Maps for acars software

[Shackman]

For those of you using acars software on your computer, how would you make a map of your area to use with the software? Or is there a site where you can download a map that would work with the software? Thanks Dave

 

[jlh]

shackman, as long as you know the coordinates of your map, you can use any map/picture you want. i recently made one from a street atlas screen and another from a aerial view on local.live.com. just note or determine the lat and long and plug them in your acars prog.

 

[amusement]

How about cut and paste from Google Maps?

You could past it into pain and save it as a *.bmp file. Use the *.bmp file
as the background map. That would be so cool.

 

[Shackman]

I was able to do a screen capture of a map off of local.live.com and put in coordinates for the map and my server. still have not been able to get it to display positions of any aircraft. I am assuming that I am doing something wrong because I am seeing position reports in some of the messages. It does show the location of my server. I thank you both for your suggestions and any further help would be greatly appreciated

 

[jlh]

shackman, what software are you using? have you made sure that you have out the coordinates in correctly?

 

[Shackman]

It is called Acarsd version no 1.65, not sure that I have the coordinates in correctly, though it does show my server location (about 15 miles off) Is there better software to use?

 

[jlh]

acarsd is great, my favorite to use.

put your map's northern edge longitude in for "Top position"
put your map's southern edge longitude in for "Bottom position"
put your map's western edge latitude in for "Left position" ( a negative number )
put your map's eastern edge latitude in for "Right position" ( a negative number )

and are you sure that you've received data messages with the location embedded?

 

[Shackman]

there has been a couple at the end of some messages looked like this
North: 42.27 West: 86.18

the coordinates I have for my map right now are
top position 42.42
bottom position 39.17
left position 88.36
right position 82.36

server location n/s 42.18
e/w 85.35

there is also another box for validity of message in seconds which is 3600

still no position displays on the map. I am sure it is something that I am doing wrong.

Did not have negative values, will try that. Hope it works. will let you know.

 

[Shackman]

jlh, It is working finally, thanks for the Negative input I never would have got that. now to just fine tune my coordinates a little more.

 

[DanHenry]

Use Degrees.degrees format, not Degrees.minutes

Dave,

I've been running ACARDS here pretty much 24/7 since Christmas day, 2005. JLH is correct and all your west longitude positions need to be negative. I think you also have a problem with the format you're using for the coordinates.

Kalamazoo, MI is:
N 42-18 (degrees.minutes) minutes are 0-59
W 085-35 (degrees.minutes)

but ACARSD uses the coordinates in degrees.decimal degrees format (base 100)

Try using these values for your server location and convert the top, bottom, left, and right values in the same way.
42.3 (18/60)
-85.583 (35/60)

I use 360000 for validity (100 hours) so all positions stay on the map. Since I reboot once a day that clears the chart.

For my charts I use screen captures from a program called Falcon View at work that is used for mission planning. I have three differect scales showing from 350 mile to 50 mile radius around my server.

When you open the maps they start showing positions from that point on. They do not show positions for messages that you've already logged. For a typical day here with 3,000+ good messages I'm usually showing approx 120 positions plotted.

Good luck,

Dan

 

[jlh]

glad it worked, shackman

 

[Shackman]

Did that and refined my position even more. Thanks Dan

 

[Smith29180]

what does it mean by Ratio when setting up your maps ??

 

[SkipSanders]

Unfortunately, there's a problem with the map display of ACARSD. While position reports are almost all (as heard here in San Diego) in 'degrees, minutes' form, the software assumes 'decimal degrees', causing the displayed position to be in serious error.

That is, the aircraft reports N32500W117500, the program displays North: 32.500, West: 117.500, but the correct postion is North: 32 deg, 50.0 minutes, West 117 deg 50.0 minutes. The correct decimal degrees values would bee 32.833, 117.833.

If you use the DDE feature to send the data on to POSFIX or another such display program, it will map the data correctly.