Displaying Military Flags in Aircraft Lists

[Allocator]

I have made changes to RB to allow Military Flags to be shown in the aircraft lists instead of the country flags.



Before I explain how to do this, here is the WARNING.  This is experimental work and it might prevent RB from functioning correctly, or might stop it from working altogether.  Do be prepared to unistall RB and reinstall if it all goes horribly wrong - I accept no responsibilty if your PC goes up in smoke :-)

However, having said that, this is reasonably simple to get working and does improve enjoyment of RB.  Pleaee note that this will only work with the LATEST BETA version of RB software and the firmware update of the RB.  Also, I have no idea how or where Windows Vista stores its program files, so you are on your own if you run Vista!

Here we go then:

1. Shut down RadarBox

2. Use MS Explorer to navigate to the RadarBox Data directory, the default should be:

c:/Program Files/AirNav Systems/AirNav RadarBox 2007/Data

3. Make a copy of the D008.dat file and rename it (for example D008.dat.org) so you can revert to the default settings if you need to.  If you can't see the file extension (.dat), you will need to go to Tools/Folder options/View and untick "Hide extensions for known file types".

4. Using Windows Notepad, open the original D008.dat file (not the one you have just saved as a copy) and you will see that the file is in this format but has many more lines:

AF,Afghanistan,011100000000------------
AL,Albania,01010000000100----------
DZ,Algeria,000010100---------------
AO,Angola,000010010000------------
AG,Antigua and Barbuda,00001100101000----------
AR,Argentina,111000------------------
AM,Armenia,01100000000000----------
AU,Australia,011111------------------
AT,Austria,010001000---------------
AZ,Azerbaijan,01100000000010----------
BS,Bahamas,000010101000------------

5. Copy the following line and insert it in the D008.dat file above the UK line:

RAF,RAF,0100001111--------------

So that the appropriate bit of the .dat file looks like this:

TM,Turkmenistan,01100000000110----------
UG,Uganda,000001101000------------
UA,Ukraine,010100001---------------
AE,United Arab Emirates,100010010110------------
RAF,RAF,0100001111--------------
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------
TZ,United Republic of Tanzania,000010000000------------

6. Copy the following lines and insert them above the US line in the .dat file:

UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------

So the appropriate section of the .dat file now looks like looks like this:

TM,Turkmenistan,01100000000110----------
UG,Uganda,000001101000------------
UA,Ukraine,010100001---------------
AE,United Arab Emirates,100010010110------------
RAF,RAF,0100001111--------------
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------
TZ,United Republic of Tanzania,000010000000------------
UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------
US,United States,1010--------------------
UY,Uruguay,111010010000------------
UZ,Uzbekistan,01010000011111----------
VU,Vanuatu,11001001000000----------

7. Click "Save" in notepad to save the modified D008.dat file.  Points to note here:

- the numer of "-" characters is vital.  Every Mode S Hex code (111010010000------------) MUST be 24 characters in length.

- make sure that you don't insert any blank lines or spaces when you are inserting the new lines.

- the D008.dat file MUST be saved as a txt file (so don't use Word or Wordpad any other program) and it must be named D008.dat and NOT D008.dat.txt which might happen if you use "Save as".  Look at the file in Explorer to make sure the name is correct.

8. Right click on this image and choose "Save picture as"



The picture must be saved as a bmp to the

c:/Program Files/AirNav Systems/AirNav RadarBox 2007/Data/Flags directory

and must be named RAF.BMP

Same again for this one, but this time it must be saved as UF.BMP



9. Close Notepad and run RadarBox.  Wait for a Brit Mil or US Mil aircraft to be picked up either as live or network traffic and you should see the Mil flag in the aircraft list if you have the Flags set to show in Preferences.

That's all there is to it.  Only Brit and USAF Mil at the moment, but more to follow in due course!  I'll do another post to explain how this all works shortly.

All feedback is welcome.

[Allocator]

OK, so how does this work?

First of all, I've only been able to do this due to the excellent work already done by the SBS-1 community on the Kinetic Forum.  As the guys there are highly motivated supporters of Mode S and ADS-B reception in all shapes and forms, they are content for me to "pinch" their ideas to use with RB.  Thanks again chaps :-)

The D008.dat file contains the aircraft Mode S allocations plus wild cards in the form:

UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------

where UK represents the UK.BMP flag in the Data/Flags directory

United Kingdom is the description

and 010000------------------ is the 24 character Mode S Binary version of the 6 character Hex code (with wildcards for the) UK.

All UK Mode S codes start with Bin 010000 (a sweeping generalisation, but you get the idea!)

When RB detects a Mode S Binary 010000 then it shows the UK.BMP in the aircraft list.

However, Brit Mil aircraft codes are a block within UK allocation, starting with 0100001111, so a line in the D008.dat as follows, will "trap" these:

RAF,RAF,0100001111--------------

and now codes starting with this will show the RAF.BMP flag.  Putting the 2 lines together you can see how it works.

RAF,RAF,0100001111--------------
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------

The same principle applies to the US military codes, but as there are more allocations, it's a bit more complicated:

UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------
US,United States,1010--------------------

Right, I'm rapidly approaching the limits of my understanding of this subject, and I'm sure that there will be the odd error in my explanation - I'll leave it to the clever guys to put me right!

[Roadrunner]

Allocator,

Great stuff. Lets hope that the format used by Radarbox will allow coding down to the level of SBS1 and that the file has no limits to the number of lines available.

Mike

[AirNav Development]

Hi. There is no reason for it not to work with any possible code from now on. Pls report if you find any problems.

[Allocator]

Note: Many of the Flag BMP's I'm using have been created by Andy at Flying Art (link to his sites below) for the SBS-1.  Andy has been kind enough to let me use these to help the RadarBox community here on the forum.  It should be pointed out that Andy's original BMP's are much better quality than the ones I've posted, as RB uses a different size of BMP which means I've had to "butcher" Andy's excellent artwork.  Thanks Andy, maybe you will turn your skills to producing BMP's for RB sometime soon ;-)

http://www.flyingart.co.uk/

http://www.sbsflags.co.uk/

Here is my whole modified D008.dat file and some additional Flags.  You can see which aircraft are covered by looking at the dat file, the 2 characters at the start of eash line asre the flag bmp's that are loaded when the Mose S code matches.  Select and copy the dat info below, and save as D008.dat as described above after backing up your original D008.dat file.  Let me know if you have any problems.

Save the new flags to the /Data/Flags directory as descibed in the earlier post above.

01.BMP

21.BMP

45.BMP

51.BMP

99.BMP

VK.BMP

NT.BMP

NM.BMP

E3.BMP

AK.BMP

DF.BMP

FS.BMP

CB.BMP

BC.BMP

AV.BMP



AF,Afghanistan,011100000000------------
AL,Albania,01010000000100----------
DZ,Algeria,000010100---------------
AO,Angola,000010010000------------
AG,Antigua and Barbuda,00001100101000----------
AR,Argentina,111000------------------
AM,Armenia,01100000000000----------
AV,Australia Mil 1,01111100100000100010111-
AV,Australia Mil 2,01111100100000100011----
AV,Australia Mil 3,011111001000001001------
AV,Australia Mil 4,01111100100000101-------
AV,Australia Mil 5,0111110010000011--------
AV,Australia Mil 6,01111100100001----------
AV,Australia Mil 7,0111110010001-----------
AV,Australia Mil 8,011111001001------------
AV,Australia Mil 9,01111100101-------------
AV,Australia Mil 10,0111110011--------------
AV,Australia Mil 11,01111101----------------
AV,Australia Mil 12,0111111-----------------
AU,Australia,011111------------------
AT,Austria,010001000---------------
AZ,Azerbaijan,01100000000010----------
BS,Bahamas,000010101000------------
BH,Bahrain,100010010100------------
BD,Bangladesh,011100000010------------
BB,Barbados,00001010101000----------
BY,Belarus,01010001000000----------
BE,Belgium,010001001---------------
BC,Belgium Mil,010001001111------------
BC,Belgium Mil G-01,010001001100000111100001
BC,Belgium Mil G-10,010001001100000111100101
BC,Belgium Mil G-11,010001001100000111100111
BC,Belgium Mil G-12,010001001100000111101000
BC,Belgium Mil G-14,010001001100000111100011
BC,Belgium Mil G-15,010001001100000111100100
BZ,Belize,00001010101100----------
BJ,Benin,00001001010000----------
BT,Bhutan,01101000000000----------
BO,Bolivia,111010010100------------
BA,Bosnia and Herzegovina,01010001001100----------
BW,Botswana,00000011000000----------
BR,Brazil,111001------------------
BN,Brunei Darussalam,10001001010100----------
BG,Bulgaria,010001010---------------
BF,Burkina Faso,000010011100------------
BI,Burundi,000000110010------------
KH,Cambodia,011100001110------------
CM,Cameroon,000000110100------------
CB,Canada Mil 15001,110000000100100110001100
CB,Canada Mil 15002,110000000110001111110100
CB,Canada Mil 15003,110000000011101001111110
CB,Canada Mil 15004,110000000010010010010100
CB,Canada Mil 15005,110000000001010010111100
CB,Canada Mil 130339,110000001000100100111011
CB,Canada Mil 144601,110000001000100100111100
CB,Canada Mil 144614,110000001000100101000001
CB,Canada Mil 144615,110000001000100101000000
CB,Canada Mil 144616,110000001000100100111110
CB,Canada Mil,1100001-----------------
CA,Canada,110000------------------
CV,Cape Verde,00001001011000----------
CF,Central African Republic,000001101100------------
TD,Chad,000010000100------------
CL,Chile,111010000000------------
CN,China,011110------------------
CO,Colombia,000010101100------------
KM,Comoros,00000011010100----------
CG,Congo,000000110110------------
CK,Cook Islands,10010000000100----------
CR,Costa Rica,000010101110------------
CI,Cote D'Ivoire,000000111000------------
HR,Croatia,01010000000111----------
CU,Cuba,000010110000------------
CY,Cyprus,01001100100000----------
CZ,Czech Republic,010010011---------------
KP,Democratic People's Republic of Korea,011100100---------------
CD,Democratic Republic of the Congo,000010001100------------
DK,Denmark,010001011---------------
DJ,Djibouti,00001001100000----------
DO,Dominican Republic,000011000100------------
EC,Ecuador,111010000100------------
EG,Egypt,000000010---------------
SV,El Salvador,000010110010------------
GQ,Equatorial Guinea,000001000010------------
ER,Eritrea,00100000001000----------
EE,Estonia,01010001000100----------
ET,Ethiopia,000001000000------------
FJ,Fiji,110010001000------------
FI,Finland,010001100---------------
TS,France Mil '02',001110000000001001011011
FS,France Mil '4',001110000000110100011011
FS,France Mil '5',001110000001111001111011
FS,France Mil '27',001110000001110000111011
FS,France Mil '34',001110000001111000111011
FS,France Mil '045',001101000010001010000011
FS,France Mil '78',001110000001101110111011,24
FS,France Mil '123',001101000010001010001100,24
FS,France Mil '418',001110000000110100111011,24
FS,France Mil 1,001110101---------------
FS,France Mil 2,00111011----------------
FR,France,001110------------------
GA,Gabon,000000111110------------
GM,Gambia,000010011010------------
GE,Georgia,01010001010000----------
DF,Germany Mil 1,0011111010--------------
DF,Germany Mil 2,0011111101--------------
DF,Germany Mil 3,0011111110--------------
DE,Germany,001111------------------
GH,Ghana,000001000100------------
GR,Greece,010001101---------------
GD,Grenada,00001100110000----------
GT,Guatemala,000010110100------------
GN,Guinea,000001000110------------
GW,Guinea-Bissau,00000100100000----------
GY,Guyana,000010110110------------
HT,Haiti,000010111000------------
HN,Honduras,000010111010------------
HU,Hungary,010001110---------------
IS,Iceland,010011001100------------
IN,India,100000------------------
ID,Indonesia,100010100---------------
IR,Iran Islamic Republic of,011100110---------------
IQ,Iraq,011100101---------------
IE,Ireland,010011001010------------
IL,Israel,011100111---------------
IT,Italy,001100------------------
JM,Jamaica,000010111110------------
JP,Japan,100001------------------
JO,Jordan,011101000---------------
KZ,Kazakhstan,01101000001100----------
KE,Kenya,000001001100------------
KI,Kiribati,11001000111000----------
KW,Kuwait,011100000110------------
KG,Kyrgyzstan,01100000000100----------
LA,Laos People's Democratic Republic,011100001000------------
LV,Latvia,01010000001011----------
LB,Lebanon,011101001---------------
LS,Lesotho,00000100101000----------
LR,Liberia,000001010000------------
LY,Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,000000011---------------
LT,Lithuania,01010000001111----------
LU,Luxembourg,01001101000000----------
MG,Madagascar,000001010100------------
MW,Malawi,000001011000------------
MY,Malaysia,011101010---------------
MV,Maldives,00000101101000----------
ML,Mali,000001011100------------
MT,Malta,01001101001000----------
MH,Marshall Islands,10010000000000----------
MR,Mauritania,00000101111000----------
MU,Mauritius,00000110000000----------
MX,Mexico,000011010---------------
FM,Micronesia Federated States of,01101000000100----------
MC,Monaco,01001101010000----------
MN,Mongolia,01101000001000----------
MA,Morocco,000000100---------------
MZ,Mozambique,000000000110------------
MM,Myanmar,011100000100------------
NT,NATO,0100110100000011110-----
NA,Namibia,00100000000100----------
NR,Nauru,11001000101000----------
NP,Nepal,011100001010------------
NL,Netherlands Kingdom of the,010010000---------------
NM,Netherlands Mil,010010000000----
NZ,New Zealand,110010000---------------
NI,Nicaragua,000011000000------------
NE,Niger,000001100010------------
NG,Nigeria,000001100100------------
NO,Norway,010001111---------------
OM,Oman,01110000110000----------
PK,Pakistan,011101100---------------
PW,Palau,01101000010000----------
PA,Panama,000011000010------------
PG,Papua New Guinea,100010011000------------
PY,Paraguay,111010001000------------
PE,Peru,111010001100------------
PH,Philippines,011101011---------------
PL,Poland,010010001---------------
PT,Portugal,010010010---------------
QA,Qatar,00000110101000----------
KR,Republic of Korea,011100011---------------
MD,Republic of Moldova,01010000010011----------
RO,Romania,010010100---------------
RU,Russian Federation,0001--------------------
RW,Rwanda,000001101110------------
LC,Saint Lucia,11001000110000----------
VC,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,00001011110000----------
WS,Samoa,10010000001000----------
SM,San Marino,01010000000000----------
ST,Sao Tome and Principe,00001001111000----------
SA,Saudi Arabia,011100010---------------
SN,Senegal,000001110000------------
SC,Seychelles,00000111010000----------
SL,Sierra Leone,00000111011000----------
SG,Singapore,011101101---------------
SK,Slovakia,01010000010111----------
SI,Slovenia,01010000011011----------
SB,Solomon Islands,10001001011100----------
SO,Somalia,000001111000------------
ZA,South Africa,000000001---------------
ES,Spain,001101------------------
LK,Sri Lanka,011101110---------------
SD,Sudan,000001111100------------
SR,Suriname,000011001000------------
SZ,Swaziland,00000111101000----------
SE,Sweden,010010101---------------
CH,Switzerland,010010110---------------
SY,Syrian Arab Republic,011101111---------------
TJ,Tajikistan,01010001010100----------
TH,Thailand,100010000---------------
MK,The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,01010001001000----------
TG,Togo,000010001000------------
TO,Tonga,11001000110100----------
TT,Trinidad and Tobago,000011000110------------
TN,Tunisia,000000101---------------
TR,Turkey,010010111---------------
TM,Turkmenistan,01100000000110----------
UG,Uganda,000001101000------------
UA,Ukraine,010100001---------------
AE,United Arab Emirates,100010010110------------
AC,UAE Mil 800,100010010110000100100110
AC,UAE Mil 1211,100010010110000000101001
AC,UAE Mil 1212,100010010110000000101010
AC,UAE Mil 1213,100010010110000000101011
AC,UAE Mil 1216,100010010110000000101110
RA,RAF,0100001111--------------
99,99SQN ZZ171,010000111100000101110001
99,99SQN ZZ172,010000111100000101110010
99,99SQN ZZ173,010000111100000101110011
99,99SQN ZZ174,010000111100000101110100
01,ISLANDER ZH536,010000111100001110001010
01,ISLANDER ZF573,010000111100001110001011
21,TRISTARZE706,010000111100000001111011
21,TRISTARZE704,010000111100000001111001
21,TRISTARZE705,010000111100000001111010
21,TRISTARZD949,010000111100000111000000
21,TRISTARZD951,010000111100000111000010
21,TRISTARZD948,010000111100000110111111
21,TRISTARZD950,010000111100000111000001
21,TRISTARZD952,010000111100000111000011
21,TRISTARZD953,010000111100000111000100
45,45SQN G-RAFJ,010000000000101001110110
45,45SQN G-RAFO,010000000000101010000111
45,45SQN G-RAFP,010000000000101010001000
45,45SQN ZK450,010000111100000111110011
45,45SQN ZK451,010000111100000111110100
45,45SQN ZK452,010000111100000111110101
45,45SQN ZK453,010000111100000111110110
45,45SQN ZK454,010000111100000111110111
VK,Vickers,010000000000101111011110
51,51SQN XV249,010000111100000100111001
51,51SQN XW665,010000111100000100110111
RA,Agusta 109 UK ZR321,010000000000110111111101
RA,Agusta 109 UK ZR322,010000000000110111111110
RA,Agusta 109 UK ZR323,010000000000110111111111
E3,E3D ZH101,010000111100001110011111
E3,E3D ZH102,010000111100001110100000
E3,E3D ZH103,010000111100001110100001
E3,E3D ZH104,010000111100001110100010
E3,E3D ZH105,010000111100001110100011
E3,E3D ZH106,010000111100001110100100
E3,E3D ZH107,010000111100001110100101
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------
TZ,United Republic of Tanzania,000010000000------------
UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------
US,United States,1010--------------------
UY,Uruguay,111010010000------------
UZ,Uzbekistan,01010000011111----------
VU,Vanuatu,11001001000000----------
VE,Venezuela,000011011---------------
VN,Viet Nam,100010001---------------
YE,Yemen,100010010000------------
ZM,Zambia,000010001010------------
ZW,Zimbabwe,00000000010000----------
YU,Yugoslavia,010011000---------------

Modified 1728 UTC 11 Aug

[tarbat]

I've been working on a spreadsheet that can take the complete SBS1 countries.dat file (http://www.homepages.mcb.net/bones/Downloads/CountriesDAT.zip), and convert that into a suitable format for Radarbox.  The spreadsheet then tries to make a best guess at which flag to use by matching to entries in the existing D008.DAT file.

Anyway, I've got that working, but now want to check something.  Does it matter which order the lines are in.  I saw some earlier posts about RB not reading later lines once it's found a match, but I'm not sure if that's still the case.

Using UK as an example, is this list order correct:
UK   United Kingdom   010000------------------
RA   United Kingdom Mil   0100001111--------------
RA   United Kingdom MoD   010000000000000000------

Or should it be:
RA   United Kingdom MoD   010000000000000000------
RA   United Kingdom Mil   0100001111--------------
UK   United Kingdom   010000------------------

Or doesn't it matter what order the lines are in?

Here's my draft version of an RB version of countries.dat (note flag QQ.BMP is my "unsure which flag to use" flag).
http://www.filefactory.com/file/54219b

[Allocator]

I've been working on a spreadsheet that can take the complete SBS1 countries.dat file (http://www.homepages.mcb.net/bones/Downloads/CountriesDAT.zip), and convert that into a suitable format for Radarbox.  The spreadsheet then tries to make a best guess at which flag to use by matching to entries in the existing D008.DAT file.

Anyway, I've got that working, but now want to check something.  Does it matter which order the lines are in.  I saw some earlier posts about RB not reading later lines once it's found a match, but I'm not sure if that's still the case.

Using UK as an example, is this list order correct:
UK   United Kingdom   010000------------------
RA   United Kingdom Mil   0100001111--------------
RA   United Kingdom MoD   010000000000000000------

Or should it be:
RA   United Kingdom MoD   010000000000000000------
RA   United Kingdom Mil   0100001111--------------
UK   United Kingdom   010000------------------

Or doesn't it matter what order the lines are in?

Here's my draft version of an RB version of countries.dat (note flag QQ.BMP is my "unsure which flag to use" flag).
http://www.filefactory.com/file/54219b

Tarbat,

No time to test your spreadsheet at the moment, but good work anyway!

I don't think that the order of the lines is a problem any more, as I'm sure that was only an issue with the early versions of RB V1.2/V1.2?

Allocator

[tarbat]

Yes, I've been testing with this D008.DAT file, and it appears to work fine, with all the RAF aircraft appearing okay.  Further testing still to do though.

[Roadrunner]

Tarbat,

Excellent job. Regarding the netries with QQ next to them. Have you tried downloading the flags from Bones site (The SBS1 ones) and seen whether they work with RB?

Mike

[tarbat]

Excellent job. Regarding the netries with QQ next to them. Have you tried downloading the flags from Bones site (The SBS1 ones) and seen whether they work with RB?

Yes, that's my next job.  I've already got the flags for my SBS-1, but I reckon I need to resize them to the smaller size used in RB.  But the weather is too good to be doing that today!

[DaveG]

Weather is to good in Scotland, must be global warming ;)

[tarbat]

19c - felt hotter than last year's summer.  A beautiful day - http://tarbatness.blogspot.com/2008/02/glen-affric-and-glen-cannich.html

Anyway, back to resizing flags now.

[Allocator]

No time to test your spreadsheet at the moment, but good work anyway!

I misread your post - though that the link went to a spreadsheet!

[Roadrunner]

It does and I have downloaded it (Notepad file). The link is not direct and it seems to say you are getting a free download but it eventually gives the file :-)

[tarbat]

So, I've spent a few hours gathering flags together from various sources, and then resized them to a max of 11 pixels high.  I've also taken the extended SBS1 countries.dat file that contains all the various military hex codes, and converted that to D008.DAT.  This is what I end up with.

Anyone like to take a look and check for reasonableness?  What suprised me was that there's a lot of flags in the FLAGS folder that aren't used in the standard D008.DAT file.

BIG WARNING: Whilst this hasn't made my RB crash, there's no guarantee that I haven't misunderstood something.  So, take a backup of D008.DAT and your FLAGS folder first.

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