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All     2002    News for NTIA/ITS HF Propagation Models (WINDOWS version)
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10 Jan  2002   1. HFANTWIN did not OPEN files properly if the software
                  was installed in a directory path name with too many
                  characters in the path, such as C:\test\itshfbc.
                  This restriction has been increased by 40 characters.
                  But don't get carried away with using lots of characters,
                  other parts of the software might fail.  You are still
                  better off using the default installation.

               2. The Default frequencies #3 have been set to amateur
                  frequencies (2., 3.7, 7.05, 10.075, 14.175, 18.1, 21.225,
                  24.950, 28.230).

               3. Some modifications to spelling and order of some
                  Scandinavian cities has been made (courtesy of Jari
                  Perkiomaki). These are reflected in the europe.geo files.


11 Jan  2002   1. Selecting Tx or Rx from the TRANSMIT.DEF or RECEIVE.DEF
                  files was not working.  That should be fixed.


08 Feb  2002   1. Two small code errors were discovered.
                  a. GENOIS routine of VOACAP.
                  b. BESTF routine of REC533
                
                  I doubt if the changes will be noticable.


05 Mar  2002   1. There was a problem in the BATCH execution of VOACAP & ICEPAC.
                  This is, if you executed:
                      ..\bin_win\voacapw.exe c:\itshfbc BATCH deck.dat deck.out
                  It would not calculate the antennas properly if you changed
                  antenna cards within the batch data file.
                  This has been corrected.
                  This would have been noticed only by someone developing
                  their own user interface.


01 Apr  2002   1. There was an error in Method 30 (Long/Short path smoothing)
                  of VOACAP that could cause overflow problems.
                  That has been corrected.


16 May  2002   1. It was possible in VOACAP if you put in Tx & Rx too close
                  together (closer than .03 deg), that calculation errors
                  could occur. Now, if they are too close, Rx latitude is moved
                  to be .03 degree from Tx latitude.

               2. Three changes were made in the DXCC1.geo file under GEOCITY.


07 June 2002   1. A minor change was made to HFANT in the File/Summarize
                  option to allow capturing the information displayed.


18 June 2002   1. A minor change was made to HFANT in the Plot pattern option.
                  When specifying Operating or Design frequencies, it would
                  accept values up to 360.  The maximum should be 30.
                  If you put in values larger than 30, problems could occur.

               2. Some minor coordinate changes were made to the 
                  ..\geocity\ncdxf.geo file.


03 July 2002   1. A problem was discovered in VOACAP on long path (>10000km)
                  calculations. One routine performed a comparison of takeoff
                  angle using radians and a subsequent routine did a comparison
                  using degrees.  The "IF" statement should have been using
                  the same variables so the same comparison would result.
                  When it performed the conversion of DEGREES to RADIANS,
                  very small differences could occur so the "IF" statement
                  would not work the same.  This has been fixed.
                  The previous result would have shown an extra loss of 1000 dB.


21 Aug  2002   1. A problem was discovered in VOACAP on long path (>10000km)
                  using the short path model.  This could also occur if
                  using Method=30 (Short/Long path smoothing).
                  Through somw anomaly, the 10% and 90% deciles for signal
                  (SIG LW & SIG UP) and SNR (SNR LW & SNR UP), could go bad.
                  This would in turn cause the REL to be calculated bad.
                  A limit on these parameters has been set at .2 to 30.


22 Oct  2002   1. A new option called "Area Inverse Coverage" has been
                  developed for ICEPAC and VOACAP.  The normal Area Coverage
                  is done using a Tx location to a grid of receivers.
                  The "Inverse" calculation is done using a grid of transmitters
                  to a Rx location.  The results are saved ina directory named:
                       ..\AREA_INV\
                  instead of:
                       ..\AREADATA\
                  where the normal Area Coverage results are saved.

               2. As always, since there is no funding for this effort, nothing
                  is guaranteed to work.  It is wise for you to do some
                  testing to make sure the answers are consistent with the
                  Point-to-Point models.


25 Oct  2002   1. The VOAAREA_INV program did not work if you selected the
                  automated plot to the screen.  That has been fixed.

               2. The AREAINV.HLP (HELP) file was bad.  That has been fixed.


29 Oct  2002   1. There were problems with both the ICEPAC & VOACAP Inverse
                  Area calculations.  I think I have it working now.
                  Remember some parameters do not depend on the receive
                  antenna (such as MUF & DBU).

               2. You can also now specify the METHOD in the Inverse Area.


04 Nov  2002   1. In creating the Inverse Area Coverage for VOACAP, some
                  other problems were created in the *.VG? files.
                  The Lat/Long values were not correct.
                  Hopefully this has been fixed.

               2. There were still more problems in making the area & inverse
                  area calculation match when they should for both ICEPAC
                  and VOACAP. We hope this version has solved those problems.


15 Nov  2002   1. A few other problems in VOAAREA Inverse have been fixed.
                  It would not run multiple groups, it does now.
                  The MONTH did not allow MONTH.DAY format.


18 Nov  2002   1. Two little cosmetic changes were made to the Area Coverage
                  plotting program.

                  1. More of the file name is now plotted to make it more
                     obvious if this is normal area coverage or inverse.
                     Thus, the file for normal Area Coverage looks like:
                        AREADATA\DEFAULT\MYNAME.VG1
                     The name for Inverse Area Coverage would look like:
                        AREA_INV\DEFAULT\MYNAME.VG1
                  2. Because this might "collide" with the descriptions:
                        "Transmitter location to grid of Receivers"
                        "Receiver location from grid of Transmitters"
                     They has been changed to:
                        "Tx location to grid of Rx"
                        "Rx location from grid of Tx"


09 Dec  2002   1. A change was made to the Worldmap plotting program to allow
                  multiple maps to be plotted.  It can also be resized.
                  It has some interesting features, and this function may
                  change as I understand it more.

10 Dec  2002   2. There was an error in VOAAREA INVERSE batch calculations.
                  It would not work properly.  That should be fixed.


18 Dec  2002   1. I discovered a small problem in getting Lat/Lon values from
                  the GEO data files.  No one ever complained, so no one
                  probably even knew it was not working properly.
                  Since this is used by almost all the programs, most had
                  to be re-compiled.  Hopefully, fixing this problem has not
                  caused 10 other problems! :)

20 Dec 2002    2. When the area programs read an old datafile, the variable
                  for the Receiver bearing was misspelled and was therefore
                  not set correctly.  That has been fixed.


31 Dec  2002   1. In VOACAP, with very short distances, (which can occur
                  when using the Run/Distance option), VOACAP may have
                  produced a mode of "-1F2".  This has been changed to
                  " 1F2".
               2. When viewing Run/Distance plots, if you picked the
                  "ASCII File" option (to create tables of the values),
                  then the ability to use the mouse to obtain values
                  would fail.  That has been fixed.
               3. In the Run/Distance plots, if the shading went above
                  the graph (e.g. in MUF plots), the headings would
                  get hidden.  The headings are now displayed last
                  so they will appear.  The other option was to clip
                  the shading at the graph limits, but I liked how
                  the plot looks when it goes above the graph,
                  especially for the MUF plots.
