For those of you who have the Rockwell-Collins "PropMan 2000"
propagation software ...

You may have noticed recently, as did I, that the program was no
longer able to correctly retrieve "space weather data" from the internet
that is used to improve the accuracy of its predictions and predict
"ion storms," etc. based on current solar/geomagnetic conditions.

The problem seems to be that the folks at NOAA have made some
changes in which GOES satellites are used for x-ray and proton
measurements, with the result that some files that PropMan looks for
either no longer exist (have been replaced with equivalent data in the
same format, but with different filenames, due to being sourced from
instruments on a different GOES satellite) or no longer seem to be
available via "GOPHER" ... and the directory names have changed
for access via http ...

After some poking around the NOAA website where the data resides
and hacking on the "propman.ini" file, I have come up with a propman.ini
file that works.

This new "propman.ini" file is available from my personal website at:

http://home.ptd.net/~wk3c

and may be freely used for non-commercial purposes by radio amateurs.

Placing this new propman.ini file in the same directory as your other
PropMan
2000 files solves the problems with ion storm warnings, etc.
(First, make a backup of your current propman.ini file by renaming it to
"propman.ini.original" or something like that ...)

There is ONE exception ... the USAF and NOAA have discontinued
the distribution of a file called "HFRP.txt" from which PropMan 2000
parsed the SSN data. This does not cause internet updates to fail, and
the SSN data is available from the following URL:

http://www.nwra-az.com/spawx/env_latest.html

Look in the row labeled NWRA SSNe: and pick the right-most value
(the data for the current day) and manually enter that into the SSN
box in your PropMan path dialog box and that will work fine.

I am in touch with the engineer in charge at Rockwell-Collins and they
appear to be working on considering a re-write of the PropMan 2000
parser to get the SSN data from the URL above ... I have suggested an
alternative approach that would not require changes to the existing
PropMan 2000 program and am awaiting a reply.

73,
--
Carl R. Stevenson - wk3c
Grid Square FN20fm
http://home.ptd.net/~wk3c
------------------------------------------------------
NCI-1052
Executive Director, No Code International
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Co-Chair, Wi-Fi Alliance Legislative Committee
Member, QCWA (31424)
Member, ARRL
Member, TAPR
Member, The SETI League
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