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All     2005    News for NTIA/ITS HF Propagation Models (WINDOWS version)
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07 Jan  2005   1. Added Method 30 to ICEPAC.  Previously, this was only
                  available for VOACAP.  It performs a Short/Long Method
                  smoothing for paths 7000-10000km.  See the paper
                  written by George Lane under Help/General/Documents.
               1a.If you encounter floating point errors, let me know
                  as I was having some problems until I made some final
                  corrections, but my testing is limited as there is
                  no funding to support this work.

               2. While doing #1 above, I discovered a problem in VOACAP
                  area calculations. The antenna efficiency would have
                  been incorrect since the 24 July 2003 version.
                  This would have caused outputs such as SNR, SNRxx, REL
                  to have been wrong.  This is especially true if you
                  used the SWWHIP.VOA antenna as the receive antenna.

               3. I hope to make a change to REC533 approved by the ITU
                  in the next few weeks before I retire. It will make
                  a slight change in how the operational MUF is calculated.

               4. My retirement is set for 3 Feb 2005. I will continue to
                  be involved with the software from home.

14 Jan  2005   1. This version should only affect REC533.
                  I added a change requested by the ITU Working Party 3L.
                  And I quote from the request (Document-3/40-E)(27 Oct 2004):
                        Introduction
                    For the F2 region, the inter-decile range of the operational
                    MUF is taken to be 0.85-1.15 of the monthly median value.
                    This procedure was originally adopted as a simple method
                    suitable for multiple calculations. This restriction no
                    longer applies and a more accurate description of the
                    distribution of operational MUF with location, season and
                    time of day can be inserted.

                         Proposal
                    It is proposed the Recommendation ITU-R P.533, Section 3.6
                    should be amended to replace the single value for the
                    lower decile factor by the values given in 
                    Recommendation ITU-R P.1240, Section 7, Table 2.

                  I have replicated Table 2 and that may be found in the
                  file ..\database\p1240.dat.
                  This is the file that is read to fill the array values,
                  so do not change it, unless you find an error.

               2. Be aware that the above change only affects the output
                  variable named FOT. This is known as the Operational MUF.
                  The variable named MUF is the Basic MUF and is not affected.
                  If those who proposed the change would like to discuss this
                  with me, they should contact me by email(gh@its.bldrdoc.gov).

               3. The current source code for VOACAP & REC533 has been updated
                  and is available from the website.

               4. My retirement is set for 3 Feb 2005. I will continue to
                  be involved with the software from home.

19 Jan  2005   1. When I installed the software on my home computer, I encountered
                  a strange error when running the simplest program, NEWS.
                  This displays all of the news files for each version of
                  the software. It is really quite simple, but caused my
                  home PC running XP to fail with a display driver error
                  and cause the computer to shutdown.  So I made a small change
                  in the news program and it eliminated the error.
                  Thus, this version does not change any of the propagation
                  models. Sorry if anyone else experienced this problem.
                  The driver that was identified with the problem was IALMRNT5.DLL.

21 July 2005   1. This is a beta version for Rob Debolt to test.

18 Dec  2005   1. Fixed a problem with the world plotting program (Worldwin)
                  where so plots of the whole world (Lat/Lon) with grid sizes
                  of 100x100 or 70x70 would not shade properly.
                  The problem occured because with floating point rounding,
                  sometimes the eastmost coordinate (which should be +180),
                  would be +180.00001, which becomes -179.99999. Which then
                  becomes the westmost side of the plot!!!
             
               2. Earlier this year, it became known that a software package
                  that uses VOACAP had problems in foreign countries.
                  That was because HamCAP version 1.3 was creating an input file
                  to VOACAP that was formatted improperly. That was because some
                  foreign countries use "," instead of "." in numerical
                  representation. The creator of HamCAP fixed that problem
                  in HamCAP version 1.4.

               3. I have changed to use Notepad.exe to display all results
                  from the Point-to-Point models. Previously, I used my own
                  display program but that had lots of limitations.
                  Let me know if this does not work for some versions of Windows.
                  This will also affect the News display program and HFAnt.

               4. ICEPAC & VOACAP using METHOD=23 now allows the propagation
                  method to be [20,21,22,30]. Previously, it was always set to 20.

               5. Since I retired from the federal government in Feb 2005, I no
                  longer have the ability to control the website:
                    elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/hf.html
                  This has caused times when the software was not available.
                  Additionally, the webserver is quite old and may vanish.
                  I believe ITS will continue to supply the software and if
                  the above website is not available, it may be found at:
                    www.its.bldrdoc.gov/elbert/hf.html
                  Jari Perkiomaki of Finland maintains the website:
                    www.voacap.com
                  I will supply Jari with the most current versions of the software.
                  I have purchased my own website and the software is available at:
                      www.greg-hand.com/hf.html
                  This will be the official location of the HF software.

               6. I have changed all of my contact information in the software
                  to reflect my new email address:
                      gregory.hand@gmail.com
                  Since retirement, I no longer have access to gh@its.bldrdoc.gov.
                  The website and email changes are found on any Help/About menu.

19 Dec  2005   1. There was a problem with the METHOD=23 fix done in the 
                  previous version. The TOPLINES did not work.
                  This should fix that.
