-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All 2008 News for NTIA/ITS HF Propagation Models (WINDOWS version) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03 Jan 2008 1. It has been discovered that if the install directory is more than about 27 characters in length, the software would fail. An example of this would be installing the software in the directory: e:\swl\propaga\hfwin32\itshfbc This has been increased, to at least 46 characters. Please do not get carried away with the length of your directory names. This affects almost all of the executables. 21 Jan 2008 1. It appears that while running ICEAREA for Lat/Lon projection in the western hemisphere (longitude < 0) the noise calculation could be wrong. This has been fixed. It does not appear that this was a problem with VOAAREA or REC533. 10 Apr 2008 1. A result of the previous version (08.0121W) was that the longitude in the grid file for Lat/Lon calculations could have looked confusing. I had modified the Longitude so that it would always be in the range [0 to 360] (as required by ICEPAC). . I have changed this so that if you specify the range to be [-180 to 180] the output will be that. This will center the world plot at Longitude = 0. If you specify the range to be [0 to 360], the output will also be in that range. This will center the world plot at Longitude = 180. This affects all of the area coverage programs. 23 Oct 2008 1. Someone pointed out that while using VOACAP or ICEPAC Point-to-Point that Method=23 had a problem. Method 23 (in the original IONCAP) was used to specify different different output variables in the RUN/CIRCUIT option. But with the development of Method 30 (Short/Long path smoothing), certain problems occurred. Thus, Method 23 allowed you to specify which calculation model to use: 20 = default (<10,000km=short >10,000km=long) 21 = forced long path model 22 = forced short path model 30 = <7,000km=short >10,000km=long smooth in between Now, if you had selected Method 23 and then 30 for the model, RUN/CIRCUIT was fine. But RUN/GRAPH, RUN/DISTANCE, and RUN/TIME used 20 for the calculations. This has now been fixed to use the calculation model selected. This was never a problem with REC533 because its short/long path calculation model is fixed. 2. Let me know if there are any problems with Windows Vista systems. 3. This is a minor change from the vewsion 081022 that had an install problem. 15 Nov 2008 1. This change should only affect the ability to install the software on Windows Vista 64-bit systems. Hopefully I have selected the proper options to allow this. 26 Nov 2008 1. Let's see if this version solves the installer problems on Windows Vista systems. 02 Dec 2008 1. There was a strange "divide by zero" problem in the Worldmap plotting program. This was noticed if the plot was a Lat/Lon projection with the coordinates (-90,-90) to (90,90). This has been fixed. 19 Dec 2008 1. If you create your own VOACAP/ICEPAC input files and execute the propagation programs yourself, there can be a possible problem. Jari Perkiomaki (who maintains www.voacap.com) discovered this problem while doing some special analysis. This is ONLY a problem if you change the ANTENNA card after an EXECUTE card. To fix this problem, I have written a program to parse the data file and iteratively execute the propagation program. To see how to do this, select the icon NEWS, and view the file hf_parse.txt. This can also be found directly as the file ..\news_win\hf_parse.txt. Simply, from a DOS prompt, you would do: c:\itshfbc\bin_win\hf_parse.exe c:\itshfbc voacap inp out Where: c:\itshfbc = directory where sofware was installed. voacap = process with voacap (use icepac for icepac model). inp = input data file located in c:\itshfbc\run. out = resultant output file created in c:\itshfbc\run. 27 Dec 2008 1. A change was made to VOACAP for Method=25. If more than 10 modes are found, the output used to be on multiple pages. But since no one prints the results anymore and Jari Perkiomaki was doing an analysis that required the results on one page, he asks for this to be done. I hope he appreciates it, as I am doing this on my BIRTHDAY!