V-Soft Communications Newsletter: 10/19/06

In this Newsletter:

FMCommander Update

Thanks for a Great Dallas Show!

Estimated Release Date of AM-Pro 2

M-Wave Status Update

New Tech Support Prices Starting Dec. 1

V-Soft to Attend the Broadcasters Clinic in Madison

2005 Tiger Mapping Update

V-Soft Tutorial: Probe 3's User Defined Obstacle Feature

Training at Las Vegas

What's Wrong with My Map Screen?

New Update for FMCommander Released

There have been significant new features added to FMCommander since the last update. Now, FMCommander shows up to nine characters of a station's call letters, and applications and allocations without call letters are now referenced by the first 4 letters of the application ID. On the screen below you can see that item #1, Colchester is an auction allocation.  The first set of numbers after the "AU" are the auction number, followed by five characters of the application ID number. The new assignment method gives each auction record, allocation or application a unique call letter that will not change from one database to another. V-Soft Communications has changed the actual FM database to include the longer call signs, so to take advantage of this feature you need the latest FMCommander program and a new database download. Since the change is to the database, the latest version of V-Soft's other programs such as Probe Version 3 and Terrain-3D will also display the 9 digit FM call letters.

Other added features to FMCommander include:

• Searching by action date or cutoff date restored, including global search by action date (FCC changed their format for dates.)
• The 'Find Information' screen now will make full allocation studies of all important stations on a single map.
• Text on the new full allocation map can be edited by right-clicking and dragging call letters, signal values, arrows or boxes.
• Contour to contour protection & interference can now be placed on the map one at a time to build a user selected allocation study.
• The 'Separations Mapping' screen now gives different dashed lines for Mexican and Canadian separations, 73.215 and and short spaced spacings.
• A new Help menu provides a quick glimpse of the color and line type coding used for the separation circles. 
• The program's 'Find Information' screen now has a menu item to switch Canadian stations from protecting a U.S. 54 dBu Treaty contour to the standard Class A, C and NCE 60 dBu contour
• Extensive code optimizing has taken place in various parts of the program
• Program now automatically applies a reference station's International Class when a station is called from the database.
• There is a new input text box on the 'Reference' screen for user selected international classes.
• International class assignments for the reference carry from one job file to the next (Note all foreign stations are displayed using their International class, unless they have not been assigned one, in which case the program uses the domestic class for the international class, except for Mexican class A's where the larger class AA is used.)
• The Defaults screen now has a default value setting for 'Margin' or station listing length
• Comments routine reworked... to correct some missing comments
• Comments now can be accessed through a new comment button on the 'Reference' screen

As we mentioned above, this current update of FMCommander requires the most recent FM database files (fmall.zip) downloadable from the Client Databases section of our website. There has also been a change to one of the allocation tables. The new allocation table file, (NCLP809Y.DAT) also applies to FMCont, SearchFM, QChannel, FMProspector and FMProspector-Pro. If you haven't updated the allocation table in the last week or so, click here to download he new allocation table file, and extract it to your respective program folder, overwriting the existing file.

As mentioned above, another new feature that has been added to FMCommander is the ability to show FCC comments from the 'Reference' screen.  If comments are present, a "Comment" button will appear in the same line as the "Find" and "Accept" buttons. Once the comments are displayed, the station results text box can be returned by either clicking again on the comment button or by clicking on the text field containing the comments.

FMCommander will now also automatically highlight a record if it is the only result from a database search. If more than one record is found matching the search criteria, the user will still have to select which record to use as the reference station. Top

Thanks for Dallas!

AM-Pro 2 Update

Microwave Program Status Report

For those of you who are still waiting for the microwave program, the program is currently in the beta testing stages. Progress on the program is being made, however it has, for the moment, taken a "back seat" to the development of AM-Pro 2. Once AM-Pro 2 is released, a higher priority will be placed on MWave. We are please that our beta testers have reported that the program is "very" helpful as it stands for various STL application undertakings.

Tech Support Price Changes

Effective  January 1st, 2007 V-Soft Communications will be increasing the cost of our professional technical support subscription programs by 2.7%.  This is the first increase since January of 2005. The new rates are:

• Professional Quarterly:      $495/quarter
• Standard Quarterly:            $295/quarter 

We have not increased the amount for fresh supplemental databases, such as duopoly, towers or airports. The tech support rate increase will be reflected on the next invoice, to be sent on December 1, 2006, for the tech support period beginning January 1, 2007. If you have any questions, please email Kate Michler or call her at 1-800-743-3684. Top

V-Soft to Exhiibit at Broadcasters Clinic

October 24-26 at the Marriott West hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, V-Soft will be exhibiting at the Broadcasters Clinic and Upper Midwest Regional SBE Meeting.  In addition to exhibiting, at 10 AM on Tuesday, October 24th, V-Soft's Doug Vernier will be presenting his talk on HD radio with an emphasis on IBOC coverage and interference issues. V-Soft's booth at the Broadcasters Clinic will be represented by Adam Puls and Vernier. Top

2005 Tiger Mapping Line Data Update

The census bureau has released new Tiger mapping data, and V-Soft has it! The new Tiger mapping suite is an update to the Tiger Major Lakes, Rivers and Roads, and the Tiger Street Level mapping data. The new datasets have up-to-date overlaps, such as lakes, rivers, U.S. Interstates, U.S. Highways and state highways. The new dataset also has updated street level roads from the 1990 census on which the current Tiger mapping data is based. The new Tiger mapping datasets can be added to any existing Probe 3 license for $495. For each additional license the new Tiger files will be discounted by 40%. For more information on the new Tiger Major Lakes, Rivers and Roads, and Tiger Street Level mapping data, email Adam. Top

V-Soft Tutorial: User Defined Obstacles

For some time now, you have probably seen a button labeled "User Obstacles" on the first screen of the new study wizard of Probe 3, or possibly you have seen the "obstacles" button on the "Edit Study" windows, once you have run your study.  Perhaps you have tried to use this feature, but never really made any progress. This tutorial will show you how create a polygon, save it as on obstacle, and recompile your Longley-Rice study accounting for the obstacle.

1. Create a new Coverage Study.



2. Next, use the polygon tool to create a polygon on the map. The shape and height of this polygon will define it as an obstacle.



3. Now, Click on Map > Add to Map > Polygon Set



4. When the Polygon Properties window appears, click on "Get from Map" and select the polygon and click "OK".



5. Once the polygon appears in the polygon list, you can rename the polygon to something more relevant, fill it in with a color, and give it a height. Do this by double clicking the current height of the polygon shown in the polygon list (highlighted below in yellow.)



6. After adjusting the height or renaming the polygon, save the polygon by clicking the "Save" button. Be sure to save the polygon as a TXT file, and click "OK" to exit the Polygon Properties window. Next, click on the "Edit Study" icon in the toolbar to open the "Edit Study" window. Then, click the "Obstacles" button located next to the "Terrain Data" button



7. Load the polygon you saved in step 6.



8. After loading the polygon, click "OK" to exit the polygon screen and the "Edit Study" screen.
9. The study will recompile using the obstacle that was imported and the map is redrawn. Below you can see a comparison of the original map without the obstacle and the new map with the obstacle.
10. Now, to take this one step further, we can also import mutliple obstacles from the NOAA Obstruction database directly from IDTower. To do this, first save the reference station coordinates to the ref.dat file by clicking the "To Ref" button on the Transmitter Properties window.

    

    Next, open IDTower (the Search Parameter coordinates should be the same coordinates as the Probe 3 reference station,) adjust search distance and desired tower height cutoff as desired. Be sure the NOAA- NAD 83 database is the active database, and the "Write Probe Obstacles File" is checked.

    

    Click "OK". The database is searched and the Probe obstacle file is written.



11. Now, go back to Probe and load the obstacle file list from the Edit Study screen by using the "Obstacles" button, as used before.

    

    Click "OK" to exit the "Edit Polygon List" window, and click "OK" again to exit the "Edit Study" window and re-calculate the study.
12. The resulting map reflects all the obstacles imported from IDTower.

    

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Not Too Soon to be Thinking about Training

All of the V-Soft program software has grown more powerful in the last few years.  Having trouble keeping up with the new features and time saving procedures? V-Soft Communications continues its tradition of having an intensive training session on Saturday and Sunday, immediately preceding the NAB Conference in Las Vegas every Spring. If you have an interest in attending the 2007 training call Kate, and let her know the particular subject matter in which you have an interest. We often tailor the training to the specific interest of the participants, so let your voice be heard.  If you or your company requires on site training, that can be arranged as well, so give Kate a call. (800, 743-3684)

What's Wrong with This Picture?

Recently, we received a technical support request for a problem with the map screen on one of the FM search programs; FMCommander, FMCont, SearchFM and Prospector Pro all have map screens with varying degrees of detail.  Here is what we were told the caller's map looked like:

The classes box was covering most of the screen and the screen was only about 4 X 4 inches.  

ANSWER:  Take your mouse and pull the right hand lower corner (when the double arrow appears) diagonally toward the bottom of your screen. The map screens on these program are designed to be as big as you can make them. One reason for this, besides seeing the details better, is that the bigger the screen graphic the clearer the bitmap of the map that appears when you print it out. For the best appearance make the maps as big as you can, as the example below shows:

Note that your screen resolution needs to be high to produce a large clear map.  The resolution used to produce this map was 1280 X 1024 pixels. Also, note that on this map we are using a black background, which some people like because it tends to be a more soothing picture to watch over a longer period of time. Furthermore, notice the use of dashed circles to represent Mexican or Canadian stations. Very large spaced dashes represent 73.215 station, where short space can be applied. 

The map on the FMCont and FMCommander "Find Information" screen can also be expanded in the same manner. Finally, you can expand the main screen channel-study table as well and if you have selected auto fonts, the fonts will grow to fill the screen as you enlarge it. Top

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