Some very simple ham radio software for OS X - Can anyone help?

Feek · 7 Apr 2010 at 21:55

Well, when I say 'help', it's more a request to see if someone can code this for me!

I'm a radio amateur and the radio software that's about for the Mac is quite limited but my request is [hopefully] very simple.

The planet is split into a grid of squares called the Maidenhead Locator System. Radio hams exchange these locators to work out distances between them.

I'm after a piece of software which simply calculates the distance and heading between two locators (down to the third pair, ie JO01DO). You can get an idea of how these squares look here.

It can either ask for both locators each time or preferably store a 'home' location and then just have a single box for locator entry which one types a locator into, hits 'enter' or clicks a button to have the result displayed.

Nothing fancy, nothing complicated.

But it's beyond me! I did some BASIC programming on the Commodore PET, Acorn Atom and BBC Micro many years ago but that's my limit.

Is anyone willing and able to have a pop at this for me? I wouldn't think it'd be difficult, with nothing more needing to be displayed than the distance and direction.

All I can offer for this is brownie points and the knowledge of a job well done

Feek · 8 Apr 2010 at 10:19

That's pretty much it, convert square to lat/long and calculate distance and direction between them.

I've found a Windows program here which does that but even that displays far too much info, this is the absolute maximum which is needed:

All I need is a box to enter the distant locator (home location set via preferences) and then below that the distance/direction. If it could calculate as the details are typed in without having to hit enter then that would be a bonus so for example if I set my home location to JO01DO then it already knows the lat/long of that location. I hear someone giving out a location which starts with IN89, as soon as I've typed the first pair, ie IN the distance/direction to the centre of that square appears, I follow with 89 and the distance/direction changes to the centre of that square and then finally it narrows it right down when I get the last two characters RK which gives me his actual square.

The idea being that it helps to get the aerial pointing in the right direction without having to receive the entire locator.

That may be getting too difficult but it'd be great if it could be done.

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 00:17

Nick, that's fantastic, thank you

Feel free to email me either via Trust or via the link in the GD sticky with anything you'd like me to try.

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 10:18

Thanks Rob, looking good and working well

That certainly seems to work - The always on top coding is a bit violent though. When I open the file (I just double click on it in OS X and it opens) it always sits on top unless I toggle it on and back off again and the position of the checkbox and the exit button move as the box is ticked and unticked:

The figures could all be rounded because the fractions really aren't needed and neither is the display of the lat/long of the destination as this is just for distance/heading.

Is it possible to have an option somehow to store a 'home' location? That would reduce the size of the window even further although if it's a single standalone program then that might not be so straightforward.

Nick - You were after a suitable icon for yours and suggest a person and an aerial, would not a map be better as that's purely what it's for? The name iHam has been used for a Mac application already and I'm not sure that works for a distance/direction app anyway. Not sure what else to suggest though *hangs head* but I'm really looking forward to what you've done.

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 15:26

Incidentally I tried running it on XP but the OS didn't know how to handle the .jar file!

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 15:35

It was installed but I guess just not set up correctly. It's not a problem for me as I'll always be using it on a Mac, I just thought I'd try it on our club laptop and see how it worked

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 16:26

It's getting there but that one needs to be resized a bit, it's cropping itself down and there's no way for me to resize.

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 16:51

W: 205 H:176, although the box needs drawing slightly lower as it's cutting off the text:

I should add that I'm still very keen to see what Nick is working on as well

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 17:10

Sure can:

The box on the Locator tab is in the right place now, the full Azimuth heading can be seen.

Feek · 9 Apr 2010 at 17:34

Yup, sure does - I've done a comparison check with the Windows software we use for creating our contest entries and it all ties up.

Feek · 10 Apr 2010 at 17:58

Is it wrong that I'm more than a little bit excited by the idea of a spotlight plugin?

Feek · 11 Apr 2010 at 15:11

/me looks at those pages and takes a step back!

Feek · 11 Apr 2010 at 16:03

My contest logging software shows it as 360 degrees and so does some random site which calculates distances and headings.

From exactly one side to the other it doesn't matter which way. The squares don't take into account that the earth isn't a perfect sphere.

Realistically these are going to be used within Continents - When it gets to significantly greater distances then you can get long/short paths and multiple atmospheric bounces so it's not so important.

Feek · 12 Apr 2010 at 21:09

Did you get any further with the window size thing, Rob? I've been using the QTH Calc_Debug2 version and apart from being somewhat wide for your testing, it's all good

Feek · 13 Apr 2010 at 18:25

An HUD style semi transparent window might be cool, it'd be interesting to see how it looks.

Not sure the lat/long entry is useful as 99.9% of radio people will already know their locator as opposed to their lat/long. I have no idea what my lat/long is and if I need to know then I have an app on my iPhone which will tell me (and show my maidenhead).

Feek · 13 Apr 2010 at 22:30

Oh very pretty. That reminds me of the film I have on my windscreen in the car that the speedo HUD reflects onto

Feek · 14 Apr 2010 at 12:10

Yes I think you're right. I have a dark background and the dark window will blend in too much. Go with the normal window.

Feek · 20 Apr 2010 at 20:46

Any more updates, Rob? And did you get my email, Nick?

Feek · 26 Apr 2010 at 21:40

Thanks Rob, that's working well. The only thing I'd pick up on is that it always starts in the top left corner of the screen and doesn't remember where I move it to but that's me being picky

Size is good, figures seem accurate and it does exactly what's needed.

Feek · 27 Apr 2010 at 06:23

I'll grab that again tonight Rob and check it out, thanks.

Nick, I'm still getting the distance errors I emailed you about - Just dumped the current version in my apps folder, ran it and entered a locator.

This isn't quite right...

These figures are right...