About Cambridge GPS-NAV PC software: Version 3.1.1 September 11, 1995 Designed & Written by: John F. Good Main Menu and Install code by Phil Schlosser Q. A. & GPSREAD.TXT by: Dave Ellis You are welcome to copy this software. Use it at your own risk. Cambridge Aero Instruments assumes no legal liability. If you are browsing here, you have probably copied the software and do not have the User's guide. We assume you have enough computer skills (or courage!) to try this software on your own. A 40 page User's Guide is available. Send a check or credit card number for $20 to: Cambridge Aero Instruments RR Box 109-3 Warren, VT 05674 FAX: (01) 802 496 6235 e-mail: cai@cerfnet.com We're interested in bugs you may find. But, please don't call! Carefully write down your observations and Mail, FAX or e-mail them to us at the above address. You may be the 5th person to report a bug, so don't expect us to answer your communication. Thanks. There are no no known bugs as of September 11, 1995. This document has three sections: 1. Installation hints 2. Normal operation 3. Obscure stuff 4. Troubleshooting 1. Installation SOFTWARE.CAI contains ZIPPed software. FILES.EXE is the ZIP/UNZIP utility. INSTALL.EXE is the installation program. From the A:\ prompt,type INSTALL. INSTALL is pretty smart. For first-time installations, don't be clever; use the default directory and sub-directory choices. Installation in an empty directory loads two sets of Navpoints and tasks. (Nationals @ Sugarbush and Omarama, NZ). It also loads two demo flight logs from the 1994 Standard Class Nationals at Sugarbush into the sub-directory \FLIGHTS. These logs demonstrate most display functions. If older Cambridge PC software is being upgraded, existing SITE, NAVPOINT, TASK, and PILOT databases are not overwritten. Since display of multiple flights needs Navpoint and Task information from the PC database, it also means you won't be able to see the Sugarbush demo flights this way. Viewing flights from the WGC '95 also needs site and task information from the PC database. If you want to view these flights, load the PC software into an empty directory. Flights from WGC '95 are available at the following World Wide Web address: http://acro.harvard.edu/MITSA/WORLD_95/soaring_world.html This WWW site also has current versions of the FAI Sporting Code and the IGC Flight Recording Data Standard. This PC software uses the file naming convention for Flight Logs specified by the ICG Flight Recording Data Standard. You can also see the complete IGC Standard at the above http address. Flight Logs generated by earlier versions of the PC software use a different file naming comvention. Old: $CAI0020.46K New: 46KC0201.CAI Older Flight Logs use $ to denote file type, devote 7 characters to Flight Recorder identification, and encode date in filename extension. This software reserves the filename extension for file type (.CAI) and uses a more concise format for Flight Recorder Identifier. 46K describes 1994, Month 6 (June), Day K (20th). Day and Month are encoded as 1-9, A, B, C, ----. Try it! The characters C020 identify the Flight Recorder as Cambridge ID # 020. Alphabetic characters are allowed. This expands the possible number of identifiers. The last digit in the Filename is the sequence number of the Flight Log for the day. Installing this new software automatically causes existing flight logs in the SYSTEM SETUP path to be re-named. Only the filename is changed. If you need to change existing flight logs in other directories to the new filenaming convention, set the path in SYSTEM SETUP to that directory and type NEWVER at the DOS prompt. The Database Program (NPM.EXE) is written in Clipper. It generates standard .DBF files. If the Database program has problems with Pilots, Sites, Navpoints, or Tasks, type RECOVER at the DOS prompt. You can get into big trouble fast by independently tinkering with the .DBF files. 2. Normal Operation To see the overall file structure, type TREE at the DOS prompt. You should see sub-directories FLIGHTS and EXP. Normally, Flight Logs are stored in FLIGHTS and EXPanded (.IGC or .DAT) files are stored in EXP. Type GPS at the DOS prompt to get started. This runs FLY.EXE which provides the top level menu. Look first at Menu line 5. This runs NPM.EXE which does the database stuff. SYSTEM SETUP shows default COM and LPT ports. It also shows the default Flight Log transfer paths. The choice of Printer Driver is also made here. Note: There is lots of context sensitve help for the database screens. Type F1 to see the help screens. Data is transferred from the PC to the Flight Recorder from a menu choice within NPM.EXE. The top two Main Menu choices first run FSELECT.EXE, then FPLOT.EXE. In general, selecting and plotting flight logs use the / paradigm. Press F10 to get menu choices. Also try the following short-cut keys: s, t, p, n, +, -, g, p, e, , and. The s key stands for Slow display in flight overview and Single step in Detail view. In Single Step mode, pressing cuts off previous points; pressing cuts off following points. In Single Step Mode, pressing 5 will jump ahead 5 points. Pressing - will jump back 5 points. Further Help is available by typing ? after some executable file name. For example, Type TRANSFER ? to see available commands. 3. Obscure Stuff When you do certain functions in MANAGE NAVPOINT DATABASE, you must go thru the POSTing function twice to get the desired results. Examples are creating a Restricted Navpoint and changing units of measure. The Special Functions Menu in MANAGE NAVPOINT DATABASE has several powerful but obscure functions. EXPORT makes a text file containing Navpoint data. This data includes landing fields and Markpoints. NPLIST makes a text file containing only Turnpoints, Start Points, and Finish Points. Use a word processor to format these files for printing. IMPORT allows you to create or update a Navpoint database from a text file. Use a file created by EXPORT as a formatting guide. IMPORT also allows a Flight Log to serve as a source for Navpoint data. This is a nice way to scrounge a database when visiting a new gliding site. Just borrow either a Flight Recorder or a diskette with a flight log from a local pilot and IMPORT the database. If you are IMPORTing data from ASCI text files created by other data sources, use an EXPORTed database from an existing SITE as a style guide. IMPORT is smart; if a matching SITE is found in the database, existing Navpoints with the same ID# will be preserved. New Navpoints with different ID#s will be added. If no matching SITE is found, a new one with the corect name will be created. - details, details, details! For a Site to be recognized in plotting a flight log, the site name must match (case insensitive) the site name in the flight log. If a matching SITE cannot be found, the function will look for a match in Home point name and location. If you want to have different SITES with similar names, use a comma delimiter to separate them. For example, Uvalde, A Uvalde, B Uvalde, C are considered separate SITES. Remember that Flight Logs contain Navpoints and Declared Tasks in addition to the Flight Log itself. You can choose the source of displayed Navpoints and Tasks in Flight Select menus and in the Options Menu during plotting of single flights. The Flight Log contains only the most recent Declaration. You cannot declare and make a badge flight on Friday, then make a new Declaration on Saturday before you Transfer the Flight Log to the PC. To plot multiple flights you must have a task defined for at least one of the flights. This means you must have the gliding site and associated Navpoints defined in the PC. You can do this from scratch using the IMPORT function. Pretty clever! 4. Troubleshooting a. No connection to the Flight Recorder. Type TRANSFER TEST at the DOS prompt. This will identify the COM port to which the Flight Recorder is connected. If you type TRANSFER ?, you will see a list of available options. b. Slow or un-reliable data communication with the Flight Recorder. Disable TSR's & Network connections by typing F8 during Boot-up. c. Goofy operation of NAVPOINT DATABASE MANAGER. Type RECOVER at the DOS Prompt. d. General weird behavior. Check that your PC has at least 460 kbytes of Conventional memory available by typing MEM at the DOS prompt. Check FILES=30 or more in CONFIG.SYS. e. Flight Logs fail the Security check. The permanent Flight Recorder seal has been broken. Send the unit to a Cambridge agent to have it re-sealed. f. General problem with transferring or plotting a very important flight. This may happen if you have a bladder strong enough to fly > 12 hours at a 4 second recording interval. Type TRANSFER ALL at the DOS Prompt. This dumps the complete Flight Recorder memory to a file named xxxx.all. Send the file to Cambridge Aero Instruments for analysis. g. Can't print Scaled Flight Charts on a bubble jet printer. Sorry, this function works only with HP LaserJet II, LaserJet IV, or equivalent laser printers. h. Turnpoints declared with GPS-NAV Display Firmware Versions 3.4 or earlier appear displaced from turnpoints in the PC or GPS-NAV database. At Version 4.0 LCD Display Firmware, we changed the format of declared turnpoints from Degrees, minutes, seconds to degrees, decimal minutes. This PC software interprets declared turnpoints as degrees, decimal minutes in accordance with the IGC Standard. To properly evaluate flights made with earlier GPS-NAV firmware, create a site with the appropriate turnpoints. Then assign the task for that site, class, and day. Evaluate the flight using the assigned rather than the declared task. That's all, folks! Enjoy! D. Ellis 9/11/95