Weatherships and Weathership Guage

[Deleted]

For those interested an updated version of the Weathership Guage has been done and can be used in FSX and P3D I understand it works fine in the A2A B377 L049 and the PMDG DC-6.

Here is the link:
www.dropbox.com/s/tovbjnqp3nbsdpz/Weatherships.zip?dl=0


I installed the weatherships.zip from here yesterday. About to go and find out if it all works together. NO reason why not.

[Tom/CalClassic]

Note I also have Ocean Station ships available on my Scenery page. I see no reason why they would not work in FSX.

[Stromer]

Aug 8, 2017 22:20:26 GMT -5 Tom/CalClassic said:

Note I also have Ocean Station ships available on my Scenery page. I see no reason why they would not work in FSX.

Tom, your ships are weatherships, or ships with radio beacons?

[Tom/CalClassic]

They are the same as provided by your gauge.

In the classic era I have not seen them referred to as anything but Ocean Stations.

" At the end of World War II, eight permanent Ocean Stations were established in the Atlantic, each designated with a phonetic alphabet letter: ABLE, BAKER, CHARLIE, DOG, EASY, FOX, GEORGE, and HOW stations. In the North Atlantic, the Ocean Weather Patrol mission was conducted under the operational control of the Coast Guard’s North Atlantic Ocean Patrol (NORLANOPAT), which also included a Coast Guard Air Detachment and the LORAN Stations in Greenland and along the Atlantic Seaboard of the U.S. and Canada. In the Pacific, six Stations were established: OBOE, NAN, NOVEMBER, SUGAR, UNCLE and VICTOR. Later, the station names were changed to agree with the modern phonetic alphabet. The ships used on these Ocean Stations were the 255-foot OWASCO class, the 311-foot CASCO class (ex-US Navy small seaplane tenders), the 327-foot TREASURY class, and, during the Korean War, the 306-foot EDSALL class (Destroyer Escorts). On the Atlantic stations, most ships operated from either Boston or New York, and would spend 29 to 31 days on station, making weather and sea condition observations every six hours and transmitting the information to one and all."

from: www.zianet.com/tmorris/charlie.html

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

I have adapted the gauge so it works in FS2004, if anyone is interested. Installation is the same as any gauge on a subpanel. Examples are given in their installation instructions for 3 specific FSX planes, but I used the instructions for the PMDG DC-6A/B and it worked fine. The only changes I made were to change the Window## number to the next available (Window17 in the case of my DC-6 panel) and changed visible=1 to visible=0 so it was not visible at panel load.

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi again,

Just a clarification about my message above. While I have edited it to make it FS9 compatible and added a few tooltips so you don't have to try to interpolate the gauges (signal strength, heading, and loop direction), I haven't made any real changes to its operation. It still simulates a loop direction finder common in the 1930s and during WWII. After the war, simple ADFs with fixed cards became available which eliminated the 180 degree problem (which is the gauge in the default DC-3). Then in the early 1950s the RMI became available with its rotating card based on your heading.

So for most long distance work after that, planes would instead use their RMIs to keep track of the Ocean Station's position. They would also be using LORAN to get their lat and long, which can be simulated using Shift Z to read it off the screen.

That said, it's a nice little gauge for the era.

Hope this helps,

[Stromer]

Hi, Tom!

Recently flying on the route Gander (CYQX) to Shannon (EINN).
When plotting the route, I saw two ships with radio beacons on the map.
I made the route so as to fly over these ships. I set the frequency of radio beacons. But the signal was not received.
I'm interested in what is the range of detection of radio signals coming from ships? Maybe the problem is that I flew a little away from the ships.

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

The range is 112 NM. Perhaps you were too far away?

[Stromer]

Aug 15, 2017 23:08:26 GMT -5 Tom/CalClassic said:

Hi,

The range is 112 NM. Perhaps you were too far away?

Maybe. Thank you!

Then we'll check it again.

[Jorge]

Tom,

Sorry to drag up an old post, but is this gauge with your updates still available? I'm updating a re-install of FS9 and found I never got this gauge since it's not in my backups anywhere.

I just clicked on the link and it's dead. Not sure if that was because the poster was deleted?

Thanks for the help!

Jorge
Miami, FL

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

I didn't bother with it at the time, since no one asked for it. I *think* this is the edited gauge, but it's been too long for me to be sure.

www.calclassic.com/Temp/Weatherships_FS9.zip

You'll need to download the FSX package to get the installation instructions and manual.

That said, there have been improvements since I made these edits, but these are FSX/P3D only:

www.a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=57235

Hope this helps,

[Jorge]

Thanks Tom!

I have the FSX version installed on my FSX, so I'll compare the two and make sure. I'd spoken to Finn (the A2A author for the FSX one) a few months ago. He said it was fine to mess with the code to see if I could the HFDF stations in FS9. I'll see if the ground stations can be added to the FS9 one!

Jorge
Miami, FL

[Jorge]

Tom,

I've tried to use the gauge for FS9 you posted, but haven't been able to use any stations in the sense that you have a signal that moves the needle. I tried the FSX version I had by only changing the header and footer info to match your gauges, but with the same effect. The original gauge with updates works in FSX as advertised.

I'm actually using the slew to place the aircraft at about 9000 feet at the coordinates of the station and set the time so that it is within the red arcs in the minute hands. I then undo the slew and fly around a bit. Still nothing. I can tune and scroll, etc, but just can't seem to get a signal from the tabulated database from the "SYS" gauge.

I also tried putting the gauge in the main Gauges folder as well to no effect.

Wondering what else I could be missing?

Thanks,

Jorge
Miami, FL