Radarspotting

From Bev,

Hi,

If you are interested in the Beamfinder feature in PlanePlotter, this version :
"www.coaa.co.uk/planeplotter6_5_8_9.exe (http://www.coaa.co.uk/planeplotter6_5_8_9.exe)"
has a revised "one-click" generator for the required "radar.txt" file.  It now also includes a search for the IID (II/SI) labels on radar pings, in addition to the Mode-A and Mode-S ping repetition time characteristics to enable it to identify a radar site.

It also has an additional test feature for putative radar sites.  In Tools...Edit, if you double click on a radar site symbol, you should see a rotating vector around the selected site with little circles that pop up when an aircraft pings in the characteristic way for that site.  It is a quick way to diagnose ambiguous site characteristics.

There is a revised tutorial video here :
"www.coaa.co.uk/creating-radar-txt.mp4 (http://www.coaa.co.uk/creating-radar-txt.mp4)"
which may be easier to understand than reading the revised help file.

Note that it seems that the Mode-A and Mode-S methods are not very useful for sites in the UK because the ping rates for each site are not single valued, but the IID (II/SI) method gives some useful results.
By contrast, I believe I am right in saying that the IID (II/SI) methods do not work in Germany, where the II/SI codes are not unique to a single radar site, but the Mode-A/S methods might work there.

All three work well here!  Good Luck!

Regards
Bev
COAA

Tim