Contents
- Index
Options Menu
There is a whole lot of stuff in here which should be better organised. The section includes information about ISS/Shuttle options, using sounds, and updating the Keplers on-line.
Background
The background is the image file used for the background in the main World Map tab in WXtrack.
For registered users:
You can update this background immediately (refresh background now), or have the program check for updates itself at intervals of from 1 to 60 minutes. The background may be redrawn shortly after the form is resized to provide the best image for the new size.
In addition, there is a choice of two backgrounds (standard and alternate), where the standard background is held in the file UserMap.jpg and the alternate background in the file AlternateUserMap.jpg. I would suggest using the AlternateUserMap.jpg as the fixed background, and the UserMap.jpg as the updated background. Note that the alternate image may be cached between program runs, just as the standard background is.
Google Earth...
For registered users: WXtrack can send the sub-satellite earth location of the current satellite to Google Earth, to drive the map display on a regularly updated basis. The dialog allows control of camera height and the view update interval. This is intended as a fun mode of operation!
Ignore refraction
Stops the program making a small allowance for atmospheric refraction near the horizon.
Line style...
Invokes a dialog which allows you to choose the colour, thickness and line style of the grid lines and footprints on the Map display. Please note that not all styles are available in all thicknesses.
Map projection
Allows you to switch between map projections. WXtrack can display the World Map background in one of three ways, either a simple linear map projection known as Cylindrical Equidistant or Plate Carée projection. This has the advantage of showing the whole world at one, but distorts badly near the north and south poles. A Mercator proejction option is available, limiting at +/- 73° latitude. Alternatively, WXtrack can work in Azimuthal Equidistant projection, which is rather like a view overhead of your location, but slightly adapted so that some distances and angles are better displayed. The code for this was adapted from the Generic Mapping Tools software, for which C, but not Delphi, source code was available. Two scales of this projection are available, the wider view giving rather more warning of satellites over the horizon, at the expense of resolution. You can download the Delphi source to create your own maps from my Web site in the Mapping Tools section. With Cylindrical Equidistant projection, you can choose whether the map should be centred around the Greenwich meridian or the International Data Line on the Setup Tab.
Precision display
Provides more decimal digits in certain display functions.
Satellite font...
Allows you to choose the font face, style and size for displaying the satellite names. The registered version of the program is required.
Save Snapshot
Save a snapshot of the screen image after every update to the file snapshot.bmp. Note that this may not work with slower PCs and faster update rates. The intended update rate for this option is less than one update every 30 seconds. The registered version of the program is required.
Text Font Size
Allows you to control the font size for the text displays. Useful if you normally use large fonts, but want to see the maximum information in WXtrack.
Units
Allws you to set whether Metric or US units are used. The default is the Windows Control Panel measurement value. In the registered version of WXtrack, you can change the default. The ISS panel honours the units setting.
Update rate
You can choose how frequently the World Map display is updated, from once per minute down to once per second. If you are running on a slow machine (say less than a Pentium 90) you may wish to use a rate of one update per ten seconds or less.
Show Options
Because of the large number of user show options, these are now in a separate sub-menu.
Cartography
Controls whether country, lake and certain river boundaries are added to the map background display. Requires the Countries.dat file to be present in the WXtrack folder.
Cursor Location pop-up
Controls whether (in the registered version) a small box appears as the mouse is moved, giving the location of the mouse in the map image, distance to nearest main town etc.
Footprint
WXtrack can calculate the approximate radio footprints of each satellite. This is calculated in a fairly simple way, and will not be as accurate as the other calculations within WXtrack, but it be adequate for most purposes. As the calculations will consume a little CPU time, and as the map can become confused with too many footprints shown, there is control of the number of footprints that are displayed, including whether or not to supress geostationary satellite footprints:
None - no footprints shown
Selected - show footprint for the selected satellite
All (except geostationary) - show footprint for all satellites except geostationary satellites
All - show footprints for all satellites
The Selected satellite footprint is shown in the same dark blue colour as the selected satellite itself.
The rest of the satellite footprints are shown in a light grey colour so as not to create too much confusion on the map.
Ground track
This option allows you to see the ground track of the selected satellite. You can choose to show the track for orbits forward or backward from the present position. The display will only be updated infrequently, as it is computationally intensive. You can tell from this display when the satellite is eclipsed, i.e. in the shadow of the earth and hidden from direct sunlight. The satellite itself will also have a yellow mark when it is sunlit. During the parts of the orbit where the satellite is in the sun, the ground track line will be drawn in your chosen colour, the eclipsed parts of the orbit will be drawn in a complementary colour, and the historical data for the previous pass will be shown in grey.
My location
Enables the placement of a small marker at your current location. Useful for the whole world (Plate Caree) map where you may be switching locations to follow the space station, for example, or if you don't live near an easily identified geographical feature. You can choose from a variety of symbols, and set the colour with the Line styles... menu.
Night time shading
Enables the darkening of regions that are in night time, to show the progress of the terminator. You can choose none, weak, medium, strong, strong with line or intense with line according to your preference. Just as with a real sunrise or sunset, the terminator is not a sharp line, but a gradual change from night to day. To minimise CPU usage, the shading is only recomputed when the image has moved by about 1.5 pixels (or when the map itself, or the time, has changed).
Overlay
When this option is checked, country and state boundaries will be added to pictures created on the Ground Path tab, and a longitude & latitude grid will be added to the sea areas. Note: that this menu item will only be visible if the file Overlay.bmp is present and has been sucessfully opened.
Pass box
If you want even more detailed prediction of the ground coverage while the satellite is visible to you, you could enable the Pass Box option for either Weather satellites or All satellites. This causes the program to compute the approximate bounding box of the ground picture when the primary satellite transitions into AOS. This will be displayed in the same line style as the primary satellite footprint. You will only see this displayed if you are using one of the Azimuthal Equidistant projections.
Past Position Markers
When this option is checked (the default), a small symbol will be drawn marking the position of the satellites at one minute intervals before the present position. If you are plotting the position of a "train" of synchronised satellites, this can be a hindrance so this option is provided to hide the past-position markers.
Radio Horizon
This option shows you how far away you can expect to hear a particular satellite. You can tell WXtrack what the elevation of your horizon is with the file Horizon.dat, a sample version of which is supplied. You must edit this file to match your local horizon. Without this file, an unobstructed horizon is assumed. The result is approximate because it uses a simple calculation based on the satellite's current height, which will not be the same as when the satellite passes over your location. To avoid clutter, this is shown as a dotted light grey circle centred on the location you have entered. As you change the active satellite from the drop-down list, you will see the radio horizon change to match the new satellite's height. You can choose whether or not to display the radio horizon.
If you use multiple locations, then you can also have multiple horizon profiles which will be loaded according to the name of the location. Thus if your location is Edinburgh, the file EdinburghHorizon.dat would be read in preference to Horizon.dat. All horizon profiles are assumed to reside in the same folder as the file WXtrack.exe.
Scanner line
You can choose whether the ground path of a single scan line is displayed. You can imagine the scan as a brush or broom sweeping across the earth, along the track of the satellite but at right-angles to the path. The Scanner line shows what the satellite (if it were a weather satellite) would be seeing at one instant in time, and allows you to judge the coverage of the satllite
Sun or Moon
Allows you to control whether or not the Sun and Moon symbols are displayed, and whether the moon overlays the sun on the display.
ISS / Shuttle...
The ISS / Shuttle dialog allows you to set several options which are handy for monitoring the International Space Station and associated Shuttle missions, geostationary satellite footprints and multiple ground stations. This facility relies on recognising the satellite name as starting "STS-" or the catalogue number of Zarya module, 25544 so be sure you have one or the other in your Keplers! The options dialog is divided into three sections.
Ground Stations tab
There are a number of ground stations used for ISS communications. You can view the radio horizon of selected ground stations by checking them in the list box. This will be useful to judge when a communications pass will be possible, and with which ground station. Initially, three US and four Russian ground stations are displayed. Be sure to set the Options, Line style... for Horizon to a line that is visible!
You can add to the ground stations displayed in ISS mode by supplying a file named: IssGroundStations.dat. A sample of this file, including the data format required, is supplied with the program.
TDRS rename & display tab
There are two selectable functions on this tab - to rename the names with which TDRS satellites are displayed, and to hide certain satellite names.
The TDRS satellites may be named TDRS 10 in your Kepler data, but that would be shown on the display at Mission Control as T046W. The list in the box allows you to rename for display, and each entry takes the form of Kepler-name=Display-name. Satellites which are renamed in this way will have their label displayed immediately below the satellite rather than to one side. Use Kepler-name=- (a single minus sign) to supress diaplay of the name altogether.
Names which are "well-known", and where the satellite can be adequately represented by an icon rather than a name, can have their names omitted from the display. Checking the Hide ISS names button hides names which include the text ISS, PROGRESS, SOYUZ or STS.
You can choose to use internally-defined colours for the TDRSS footprints.
Other tab
Show Mission Elapsed Time (MET). If you use the data file TLEnotes.txt, one of the options is to add the launch date and time information for a satellite or shuttle. See the file itself for a description of the date/time format. If you also check the option to display MET, the MET will be shown on the second panel of the status bar.
You can choose to view the footprint of geostationary satellites from the same altitude as the ISS. Because the ISS is located above the earth, it can sometimes see geostationary satellites when a ground station located directly below the ISS cannot. This makes the radio footprint of the geostationary satellite cover more that one hemisphere of the earth, and thus the footprint will appear as a shadow area on that hemisphere of the earth opposite the satellite. This takes a little thinking to get used to!
You can enable a special ISS display box, to resemble that used at Mission Control. You can position this "blackboard" either left or right (or invisible), and you can choose what the text font and colour should be.
You can choose a one-column or two-column blackboard display, and set the fonts for that display.
You can select whether to have the equator line drawn in red or the default chosen grid line colour.
You can add a display of the GMT time, and choose its colour and the latitude (i.e. vertical position) at which it should be displayed.
If you like to see the altitude in miles, then hover your mouse over the "Alt:" display, and the altitude will be shown as the hint text.
Play Sounds
Allows you to switch sounds on or off - e.g for late night operation!
To activate the sounds, use the Start button, Settings, Control Panel, Sounds and Multimedia (for Windows 2000, similar in other OSes). On the Sounds tab, you will see a list box of Sounds events. From this list, choose the WXtrack program, and click on the event you want to have a sound played for, e.g. AOS -1min. You can then choose either one of the built-in Windows sounds, or browse your disk for something appropriate. Sounds are not supplied with WXtrack because of the download size, but there are a couple of sources on the Web. Thanks to these folk for making their sounds available.
Wave sounds from Milan Konecny - http://www3.sympatico.ca/konecny/golden/sounds.zip
Wave sounds from Craig Orban - http://www.accesscomm.ca/users/monitoringpost/tips.htm
To hear the sounds, ensure that the Play Sounds option is checked.
Early AOS warning
Brings forward the AOS announcement to about 15 minutes before AOS - the 3 minute warning sound is played if enabled.
Text Overlay...
Allows you to set the items which will be stored in the overlay text file. Check each item you wish stored. This will control what text eventually appears on the SatSignal processed image when automatic overlay processing is used.
What to Save...
Leads to a dialog allowing you to choose what items are saved when a pass is predicted using the Ground Path tab. You can also choose the image quality for the predicted ground image as saving in either JPG (smaller file) or BMP (better quality).
Kepler options
Automatic Kepler reload at...
Will cause WXtrack to reload the Kepler data files at the time stated. You should ensure that the Kepler data is kept up to date by whatever means you choose. For example, you could schedule my Kepler Manager program to run at 0200 UTC and WXtrack to update its Keplers at 0400 UTC. Please note that times are in UTC, and not local times. The registered version of the program is required for this function.
Update Keplers...
This will call the Internet Update dialog, to allow you to choose which files are to be updated, and to give your permission for the update to proceed. To use this option, it is best to use Kepler data from the CelesTrak Web site. Alternatively, you can use data from the Space-Track Web site and use a program such as my Kepler Manager to download the data on a regular basis. Then just use the Reload Only button to make WXtrack read the new data files.