN directory to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM. ------------------ 4. HOW TO GET HELP ------------------ Visit our Homepage on Internet at: http://www.cam.org/~mboukri In addition to the last evaluation version, there will be a FAQ available as soon as possible. You can also contact Madjid BOUKRI, VE2GMI at: 1. Electronic mail Internet: mboukri@cam.org 71061.154@compuserve.com CompuServe: 71061,154 2. Phone Call (514) 626 5002 3. Mail Madjid BOUKRI ORION Microsystems 197 Cr. JONCAIRE, Ile Bizard Quebec, CANADA, H9C 2P7 =============== 5. Limitations =============== NEC4WIN is a Windows version of MININEC. The internal algorithms for calculating impedance and fields are based on MININEC3 algorithms. All MININEC limitations apply to NEC4WIN: Any antenna with horizontal wires lower than 1/4 will give inaccurate results. This is not dramatic most of the time, but in some specific cases, results could be quite off the mark especially if the number of segments is too small. For more information on MININEC limitations: . MININEC: The other side of the sword, QST, Feb. 1991 . Beginner's Guide to computer Antenna modeling programs by L.B. Cebik W4RNL, ARRL Antenna compendium #3 . Modeling HF antennas with Mininec, John Belrose VE2CV, ARRL Antenna compendium #3 Comments, Suggestions? E-mail to Internet or CompuServe. TKS, 73's Madjid BOUKRI VE2GMI -------------------------------------------------- Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Inc.