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13 Jan  1997    News for NTIA/ITS HF Propagation Models (WINDOWS version)
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13 Jan  1997   1. Several changes to the Win32 version were made because
                  Windows-95 and Windows-NT systems use file names that
                  have the first character upper case and the rest lower case.
                  This only affects those using the HFWIN32.EXE version.

               2. A minor change was made to VOACAP.  Occasionally, no valid
                  modes were found and it was linked to a small programming
                  error.

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27 Feb  1997   1. The ability to point the receive antenna at the transmitter
                  location has been added to the Point-to-Point data input.
                  There is now a button "at Tx" that is similar to the "at Rx"
                  button that already existed in the Tx antenna input screen.

               2. If you input Required Signal-to-Noise ratio at -10 dB,
                  the calculations would fail because of a data input field
                  problem.  That is now corrected, although I am not sure why
                  I ever allowed negative values to be input!

               3. Windows-95 users should now be able to see the whole plot
                  on their screens if you use the 32-bit version. On Windows-95,
                  there is an area at the bottom of the screen that is used for
                  the TASK BAR.  This would obscure some of the screen plots
                  because on Windows 3.x, I had access to the whole screen.
                  I have shrunk the plots down slightly in the 32-bit version
                  to try to solve this problem.

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13 Mar  1997   1. Due to a previous misunderstanding, the Help documentation
                  defined the UT time a being centered on the half hour.
                  For example, 1UT, it was stated was centered at 1:30am.
                  That is wrong.  All time is centered on the specified hour.
                  Thus, 1UT covers the time from 0:30 to 1:30am and is centered
                  at 1:00am GMT.  This affected minor changes in help messages
                  and some of the Help files.

27 Mar  1997   1. HFANT 32-bit for Windows-NT and Windows-95 systems may have
                  a problem OPENing antenna files.  This is caused by the fact
                  that these systems return the file name in lower case, 
                  whereas the 16-bit version always returned UPPER case.
                  I had fixed Point-to-Point and Area Coverage, but I forgot
                  to fix HFANT to correct this.  This should now be fixed.
                  It was only a problem with the 32-bit version.

               2. On REC533, if your circuit is >9000 km, no MODE or ANGL are
                  calculated because this is the LONG PATH algorithm.  This
                  would cause problems if your selected the GRAPH option and
                  tried to plot ANGL.  The Minimum and Maximum values would
                  both be 0, and this caused some auto scaling problem.
                  This has been fixed in both the 16 & 32-bit versions.

               3. The HELP file for the SI_ICEPAC and SI_VOACAP now contains
                  a description on the S/I algorithm that is used.  It is
                  in a paper titled:
                       Predicting Signal-to-Interference Probability in the
                       High Frequency Band
                  It was written to be presented in July 1997 in the UK, but
                  there probably (99.9%) is no travel funds to present it.

               4. There were some problems with ICEPAC & VOACAP if Tx & Rx
                  were the same point.  I have internally adjusted Rx if it
                  is too close to Tx, so it will be about 3km away.

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28 Apr  1997   1. For those who wish to create their own IONCAP style input
                  deck, that can now be processed properly with the Windows
                  versions of ICEPAC and VOACAP.  Perform the following:
                    a. Create the input deck on a file (NOT named modelX.DAT)
                              (That means NOT ICEPACX.DAT or VOACAPX.DAT)
                       The file should be in the ..\RUN directory.
                    b. Create an icon to execute with the following properties:
                         Command line:
                          ..\BIN_WIN\modelW.EXE directory BATCH deckname
                         Where:
                               model = ICEPAC or VOACAP
                               directory = install directory (e.g. C:\ITSHFBC)
                               deckname = file name used in (a) above.
                         Working Directory:
                               directory\RUN
                                (remember, directory is defined above)

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11 Nov  1997   1. A problem was discovered in the REC533 Area Coverage
                  program.  Directional antennas always pointed North.
                  This has been corrected.

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16 Dec  1997   1. The software may not have worked on some Windows-NT systems.
                  The problem was traced to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SALFLIBC.DLL
                  that is supplied with the software.  A new version was
                  obtained from the Fortran compiler developer (Salford) and
                  seems to have solved the problem.

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---------------------------- End of 1997 ---------------------------------------
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