AMSTNS 3.4 AM Station Search Software 990105 Copyright 1995-9 by Robert J. Carpenter, W3OTC 12708 Circle Drive, Rockville, MD 20850-3713 1-301-762-5838 w3otc@amsat.org CONTENTS: 0: Changes 1: Disclaimer 2: Requirements 3: Main Features 4: Help in Using AMSTNS 5: Use With DeLorme Street Atlas(R) 6: Installation 6a: DOS Installation 6b: Windows 3.1 Installation 6c: Windows 95 Installation 7: Downloading Data from the FCC 8: Supporting Programs 9: The Help Screen 10: A Sample Details Box 11: The On-Screen Command Line 12: The Choices Screen 13: Mexican States 14: Canadian Provinces 15: File Names 0: CHANGES ========== 3.4 The user must explicity indicate which versions of Street Atlas SAn files are to be produced, as well as the disk partition [c-f] containing Street Atlas - if it is not the same as that containing AMSTNS. This allows AMSTNS and Street Atlas to be in different disk partitions. These choices are made in the F10 CHOICES screen. Other minor fixes on F10 CHOICES screen. Tower arrays overlaid on directional patterns. Tabular listing of tower parameters is one "F8 Scale" choice. 3.3a Waypoint limit 250, Frequency search center changes with distance reference [city, stn, spcl]. 3.3 is the first mouse-aware version. 3.2.1c differs slightly from 3.2.1b. Distance and azimuth filters now work in frequency searches. There are a few cosmetic changes as well. 3.2.1b was the first downloadable version. 1: DISCLAIMER: ============== The author disclaims all responsibility for any result of the use or misuse of this software and/or database. This version of AMSTNS is shareware. You are encouraged to send the registration fee of US$20 to the above address. This fee covers use of both TVFMSTNS 7.x and AMSTNS 3.x. AMSTNS may be freely distributed. 2: REQUIREMENTS: ================ A PC with 386 (operation without a math coprocessor is very slow), a 486DX66 or a Pentium is preferred, approximately seven megabytes of free hard disk space, VGA display, MS-DOS 3.3 or more recent. AMSTNS will run as a DOS program with Windows 3.1 or 95. When using DOS, 640K RAM is adequate; operation with Windows 3.1 requires eight megabytes of RAM; 16 megabytes of RAM are recommended if you are using Windows 95. If you wish to download an updated version of the database directly from the FCC, an additional 20 megabytes or so of hard disk space are temporarily required to import and convert the FCC data. This version of AMSTNS uses an enhanced AMSTNS.PRF file to carry settings over to the next time you run AMSTNS. Since you won't already have this version PRF file, my own PRF file will be installed. You will want to enter your home name and location as the SPCL location using the F10 CHOICES screen. 3: MAIN FEATURES: ================= AMSTNS allows display of the "interesting" data records contained in the FCC's AM engineering and comments broadcast station database in the following ways. The FCC engineering comments are displayed. Directional antenna patterns are displayed. 1> CITY - Stations within a chosen distance of the city/state are displayed sorted by frequency, and subsorted by state/province and city if there are multiple stations on a frequency. 2> FREQUENCY - Stations on the given frequency are displayed sorted by state/province and city-within-state. Filters are provided for direction and distance. Mexican states and Canadian provinces appear after the US states. 3> CALL - All stations matching the given first 2, 3, or 4 call letter characters are displayed sorted by frequency, and further sorted by state/province and city. For three-letter calls, append a character to prevent display of all four- character calls that match the given three characters. Waypoint ("Startup") files for Street Atlas which are created by AMSTNS can be uploaded to at least a Garmin GPS by means of the G7TO program which is part of this package. You should read G7TO.DOC for more information. AMSTNS operates much faster in full-screen mode. You will want to use to switch AMSTNS to and from full-screen mode when using Street Atlas. The follwing installation will result in the "keep compressed" mode of operation. This saves about five megabytes of hard disk space when TVFMSTNS is not running. The program will start faster if the "keep uncompressed" mode is used. To change to this mode, display the folder / directory containing AMSTNS. Double click on (or type) UNZDATA batch file. To return to the "keep compressed" mode, use ZIPDATA instead. 4: HELP IN USING AMSTNS: ======================== The command items across the top of the screen, plus the "Choices" and "Help" screens, provide information on the use of AMSTNS. Refer the end of this file for sample screens. Up and down arrow, as well as Home and End are used to select any "found" station for display of detail and antenna pattern. The mouse left button can be cursor can be clicked on anywhere on a "F_ Text" command to execute that command. In the choices screen, you can click while the mouse cursor is anywhere on a line to simulate pressing the "F_" key. Any displayed station can be selected by clicking while the mouse cursor is pointing at the station in the right window. I have encountered Win 95 installations where AMSTNS will not perform searches while in less than full-screen mode. On other versions of Win 95, the mouse cursor can be used even while AMSTNS is operating in less than full-screen mode. The mouse has no effect on AMSTNS when operating in less than full- screen mode with Win 3.1, at least on my computer. The Field feature allows the display of unattenuated field strength at one kilometer at any integer one-degree azimuth. This feature is toggled on and off with F9. The azimuth is selected in one-degree steps by Left Arrow for counter-clockwise motion, and Right Arrow for clockwise motion. The step size is increased to 15 degrees for Ctrl-LeftArrow and Ctrl-RightArrow. The augmentation file for a directional pattern may be ignored, if it exists. Augmentations are "fudges" to correct the predicted pattern to match reality. Unfortunately some contain gross errors and this option allows these few to be ignored. Press F3 in F10 Choices to toggle this option on/off. 5: USE WITH DELORME STREET ATLAS(R) =================================== AMSTNS can produce "Startup" (waypoint) files for use by DeLorme Street Atlas 3, 4, 5 and 6. At present, SA5 files are output for use by SA6. The versions to produce (3,4,5,6) are chosen in the F10 CHOICES screen. If you don't want to produce any SAn files, ask for only version "0". You must also choose the disk partition [c-f] containing Street Atlas, if it is different from that containing AMSTNS. Only one disk partition may be specified. The SAn files will be written into the ATLASn directories in the disk partition chosen by F10,^F8. The number of station records within a single SAn file has been limited to 250. The file produced by a "City" search is Mxxxxxxx.SAn, where xxxxxx represents the first 7 characters of the city name; the file produced by a call search is M_xxxxxx.SAn, where xxxxxx represents the station's call letters. A separate file is created for each frequency searched: M1150.SAn M0930.SAn, etc. The SAn files produced by AMSTNS contain the "M" to differentiate them from similar files produced by the TVFMSTNS program. You can control the size of the text and station markers by means of the F10 CHOICES screen. The value of sizes range from vs (very small) to through s, m, and l, to vl (very large). The shapes are diamond, square, dot, star, triangle, and the colors are black, blue, green, red, yellow. The interface from AMSTNS to Street Atlas is by means of the G7TO.EXE 3.02.12, a freeware program by Ron Henderson, WA7TAS. A copy of G7TO.EXE must be in the same directory as AMSTNS, and is automatically loaded there from the distribution disks. Earlier versions of G7TO may give the wrong icons, or worse. You may download more recent versions of G7TO from Ron's site. Newer versions such as G7TOA309 are too large to coexist with AMSTNS in a DOS or DOS-Window environment. They can be used, however, to transfer SAn files created by AMSTNS to GPS units. The G7TO web site is: //www.proaxis.com/~crh/gps/g7to/g7to.htm The geographic coordinates in the FCC files are claimed to be in terms of the NAD27 datum. Street Atlas operates on the more recent NAD83 (WGS84) datum. AMSTNS converts the FCC data. While this conversion helps (especially in the West where the difference can be 100 meters or more), some stations now end up in the middle of roads. Perhaps they furnished the FCC with data in terms of NAD83 instead of the required NAD27, since many people don't know of the difference. 1- Attempting to write to the SAn that Street Atlas is displaying has no effect. Any operation may be done in AMSTNS, you just won't create a new version of the SAn file Street Atlas is currently displaying. To allow AMSTNS to write a new version of the file that Street Atlas is displaying, temporarily have Street Atlas display ANY other xxx.SAn file. 2- I have had good result running AMSTNS from a desktop shortcut under Win95. If this is not successful for you, you may find that it is necessary to run AMSTNS from a DOS prompt. Go to Start | Programs | DOS Prompt. Then change to the AMSTNS directory [cd \amstns] and type "amstns". 3- With Windows 3.1, you may want to position and size Street Atlas so that the AMSTNS screen just peeps out from under an edge of Street Atlas. 4- Do searches in AMSTNS and click on the "open" symbol in Street Atlas, point at the "\ATLASn" directory, choose the appropriate SAn file type, and open the "M" file you want to display. The SAn screen will be centered and its scale adjusted to show all the stations in the M file you chose. [Sometimes the scale is set a bit too low, use PageUp if some stations are off the screen.] Alternatively, you can use File Manager or My Computer to display the folder containing the desired SAn files and the drag the desired one into the Street Atlas window using the left mouse button. Using this approach, the SAn file version need not match the Street Atlas version in use. 5- You may load other M or V files, and you may go back to AMSTNS by clicking on it. Setting the AMSTNS distance reference to STN can be used to resolve situations where too many transmitters are co-sited for clear viewing in SA. Beyond six calls at a site, the site marker is written in red. 6- AMSTNS must be terminated by its Alt-F10 command. Do not use Win95's "X" feature to exit AMSTNS. 6: INSTALLATION =============== AMSTNS must not be placed in the same subdirectory or folder as TVFMSTNS. If you download over the Internet, the distribution is contained in AMSTNS34.ZIP. Make a temporary directory/folder and download AMSTNS34.ZIP into it. Then unZIP it using PKUNZIP, WINZIP, or other standard tools. You should have the following files: readme34.1st amsetup.exe pkunzip.exe amprog.zip amsprt.zip amdata.zip If you obtained the program on diskettes, they will contain the above files. The AMDATA file will span onto diskette 2. You may now proceed with AMSETUP.EXE as outlined below. 6a: DOS INSTALLATION: ==================== 1- Change to the directory (or diskette) containing the above six files. 2- Type AMSETUP followed by the Enter key. Answer the questions. 6b: WINDOWS 3.1 (r) INSTALLATION: ================================= 1- Open the File Manager. 2- Open the folder/directory (or diskette) containing the above 6 files. 3- Double-click on AMSETUP.EXE. Answer the questions. AMMSTNS is a DOS program. You can run it from its own special WINDOWS 3.1 icon if you follow these steps. 1- Start Windows 3.1 . 2- Start the File Manager, found in Main. 3- Double click on the directory where TFSETUP has placed AMSTNS.EXE. 4- Expand the Group where you want to place the icon on the screen. Both the File Manager and the target Group must be visible, so you may have to resize them for the following step. 5- Find the AMSTNS.EXE file and drag it to a blank part of the Group where you want its icon to appear. 6- Single click on the AMSTNS "MSDOS" icon which has appeared as the result of step 5. Then click on File on the control bar. Click on "Properties...". 7- Click on Change Icon. You will be told that no icon could be found. Click OK. Click on Browse. Click your way to the directory containing AMSTNS.EXE. Click on AMSTNS.ICO. Click on OK enough times to get you back to the normal windows screen. AMSTNS should now have its own special "tower" icon. 6c: WINDOWS 95 (r) INSTALLATION: ================================= 1- Open "My Computer". 2- Open the folder (or diskette) containing the above 6 files. 3- Double-click on AMSETUP Application. Answer the questions. 4- Use "My Computer" to display the c:\AMSTNS folder, or wherever you chose to have AMSETUP load AMSTNS.EXE. [AMSTNS Application] 5- Single right click on the AMSTNS Application. 6- Left click on "Make Shortcut". 7- Drag the shortcut (icon) to the desktop if you wish. 7: DOWNLOADING DATA FROM THE FCC: ================================== Instructions for downloading and converting data from the FCC are contained in the READSPRT.1ST file. 8: SUPPORTING PROGRAMS: ======================== Programs to expand and convert data downloaded from the FCC are contained in the AMSPRT.ZIP file. AMSETUP will install the programs in this file, or you can UNZIP them into the directory / folder containing AMSTNS.EXE yourself. 9: THE HELP SCREEN _______________________________________________________________ To display AM stations in or near a city: Press F4 and enter two-letter state/province abbreviation, or Press F3 if you are already in the desired state, then enter the first few letters of the desired city. To display all stations on an AM frequency: Press F5 and enter the AM frequency. To search for stations by call: Press F6 and type the first 2, 3, or 4 characters of the call. To select a 3-letter call, type a after the call. Ú Directional Ú Distance Sample Display Item: 1460d@N 500W WCEI 102 MD Easton Frequency Ù ³³ ³ ³ ³ À City CP or FCC action or request Ù³ Power ³ À State Day, Night, CritHours Ù À Call or action > Use the cursor and 'page' keys to select any station to view more info in the lower DETAILS box. Use F10 CHOICES for another reference for distances, units of measure, etc > Press F7 to make the currently highlighted station the Reference Station. > F8 changes the scale factor of the antenna pattern. > F9 toggles the "field at azimuth" cursor on or off. Move the cursor with the Right Arrow or Left Arrow. For 15 degree steps, use Ctrl as well. > Power is given in kilowatts unless the W is shown. _______________________________________________________________ 10: A SAMPLE DETAILS BOX 1460 0B WCEI US MD Easton |Freq Class Call Country State City Day 1.0kW Twrs 2 Augs 3 |Day,Night,CritHrs Power Towers Augments Unlimited |Operating hours Licensed |Lic, CP, Application, etc 38-35-02 N 76-04-55 W |Geographic Coords (NAD27) From:Home 75 mi 110 deg |Distance and direction from Ref Loc WMAL 73 mi 105 deg | MD Baltimore 78 mi 120 deg | Last Update on 830811 by the FCC|Date this information last changed The three distances and directions are from: the "center of gravity" of all station data records for the chosen city, a special location, and a previously selected reference station. To select a highlighted station to be the "reference" station, press F7. The AM data base does not contain ownership information. _______________________________________________________________ 11: THE ON-SCREEN COMMAND LINE F1HELP F3City F4State F5Freq F6Call F7RefSTN F8Scale F9Field altF10EXIT F3 Brings up the box to enter a city for a search. F4 Brings up the box to enter a new state, and the asks for city. F5 Brings up the box to enter a TV chn pr FM freq for search. F6 Brings up the bos to enter call letters for a search. F7 Sets the currently-highlighted station as a distance reference F8 Changes to pattern display calibration. F9 Toggles the cursor to display field strength at any azimuth. _______________________________________________________________ 12: THE CHOICES SCREEN In most cases there are multiple possibilities for each function key, with other possibilites in brackets. F3 Use or Ignore Augemntation File .................. Use Aug F4 Increase City Search Distance..................... 25 [12-300mi] F5 Decrease City Search Distance..................... F8 Choose Reference Location............. [one of the three possibilites] F9 Modify special location: [enter place name and geo coordinates] At the end of entire entry, press Enter -------------------- Ctrl-F1 Change to English measures .................. METRIC [English] Ctrl-F2 Change to minutes/seconds ............. is now decimal minutes Ctrl-F3 Plotting delay (to suppress plots while slewing).. 64 [0-4000] Ctrl-F4 Change Street Atlas(R) Text Size ............ m [vs,s,m,l,vl] Ctrl-F5 Change Street Atlas(R) Symbol Size .......... m [vs,s,m,l,vl] Ctrl-F6 Change Street Atlas(R) Symbol Shape ......... diamond Ctrl-F7 Change Street Atlas(R) Symbol Color ......... blue Ctrl-F8 Choose Street Atlas Versions (cd345)......... d4 Ctrl-F6 Enter Registration Number.................... 12345678 F10 Save changes and return to main program _______________________________________________________________ 13. MEXICAN STATES AG Aguascalientes BN Baja CA Norte BS Baja CA Sur CH Chihuahua CI Coahila CM Campeche CS Chiapas DF Dist Federal DU Durango GR Guerrero GT Guanajuato HG Hidalgo JA Jalisco MC Michoacan ML Morelos MX Mexico NA Nayarit NL Nuevo Leon OA Oazaca PU Puebla QE Queretaro QR Quintana Roo SI Sinaloa SL San Luis Potosi SO Sonora TA Tamaulipas TB Tabasco TL Tlaxcala VC Vera Cruz YC Yucatan ZA Zacatecas _______________________________________________________________ 14. CANADIAN PROVINCES AL Alberta SC British Columbia MB Manitoba NB New Brunswick NF Newfoundland NS Nova Scotia NT North Territories ON Ontario PE Pr Edward Island QU Quebec SA Saskatchewan YT Yukon 15. FILE NAMES ============== After installation, the chosen directory for AMSTNS requires the following files: README34.1ST This file. READSPRT.1ST Instructions for the Support Files AMSTNS.EXE The main program. AMDATA.DTA The main data file. AFREQ.IDX Indexes of all data entries by frequency. ASTATE.IDX " state/city. ACALL.IDX " call. AMSTATE.LIM Geographic limits of station locations for each state. AMENGTOW.DAT AM directional antenna tower data. AMENGAUG.DAT AM directional antenna augmentation (fudge factor) data. AMENGCOM.DAT AM comments. ZIPDATA.BAT Script to compress the data to occupy less disk space between times that AMSTNS is run. Operate AMSTNS in Keep Compressed mode. UNZDATA.BAT Script to uncompress all data. Operate AMSTNS in Keep Uncompressed mode. PKZIP.EXE Shareware to compress data to require less disk space. PKUNZIP.EXE Shareware to uncompress data. Also used during installation. AMSTNS.PRF Stores preferences between times that AMSTNS is run. NAD2783.DAT [Recommended] Table of corrections from NAD27 to NAD83/WGS84. This data file is not required, but it results in more accurate plotting of station locations on Street Atlas maps. AMSTNS.ICO [Optional] Icon for Windows installations. G7TO.EXE Ron Henderson's freeware that transfers data to Street Atlas. G7TO.DOC [Optional] G7TO instructions. G7TO.HST [Optional] G7TO version history. AMANT.EXE [Optional] Tabular display of AM directional antenna data. The following files are not required to run AMSTNS, but are required to convert downloaded FCC data to the AMSTNS format, and to create the index files and state limit file. READSPRT.1ST Instructions for the Support Files UNGZ.BAT Script to uncompress FCC's GZIPped files before conversion. UNGZ95.BAT Same for Win95 long file names. FORMDATA.BAT Script to convert, index, etc. FCC data for AMSTNS. FCC2AM.EXE Converts FCC to AMSTNS data format in AMDATA.DTA. FRMAMIDX.EXE Makes the index (*.IDX) files. MKSTLMAM.EXE Makes the STATELIM.LIM file from the STATE.IDX file. CMNTCHK.EXE Checks to see that the comment file is in order. GZIP.EXE The GZIP (un)compress program. GZIP.DOC Documentation for GZIP _______________________________________________________________ Note: PKUNZIP.exe and PKZIP.exe are by this program and in its installation. The entire PKZIP distribution package is available from the various SIMTEL mirror sites as the self-extracting file PKZ204G.EXE. Registration information is included in the PKZ204G.EXE package. GZIP.EXE is used in extracting the FCC data. The full GZIP124.ZIP package is also available on the SIMTEL sites.