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World Map Tab
The first screen you will normally see, the World Map tab, may be all that you desire from the program.
The World Map tab presents the path of your chosen satellites over the previous few minutes, with a dotted line showing the approximate sensor path of the "primary" satellite. Satellites in sunlight have a small yellow marker. Details of the primary satellite's location, signal strength, altitude etc. appear on the status line. You can set the date and time manually, or by selecting a satellite picture (the WXSat filename is decoded as date and time), or use the current time. The display normally updates every five seconds which imposes a very small computational load, and you can alter the update frequency from the options menu should you wish. You can choose a satellite either from the combo box or by clicking near the satellite. In the registered version, if you have taken advantage of the GroundStations.ini file to define user ground stations, you can click near a ground station to alter the home location to that ground station. The small numbered button near the satellite combo box allows you to change the active bank, and in the registered version you can also use the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+1..Ctrl+4 to make the selection. In the registered version, there is a small padlock icon which allows you to lock and unlock the display from keyboard input. The F11 function key key toggles full-screen mode, and will force the World Map tab to be selected. You can use your own image for the background to the World Map tab as described here.
The area which is in daylight is shown in a slightly lighter colour, when in the whole-world Plate Caree projection.
You can optionally display a small marker at your own location, with a choice of cross, broken-cross, or ring.
In the registered version, you can move the mouse over the World Map to display the cursor location, the azimuth and elevation of the satellite (if visible), and the range and bearing from your home station location, and the nearest city. Right-clicking on the World Map will produce a choice of pointing your beam to the antenna at a great-circle path to the indicated location, pointing at the satellite, or displaying the Satellite Summary form. Clicking on the Satellite Summary form will toggle its display between UTC and local time.
The panel below the world map carries some control functions (timeframe, bank, time & satellite) and a number of status boxes. You can right-click the panel area to determine which of the five status boxes are shown - Frequencies, Next Pass, Satellite Status, Second Station, and Tracker Status. To see all the boxes will require a display width in excess of 1200 pixels.
Pressing the Make picture button will allow you to predict a picture for the currently preferred satellite. (Note that selecting the Ground Path tab will not automatically transfer the current pass details, be sure to press the Make picture button instead.)
When in realtime mode, information on the next and next but one passes is displayed in UTC. With the registered version, you can have that display in local time as well. Right-click the display to change the time format.
You can display user-specified ground stations and change the program's caption if you wish. For more information, please see the sample GroundStations.ini in the Zip archive you downloaded.
Hint: When entering the time manually, I usually click on the hours field, type in the two digits of the hours, then use the right arrow key to move to the minutes field and type in the two digits of the minutes. As soon as the second digit is entered, the map display updates.
Hint: You can drag an SAA dataset name from your browser to set the satellite and starting time of the pass in WXtrack
Hint: While the minutes field is selected, you can use the up arrow and down arrow keys to alter the minutes a step at a time. This is a sort of manually controlled fast-forward / fast reverse mechanism.
Hint: Let the mouse hover over the date or time controls at the bottom of the page to display the local time format.
Hint: Let the mouse hover over the altitude or range display (e.g. Alt: 400 km) to see the value in miles
Hint: Let the mouse hover over the status bar to see the Orbit number and Minutes into the orbit
Hint: Let the mouse hover over the word Satellite to display the time to draw the last screen update, with a list of the elements comprising the steps in drawing.
Hint: Click the Picture from pass label to show a real-time clock instead. Click that clock to change from UTC, to local time, to "time to LOS" time, and back to the text label.
Hint: Click on the Next Pass / Tracker Status box to toggle its function.
Hint: Right-click the status bar at the bottom of the display to show or hide display of the moon data. Azimuth, elevation, range and range rate are displayed.
Note that as it can take a few seconds, even on a fast PC, to generate the azimuthal equidistant projection, the current world map background image will be saved as the file ~BackgroundCache.bmp in your Windows temporary folder, ready for use next time at startup. This can make startup substantially faster. You can delete this file if you wish. It is a temporary file, so if you edit it any edits will be lost when you change the program's window size, the projection, or the selected location.