Weathership gauge beta 0.95 ready !! UPDATED !!

[wothan]

Just before my holiday I managed to get the Weathership gauge ready.

Note!
This is only Beta !!

Download here:
!!! EDIT!!! Beta removed look for final version thread

Place it in Your:
C:\..\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\WoS_B377\panel\ folder.

Backup Your panel.cfg found there too
Open Your panel.cfg also and replace:

[Window06]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=186,261
pixel_size=186,261
window_pos= 0.05, 0.6
position=0
visible=0
ident=96
sizable=0

gauge00=b377!radios, 0,0,186,261

With:

[Window06]
BACKGROUND_COLOR=0,0,0
size_mm=1024, 800
window_pos=0.20, 0.10
window_size=0.70, 0.70
visible=1
ident=96

gauge00=Weatherships!WeathershipsSYS, 0, 0, 1, 1
gauge01=Weatherships!WeathershipsGUI, 0, 0, 1024, 800
gauge02=b377!radios, 825,50,186,261

//[Window06]
//Background_color=0,0,0
//size_mm=186,261
//pixel_size=186,261
//window_pos= 0.05, 0.6
//position=0
//visible=0
//ident=96
//sizable=0

//gauge00=b377!radios, 0,0,186,261


(Note ! Original entries are comneted out with // )


The Radio for homing in on the weatherships can be opened with the Sh+7 (Old radio Key press)
The original Radio panel has been merged into the new radio.

For the radio to work ensure that electrical power and avionics switch is On.
Turn the Power switch on the radio On

You can now dial in the frequency for the required weathership/station
Recieving range is appr. 500 nm, for some slightly less.

With the HDG ADJ knob - set Your current heading on the compass card.

Use the Loop Antenna Bearing knob to point the loop antenna towards the general direction af the station.
Loop antenna bearing can be read on the needle on the commpass card.

When the signal is recieved, the signal needle will start to deflect towards the right.

Turn You Loop antenna bak and forth to find where the needle peaks - this is the exact bearing to the station.

The Stations doesn´t transmit continuosly, but at these times during the hour:
05-10 min
20-25 min
35-40 min
50-55 min

When signals are recieved You will get Weather reports, shown in the mid-lower right part of the gauge.
Left clicking the mouse on the blue box beside LORAN Position, will show the ships reported LORAN position.
LORAN was not available before later in history - thus the option to toggle it On/Off.
The ships will drift around their assigned position within 210 sq nm.

Left clicking the mouse beside Navigation Calculations, will calculate the Course to steer, taking magnetic variation and wind data into account.
Your desired true course can be set by using the mouse wheel on the blue box displaying Your desired course.

Magnetic variation and wind data are the last reported ones. So when You have gone outside the recieving range of the staton, these won´t be updated.

The data are though updated when the ai

[mattgn]

Very groovy Finnj, can't wait to try this out.
Thanks very much for taking the time to put this together, I'm sure a lot of people are going to enjoy this

[lonewulf47]

Oh man, what a lovely toy to play with! I will make you responsible for sleepless nights thanks a lot, Finn. I'll give it a try ASAP !

[wothan]

UPDATE!!

Please re-download the "Weatherships.cab" again.

Ground speed has been added to the navigation calculations.

Like the other values, groundspeed is also just calculated, based on the last known reports.

FinnJ

[lonewulf47]

Hi Finn,

Just installed the gauge and it works fine. While checking the ships' position I found the longitude of "FOX" to be wrong. IMHO it must be W040 ISO E040 as this longitude would place it somewhere in the Syrian Desert between Aleppo and Baghdad . Furthermore the longitude of "ROMEO" W017 is doubtful. According to it's letter code it must be a Pacific location whereas the longitude makes it an Atlantic ship. Ill try to find some other sources for that. In my installation there's one problem showing up. As I use all 2D panels on a second screen all buttons using the mousewheel do not work. it might require additional +/- spots or left/right mouseclicks.

Apart from that using this gauge is great fun !! To be honest - I will not use any calcuclations but just using the good old plotting method which is by far accurate enough for an atlantic crossing. I'll try to find plotting charts for the Atlantic and Pacific region on which I will insert the default position of the weatherships.

Edit: Ok, I think the mystery about "ROMEO" is solved. It effectively belonged to the Atlantic fleet despite it's lettercode pointing to the Pacific fleet. So the coordinates seem to be correct. Fact is that not all of the weatherships on that list were used when the system bacme operational. ROMEO was a later addition but also one of the late survivors.

[Nico081]

Great stuff, Finn !

Waiting now for the final update.

Oskar, something like that?

http://www.new-aviation-art.com/images/ ... alntik.jpg

[Nico081]

- deleted -

double post

[Nico081]

Great stuff, Finn !

Waiting now for the final update.

Oskar, something like that?

http://www.new-aviation-art.com/grafik- ... /index.php

[seaniam81]

Great looking guage. I cant wait to give it a try. And just a little quibble but LORAN was around back in mid WW2. Infact the LORAN APN-4 was in bombers and patrol a/c back in '43. In '45 the LORAN APN-9 was half the weight of the APN-4. LORAN-A was all over the world by 1950, seen by this map. http://jproc.ca/hyperbolic/lorana_cover ... _1950b.jpg.

[lonewulf47]

Yeah, similar to some of them. Plotting charts are just plain mercator-projection maps usually just showing the coastlines and a meridian grid but only little geographic information and usually covering a whole area without navigation aids such as oceainc or desert regions.

[wothan]

Please post all errors found, and I will fix when I get back from holiday.

But now I´m really gone ......

FinnJ

[seaniam81]

But now I´m really gone ......

FinnJ

Have a good holliday.

[mos2net]

Hi Finn !

Wow! -Great work thanks for sharing.

mos

[wothan]

Back from the holidays again....

Not alot of feedback I see

I changed the FOX station to W40 and added left/right mouse clicks to the knobs.

I´m thinking of adding statins on shore for the following geographical locations:
Shannon (Ireland)
St. John (New foundland)
Lisabon (Portugal)
Lajes (Azores)
Bermuda
Prince Christian sound (Greenland)
Iceland

The exact positions will be placed at now existing NDB stations found in FSX.

Please tell if You find it a good idea and if other stations should be added (Hawai, Los angeles, Anchorage etc..)

FinnJ

[lonewulf47]

Welcome back!

Don't worry I've been using the ships to some extent and wanted to wait until you get back from holidays with my proposals. Here they are:

- I would reduce the size considerably to only include what is necessary for the display to get a smallest possible gauge
- therefore I would also remove the Station Listing as it just takes away "field of sight" on screen
- I'm presently a bit busy but nevertheless will produce kind of a handy "Plotting Chart" to be used for Atlantic- and later on also Pacific crossings. The whole stations Listing will be included in those Plotting Charts
- You might consider also a Gauge size with a widescreen 16:10 ratio (which is what I use). No big deal to resize but still...
- one inportant thing for the use on a second screen is, that the tuning dials are not only based on mousewheel action as mousewheel is not working when using it on another screen
- Inorder not to interfere with normal navigation I wouldn't include other than Weather Ships Stations - but that's my personal opinion - being a bit of a purist

That's it from my part at this stage. I can tell you that it's great fun to cross the Atlantic on a planned track by only tracking the progress with those cross-bearings. It works great !!