My Community

Jeff

How about a button that opens the NATS notam web page? Spine could then be the starting point for all the required actions.

I've obviously only used v4.4 a very few times but I find I am opening Spine, selecting Load, and then thinking - oops I need to update this file.  Then I go to IE, favourites, etc.  If there was a NATS button on the "source" panel it would be a handy shortcut.

Very glad Spine is back.

Keith

Thanks Keith - I will summarise our email conversation below. It's good to get feedback regarding the changed layout.

Concerning your brief for the Scottish FIR: I chose an area brief, changed the "To" date from the 6th to the 8th, entered the FIR as EGPX and saved the result. I got the boundary dates in Spine as from 5th to 8th as expected.

So I am not sure what you did: if you just asked for the bog-standard EGPX FIR brief, then you'll only get the default 24-hour brief as there is no facility with that brief for changing the from and to dates/times. So I am not clear what the problem is. Perhaps I missed something.

There is no Spine server as such. When you run Spine on your computer, it checks the update area on my site to see if there is anything new program-wise to download, but that's it. Spine has the limited facility to download files from the internet: the pre-prepared 24-hour PIB is an example. It cannot log in to the site as they have made it a very complex procedure now (early versions of Spine did log in before the PIB became available - but it was a simple thing to do then).

Concerning our earlier email exchange: you commented that there seemed to be a problem with the Scope view excluding Aerodrome-only NOTAMs, but having them still included in the output. This was my response:

Actually, there are two bugs in there: a design bug and a crashing-type bug. For the second, deselect all scope views and you'll see what I mean.

The design bug is that I shouldn't have put view selection by scope in in the first place and I have ripped it out again in the next version. A view doesn't determine what goes into the output - it lets you see what part of the output you want to. So if you choose to view all included Notams, you should see just that, and not some of them additionally filtered by scope.

And yes, I can have just noticed that if you choose the Area brief, you can get Notams which are scope A only. I need to add an auto-delete feature for these when Aerodrome Notams are not selected in the Filter options.

V4.4 has just been released. This allows you to process NOTAM briefs saved from the AIS web site, as well as the quick download. The AIS briefs contain Aerodrome NOTAMs.

Jeff.

I hope you find the program useful. As Spine was originally designed for use by glider pilots (and they remain the main audience), you may find some things not totally suitable for a GA pilot, though I have done my best with the Filter settings. If you find problems, or have suggestions for improvement, please feel free to post here.

You'll get automatic notification of an update either when you download the Notams, or you explicity click on "Check for Updates" (it checks before downloading). I have a few more changes to make, plus updating the help, then I will release.

I realized you must have got the confirmation email, but in your profile it says "alandotbatchelor..." instead of "alan.batchelor...". It's not the forum doing that, since someone else with a similar email address format has the "." there. Now I'm confused - I can only see one place in the profile where the email can be entered, and that must be valid. Oh well - that's software for you.