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1989-04-05
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This READ.ME file documents the differences between the manual
and the actual software as delivered. It also contains some
helpful hints we and other users have discovered. The last part
contains information about creating your own sector files, which
should be ignored until you become a TRACON expert.
1. CGA/RGB Monitors
--------------------
Some users expect to see TRACON display in color on their Color
Graphics Adapter-driven RGB monitors. Unfortunately, this is
technically impossible. These monitors can display either four
colors in a low-resolution mode (320x200) or two colors in a
high-resolution mode (640x200). Since TRACON requires the highest
resolution possible, it will automatically select 640x200
two-color mode for that monitor and will thus appear in
black-and-white only. For a true 16-color display as
photographed on the back of the manual, an EGA or VGA display
system must be used.
2. EGA Fonts
-------------
Some systems with EGA displays, most notably the Zenith Z-248
systems frequently found in military intallations, do not display
properly. Symptoms include the program displaying everything but
text OK, with text usually becoming unreadable graphics
characters.
We have discovered that this is caused by an incompatibility in
the EGA card's font generator hardware. If your system exhibits
this problem, first try running TRACON using the command
line:
tracon /m egarom
If that fixes the problem, please refer to the "TRACON.INI"
section in Chapter 6 of the users' manual to make the fix
permanent by changing the first line of TRACON.INI from:
Monitor Auto
to:
Monitor EGAROM
Your EGA-based system should work properly after this.
3. Voice Notes
---------------
TRACON 1.5 speaks all your commands in proper phraseology through
your PC's internal speaker. Pilots reply in another voice. Due
to limitations of the PC's simple tone generator, fidelity is
quite low; nevertheless, it sounds just like the real thing does
in a Cessna! Following are some notes from our experience:
IF YOU HAVE ONLY 256K OF INTERNAL MEMORY (RAM): TRACON may
complain that there is not enough memory for voice on your
system. This happens because your version of DOS, TRACON, and
the voice buffers cannot all fit into memory at once. You may
operate TRACON normally without voice on such systems, or you
might purchase another 128K or so (9 chips) and increase your
system's internal memory.
SINGLE 360K FLOPPY USERS: After making working copies of both
TRACON disks (Program and Voice), start TRACON as usual with the
Program disk in drive A:. With a polite beep, the program will
prompt you to insert the Voice disk when necessary and to
reinsert the Program disk upon completion of the program. Do NOT
remove the Voice disk once it has been inserted until requested
by the program.
ADVANCED FLOPPY USERS: If you have a RAM drive, created perhaps
using the VDISK.SYS device driver that comes with DOS, you can
speed up voice operation by using it. Just run TRACON from a
batch file that copies all the VOI files from their own
disk/directory to the RAM drive and create a path to that drive.
Then, when TRACON needs to open a voice file, it will not find it
on a physical device, and so will follow the path and get its
digitized voice from the logical drive in memory instead of a
physical drive. This will be especially helpful in dual-floppy
environments where disk access is slow. The RAM drive should be
at least 275K to hold the TRACON.VOI and the sector.VOI file that
you will be using; larger if you want to put all the sector voice
files on it at once.
NOTE TO PS/2 USERS: TRACON's voice on your machines will be
especially "tinny." Whereas XTs, ATs, and most clones use real
moving voice-coil 2" speakers, IBM has seen fit to replace those
in its new "slim-line" PS/2 series by piezoelectric devices about
the size of a nickel. Dell System 220s seem to use this, too.
Sorry...
4. NetWorks
------------
Some variations of some Novell networks seem to report the wrong
time when we query the internal clock, telling us that a minute
has gone by in about a second of real time. Please take your
machine off the network to run TRACON while we're trying to run
down this one.
5. Creating Your Own Sector Files (ADVANCED USERS ONLY!)
---------------------------------------------------------
With the proper instrument charts and many tedius hours, you can
create your own sector file(s). We did not document this file
format in the user's manual, since only advanced users should try
it and we don't want to be besieged with calls for more detailed
information about this relatively complex process. Moreover, the
data in a sector file is not error-checked very extensively --
this feature is just not supported as a user-configurable option.
We have created 24 more sector files in-house and are offering
them as an option, eight per sector disk -- use the enclosed
order form if you want one or more.
Nevertheless, if you want to "roll your own" sector files, the
following information documents the file format of the SEC
files. One caveat: if you try this, PLEASE DO NOT CALL OUR
TECHNICAL SUPPORT LINES FOR HELP. They are busy enough helping
out new users with the basics. But if you do succeed in
constructing your area's sector, send it in to us on a diskette
and we'll send you a free TRACON upgrade in return.
A final note about sector files: you will not be able to create a
VOI file for your sector without adding digitizing hardware, a
microphone, and some of our maintenance software to your system.
The only time you will miss the sector-specific VOI file is when
you clear an aircraft to a fix. The fix name will not be spoken
during the voiced command and pilot's response.
Coordinate System Used
----------------------
A sector file necessarily contains numerous ground references.
These points are entered using an <x,y> coordinate system
measured in nautical miles from an origin located at the lower
lefthand corner of the radarscope. The LAX scope, for instance,
measures about 45 nautical miles across. Its lower lefthand
corner is at approximate coordinates <0,0>, while its upper
righthand corner is at about <45,45>. All ground references
should be input using this sort of coordinate system.
The best way to get these coordinates seems to be finding a piece
of graph paper with a suitable grid that matches the scale of your
Jepp or NOS area/low altitude chart and xeroxing that grid onto
a sheet of clear plastic overlay. Then, you can simply tape the
grid over your chart and pick off points, composing your SEC file
using your favorite text editor.
The following discussion will mimic the structure of Chapter 6 --
using the LAX.SEC file as an example, each line or group of lines
will be shown and then discussed in sequence.
Los Angeles
The first line of a sector file contains the name of the TRACON
that the file represents. This name may be up to 13 characters in
length and will appear at the top of the screen during a scenario.
RadarMin -1.3 -1.5
RadarMax 44.9 47.7
These two lines represent the coordinates of the lower lefthand
and upper righthand corner of the radarscope. Since you should
allow a couple of miles around the boundary fixes, the easiest
way of getting a first cut at these <x,y> coordinates is to
subtract two or three from the lowest x-coordinate and
y-coordinate for the RadarMin value, and to add the same amount to
the highest x- and y-coordinates for RadarMax.
Since the radarscope is roughly square (actually slightly wider
than it is tall on most monitors), these diagonal endpoints of the
radarscope should match this shape, even if the above calculation
yielded something a little different. For instance, in the LAX
example above, the radarscope is 46.2 miles wide by 49.2 miles
tall. These values for LAX seem to look OK on all monitor types.
If the values you wind up with have the proper aspect ratio for
your monitor, the onscreen map will "look right" when compared to
a paper chart. After a little experimenting, you should be able to
establish a reasonable value for RadarMin and RadarMax that works
for your sector. Just be sure to give yourself a little room at
the edges for inbounds, so that when they hold they're still on
the scope, and make sure all fixes can be drawn well within these
limits.
31
SOLED b 25.3 44.5 26.0 44.0
SAUGS b 14.0 45.2 14.7 44.6
LANGE b 11.8 43.5 7.6 44.3
TWINE b 3.8 39.3 1.7 40.3
BAYST b 1.4 22.2 0.1 23.2
MERMA b 1.2 14.5 -0.1 12.2
TANDY b 1.8 5.1 -0.2 2.7
ALBAS b 27.2 1.0 25.3 -1.3
MIDDS b 38.8 1.0 36.8 -1.3
TUSTI b 42.0 7.0 40.2 4.6
AHEIM b 39.0 9.7 39.7 9.1
LAHAB b 38.7 16.2 39.4 15.6
PIRRO b 41.6 22.5 37.0 21.7
COVIN b 40.0 25.4 38.1 26.4
HASSA b 42.4 33.0 40.4 33.9
After an integer indicating the total number of fixes (boundary,
interior, and airports) to come, each boundary fix is entered in
the following format:
FIXNAME an FAA-standard 5-character fix name from your
chart
'b' a boundary fix
<x-loc, y-loc> the location of the fix itself
<x-name, y-name> the location of the lower lefthand corner of the
fix name when it is shown using the Alt-M command.
Boundary fixes should be entered counter-clockwise starting with
the upper lefthand fix.
LIMBO i 12.2 6.0 10.2 3.6
WILMA i 22.0 6.7 22.6 6.0
SLI i 32.2 7.5 32.8 6.9
HERMO i 17.2 12.0 17.9 11.2
DOWNE i 28.5 18.3 26.4 15.9
BASET i 35.9 19.2 36.5 18.5
STABO i 21.0 20.8 19.0 21.8
AMTRA i 28.4 25.2 26.3 22.8
VALEY i 12.2 35.5 13.0 35.0
BERRY i 20.0 32.5 18.2 33.4
GESTE i 21.4 30.0 19.7 27.7
Then enter each interior fix just like you did the boundary fixes,
except use the 'i' for interior instead of 'b' for boundary.
LAX = 13.2 16.5 10.5 14.2
VNY + 10.3 34.0 7.3 32.5
LGB + 27.0 10.0 27.8 10.2
TOA + 17.8 7.5 16.7 4.6
SMO - 12.0 21.2 9.2 22.1
Then enter each airport as a fix, using a similar format. The type
indicators for airports include '=' for an airport with parallel
runways accomodating simultaneous approaches and departures, '+'
for airports with an ILS approach, and '-' for airports with a VOR
approach.
The total of all lines entered in this format should equal the
integer at the start of this grouping.
14
V8 a 5.1 6.2 35.4 9.6
TANDY LIMBO 0
V64 a 9.9 10.4 37.7 5.1
LAX LIMBO WILMA SLI TUSTI 0
V25 a 4.1 13.2 22.9 1.3
MERMA LAX HERMO WILMA ALBAS 0
V21 a 29.3 1.7 0.0 0.0
ALBAS SLI AHEIM 0
V210 a 21.8 18.4 39.1 19.1
LAX DOWNE BASET PIRRO 0
V264 a 35.9 26.1 0.0 0.0
LAX STABO AMTRA COVIN 0
V107 a 5.1 22.5 0.0 0.0
BAYST SMO STABO 0
V201 a 23.2 37.3 0.0 0.0
LAX BERRY SOLED 0
V186 a 27.5 28.4 0.0 0.0
VNY GESTE PIRRO 0
V459 a 30.5 11.6 16.0 41.6
SAUGS BERRY GESTE SLI 0
V23 a 4.2 31.0 34.2 1.6
TWINE LAX HERMO SLI MIDDS 0
V165 a 12.9 27.7 0.0 0.0
LANGE VALEY LAX HERMO 0
V16 a 35.3 14.5 0.0 0.0
LAX LAHAB 0
V299 a 3.0 18.2 0.0 0.0
LAX BAYST 0
The next grouping consists of the airways that connect the fixes
you entered. After a count of the number of airways to follow,
each airway is entered using two lines per airway. The first
line is the airway name followed by the character 'a' followed by
two <x,y> locations where the airway name should appear via the
Alt-A command. If you only want the airway name to appear once,
use <0.0, 0.0> for the second set of coordinates.
The second line of an airway consists of the fixes that the airway
connects in order. Indent the first fix name. The line should
end with a '0' character.
6
LAX LosAngeles 5.3 1900 126 250 40 0 0 5 5 90 0
VNY VanNuys 7.7 4300 799 160 15 30 40 15 15 0 0
LGB LongBeach 4.3 1500 58 300 10 35 35 10 20 0 0
TOA Torrance 4.7 1900 101 290 13 50 50 0 0 0 0
SMO SantaMonica 6.7 3000 175 210 5 35 45 10 10 0 0
Ctr Enroute 0.0 0 0 0 17 40 40 20 0 0 0
The next grouping consists of airport information. After an
integer showing how many airports (including a "Ctr" designator
for the Enroute Center) will follow, each line consists of
information about one airport. The information is ordered as
follows:
LAX Three-letter ID of the airport
LosAngeles Name of the airport (no spaces) for the Alt-I command
5.3 Distance of the final approach fix (FAF) from the airport
1900 Final approach fix altitude in feet
126 Airport elevation in feet
250 Final approach heading to the airport in degrees
40 Percentage of flights in a scenario that will
involve this airport. The total of this COLUMN
for all airports (including Ctr) should equal
100. Notice now LAX gets most of the traffic
here, while Santa Monica doesn't get much at all.
0 Of the aircraft in a scenario that involve this
airport, this percentage will be piston singles
(Cherokees, Cessnas, Bonanzas, etc.)
0 This percentage will be piston twins (Navajos,
Barons, etc.)
5 This percentage will be turboprops (Cheyennes,
etc.)
5 Percentage of corporate jets (LearJets, etc.)
90 Percentage of scheduled airliners (American,
United, KLM, etc.).
0 Percentage of military jets.
Note: the sum of the preceeding six percentages should equal 100,
adding ACROSS for each airport. These percentages will determine
the traffic mix at the airport. Note how LAX mainly services the
larger aircraft, while Torrance handles the puddle-jumpers.
The "Ctr" line in the airports grouping determines overflight
percentages and aircraft mix in a similar manner.
13
SOLED 7
HASSA 10
COVIN 15
LAHAB 10
AHEIM 10
MIDDS 5
ALBAS 3
TANDY 5
MERMA 3
BAYST 4
TWINE 5
LANGE 8
SAUGS 7
Of the flights that enter and/or exit boundary fixes, the next
grouping determines the distribution of flights around these
fixes. The total of these percentages must add up to 100. In
the LAX.SEC data above, for example, you can see that most
traffic involves the Eastern fixes and to a lesser extent the
fixes in the North. Fixes to the West over the water such as
MERMA have much lower percentages than fixes such as COVIN to the
East.
MinAltitude 1000
The minimum vectoring altitude for the sector comes next.
MaxAltitude 12000
This is the altitude of the top of the sector.
Mask 16
This line determines which airlines fly into this sector. For
instance, while Quantas might fly into LAX, it doesn't fly into
Miami. But BahamasAir does. Geography determines what to do
here, and the safest procedure is to pick a distribution sector
closest geographically to the sector you're creating and use its
Mask value in yours.
Shoreline
<x1, y1>
<x2, y2>
...
Finally, as many "Shoreline" groupings may be used as you wish.
The LAX sector has a single shoreline, while others might have
more (islands have their own disconnected shoreline, for
instance). Each "Shoreline" grouping consists of <x,y> pairs, one
per line, up to a maximum of 290 points in all. End each list
with a <0.0, 0.0> pair. These points will be connected with blue
lines via the Alt-G (Ground) command. Or, if you change the
shoreline color, you could use this feature to draw TCA or
subsector boundaries in the same dim greem used for the rest of
the radar background.