ARTCC Comm frequencies

[jabloomf1230]

This isn't exactly a support issue, but I have a question about MakeRunways. It generates a number of files designed for use with various 3rd party apps.  One of the files is F5.csv and it contains the various comm frequencies by type. I understand that these frequencies are culled from all the airport bgl files that are listed in scenery.cfg. My interest is specifically in comm type 10 (Center). Some airport BGL files have these frequencies and some don't, depending on the surrounding airspace types.

My question is when one clicks the ATC menu item "Request Flight Following", where does FSX/P3d "find" the ARTCC/ACC frequencies and the center boundaries? It can't be from the individual airport BGL files. I spent the last hour using Google trying to figure this out. My interest has to do with matching real time ATC audio streams to the active sim comm frequency. I purchased the donationware app LAAP (Live ATC Auto Play) several years ago and it works great with a database that it creates using f5.csv :

http://laap.atc.free.fr/presentation-en.html

When I fly within the Minneapolis ARTCC region, it happily finds the Center's audio streams, but that's because many of the airports in the this region of the US have the Center comm type built in to their BGL file. In other areas, like for example New York and New England, this rarely works, mainly because most of the airports do not have Boston and NY Center frequencies included in their BGL file.

If the ARTCC boundaries and comm frequencies aren't stored in their own BGL file(s), would creating a dummy airport with the Center comm frequencies work for my purpose with LAAP? Or would doing so just muddle the sim up worse? Would it be safer to just add Center comm frequencies to various airports with Airport Design Editor? Unfortunately, this latter approach could be tedious.

 

 

[Pete Dowson]

16 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

My question is when one clicks the ATC menu item "Request Flight Following", where does FSX/P3d "find" the ARTCC/ACC frequencies and the center boundaries? It can't be from the individual airport BGL files. I spent the last hour using Google trying to figure this out.

I'm sorry, but I really don't know.  As you say, Centre frequencies ARE Type 10 records within the AFD BGLs, but I don't know if that includes them all. However, the BGL documentation I hsve does include documentation of a "Boundary" type, which seems to allow definition of Centre, Class areas, Tower< Clearance, Ground, etc ... even Prohibited, National Park, Training. These records are not in the Airport BGLs I'm used to examining (type 3) but a separate type called "Boundary" (type 32).

Link to documentation: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=BGL_File_Format

Pete

 

 

 

[jabloomf1230]

Pete, 

Thanks,  FSDeveloper was the first place that I browsed and the BGL boundary type information  is interesting.  

I did create a dummy airport between KALB and KSWF with just Boston Center (ZBW)  comm frequencies,  but LAAP didn't  use the audio streams,  even though they showed up in f5.csv correctly. I must have done something else wrong,  so I'll keep working  on it. 

Jay

 

EDIT:

The Center boundary file is bvcf.bgl and is located at:

<main sim folder>\Scenery\World\scenery

I looked at both the P3d and FSX versions with various viewers and it just has Boundary sections. Some have Com subsections, so that's where the frequencies reside.

<BoundaryStart
         lat="N43 39.569"
         lon="W076 46.093"
         minimumAltitudeType="MSL"
         altitudeMinimum="0.0M"
         maximumAltitudeType="UNLIMITED"
         altitudeMaximum="100000.0M"/>
      <Com
         frequency="135.2500"
         type="CENTER"
         name="BOSTON"/>
      <Line
         lat="N43 39.952"
         lon="W076 46.046"/>

I used ScruffyDuck's most recent version of BGL2XML to parse the file.