Pete Dowson

3.499 was only just released yesterday. Were you testing 3.498 before that? It has been on release there for a while. The change from one to the other is only a fix to the PTT via WideFS. Ah, so you presumably hadn't tried 3.498. I expect it was a change somewhere in the 17 test versions since 3.48 then. Oh dear. I'll check this out. Thanks. Pete

Sorry, I know about indications in FS. I use Porject Magenta and have the same indications. I don't need to run FS. All I am saying is that I've never written a program to do what you want to do. You need to do that. I wouldn't have thought the tank capacity would change with altitude. Why should it? The pressures can't be great enough to compress or expand the casings surely? I really don't know in any case. Please use FSInterrogate and observe the levels as you climb or descend with fuel cut off. It shouldn't be complicated, it's just simple arithmetic isn't it? Regards, Pete

Well, I've never done this and it isn't an area I know about, but this is what I would theorise: 0AF4 is the factor for calculating fuel weight given capacity. At different altitudes and therefore different pressures the measured capacity will vary for the same weight, so that figure will change. Use it together with the tank capacities and levels to calculate fuel weight in pounds, per tank, as you say. Regards, Pete

Unless you are using FS2000 there's no need nor point in messing with or even looking at the FS CFG file for these things. That example was necessary in order to configure some things back then. The numbers you are referring to are actually set in FS's dialogues -- go to Options - Settings - Controls - Sensitivities. There are two sliders, one for sensitivity (should be at maximum) and another for null zone (should be at minimum). if those are wrong you'll get less resolution and/or range from your levers. Regards, Pete

Ahthat's not likely to be anything related to registration in any case. BTW doesn't Jose support AIBridge on his own website? Yes -- there is no such thing for user-registered copies as all that part of the checking is thereby bypassed. Sorry I can't help any further. Actually, if it is possibly anything to do with its FSUIPC interface (which is unlikely as Jose knows that well and won't have changed it for that version) then an FSUIPC log with IPC Read/Write logging enabled might help -- but keep it a very short session as it will get very big very quickly. It sounds more likely to be related to the MP interface for FS2004, which will be the new bit in version 3 of AIBridge I should think. Regards, Pete

What is the symptom? AI bridge was designed to work with Squawkbox 2. I don't think it is at all needed with the current on-line flying programs. Also, is the gauge working without multiplayer, with normal AI traffic, but not with MP traffic? If so it may be the way it was programmed. The MP traffic have distinguishing IDs, so this can be done. Regards, Pete

Three problems there: 1. Version 3.1 is not supported. It is very old -- 2 years old next month in fact. Please see the Announcements at the top of this page. 2. The data at 6xxx was not even added till after that version. 3. You will not get reliable access to FSUIPc unless you register FSUIPC as a user (i.e. purchase it). Regards, Pete

What's the problem? Just go to the Buttons tab in the options, press the button, and set it to send the F9 key. That's all. Please tell me why you cannot figure this out from the documentation. Is it a language thing? Pete

That "darn button" isn't there because a User Registered FSUIPC does not need any application keys whatsoever -- in the user registered version ALL applications get free access. This is actually mentioned in the documentation as one of the advantages of registering. It's this paragreph in the "What you get if you pay" section: Pete

You need to calibrate with the minimum set whilst your levers are ABOVE the minimum, and the maximum set whilst your levers are BELOW the maximum. Always leave a little "dead" zone (unused part) at either extreme. If you are calibrating in FSUIPC just follow the steps one by one. If you are using CH's control manager then I don't know -- see Bob Church's help over on http://www.ch-hangar.com. He has prepared some documentation on setting up the CH quadrant. If you are mixing the two I think it may get rather complicated, but hopefully Bob's details will help. Why is that? Is English not your first tongue? Sorry if so, but the Manual has stood the test of time -- those step-by-step instructions for calibrating have been pretty much the same for five years with very few complaints. If you can point out exactly what "confuses" you maybe I can improve them, but you'll have to be very specific. Regards, Pete

I don't know, you'd need t check aircraft manuals for that. But you can alter the fuel levels up or down. Pete

Did you search for "fuel" rather than "refuel", or even "tank"? There are up to 11 fuel tanks and there are two offsets for each -- one giving the capacity (fixed per aircraft) and the other the current level (as a proportion of capacity). You can write to the latter to set the fuel levels. Note that the fuel tanks are in two groups -- one of 7 and the other of 4. This is historical, the 4 separate ones were new in FS2002 whilst the other 7 date back to FS98 or before. Pete

Yes, but that also is the GROUND altitude, NOT the height of the aircraft. The ground altitude is NOT displayed in FS!!! You seem very confused as to what you actually want to read! When you have decided, THEN look it up in the documentation, please. AND please please PLEASE use FSInterrogate to actually look at all these things, live, and see how they read and convert there. It is supplied as a tool explicitly to help you sort these things out for yourself! Regards, Pete

Where is this * (65536# * 65536#) * 360# from? What does # mean in Visual Basic? In FSInterrogate # is used to mark "the value". But I din't know what you mean by it. Please check the documentation again. It says that the heading at 0580 is multiplied by 360 and DIVIDED by (65536*65536) to get degrees TRUE. You seem to have three multiplications. I don't understand where you are getting your incorrect information from? Or is it just a simple typo? Regards, Pete

The FS window Shift+Z does NOT show the GROUND altitude, it shows the AIRCRAFT altitude -- of course these will almost never be the same! Not only that but you are reading a 2 bytes value into a 32-bit (4-byte) variable, I think (forgive me if I'm wrong -- I don't know VB). You need to zero that beforehand to avoid getting rubbish. Hmm. Please think about things a bit longer and decide whether what "height" it is you want (aircraft, ground, VOR, NDB, Eiffel Tower? ;=)), then go find the correct offset and conversion in the documentation. Please also use FSInterrogate to investigate these things. It is provided for a reason. Regards, Pete

Ah, "BT = Blue Tooth", not "British Telecom"! . I should have guessed. However, everything else seems okay so I won't remove it. Thanks, Pete

Er7D4 certainly isn't "Ground Altitude", it is the altitude set in the autopilot. Please refer to the Programmer's Guide in the SDK. Furthermore: What is that about? You are reading a 32 bit value which, as it states in the document, is 65536 x the number of metres (entered into the A/P). Comparing it with 32767 doesn't do much (32768 = half a metre). And multiplying it by 3.2 .. etc doesn't give you feet unless you also divide by 65536. Regards, Pete

All the details for these things are in the Programmer's Guide in the FSUIPC SDK (http://www.schiratti.com/dowson) -- look through the table inside that document. Regards Pete

Thanks! I'm glad it is all working well for you! Regards, Pete

So far almost 100% of such cases have been down to finger trouble. All three parts (name, email and key) MUST be exactly as specified in the notification. Cut and Paste if you aren't sure how to do that. Try again. If you still get problems come back and I'll tell you what to do. There is a very remote possibility that the suppliers made a mistake. Regards, Pete

In FS the fuel cut-off lever for jets is actually the same as the mixture lever. Try assigning "Mixture Lean" for cut-off and "Mixture Rich" to enable fuel. If you have enough buttons you'll also find separate ones for each engine. Pete

Aha! There won't be a port called "1" -- that needs to be "COM1" or similar. You have the parameter set incorrectly in the [GPSout] section of WideServer.INI -- it needs to be Port= not a port 'number' -- the parameters are simply the same ones that a direct GPSout-to-COM would have. It is actually a little unlikely that your Notebook doesn't have some devices using COM port numbers up. On my Toshiba Qosmio (with no actual COM ports at all) there are a set of 10 COM ports listed called "Toshiba BT Port" which are, I think, virtual ports created for use by the built-in Modem. They are COM10 to COM19. And, yes, it is possible for a firewire port to have a driver with a virtual COM port too, though I don't think this is a regular thing. That freeware MixW port-pair driver I supply does need to be given free ports to operate with, and it doesn't seem to check. Best to find a pair otherwise not allocated -- you can find out by Settings - Control Panel - System - Device Manager, Ports(COM & LPT). However, the most likely problem in your case was simply that you put "Port=1" instead of "Port=COM1". I've always used port names not numbers -- and it has come in useful, because some folks have found ways of using USB ports by referring to a USB device name instead. If you could try again and let me know how you get on I'd be grateful. I also tried a Network Serial Port Kit (by Fabula Tech), and actually bought a license for it, and whilst it works well for some hardware (PFC serial connected) that I wanted to be able to test from a different PC, I found it wasn't reliable enough to stop FliteMap timing out the GPSout connection sometimes. When I checked what was going on it seemed to go through periods when it piled up the GPSout transmissions and release them all in one big bundle. I reported the problem to them and they are investigating. However, it was after that I decided to try to devise my own system, which I've been using here ever since. I was even going to write a virtual port driver, but found that freeware one instead. Oh, BTW, after assigning the pair of ports in the MixW program, I found you had to re-boot the system. Unusual these days, but it didn't work till I did. However, once installed it seems to work well and invisibly with no attention needed. Regards, Pete

This is rather a confused question. You are actually mixing up two completely different things. Flightplans FROM Flitemap are nothing to do with GPSout -- GPSout is an FS module which makes FS look like a GPS to Flitemap -- in other words it is OUT from FS and IN to Flitemap, not the other way round! Getting stuff out of FliteMap for use in FS and FS add-ons in what I wrote FStarRC for -- that produces .APL plans for Radar Contact, .sbp plans for Squawbox and Project Magenta, and .PLN plans for FS. Regards, Pete

That's interesting, because I am using it all the time here. Can you tell me more, please? After all, the purpose of Beta releases is to gain feedback. if it didn't work for you I'd like to understand why. Please tell me exactly what you did and what happened. Regards, Pete