[NLRS] IPAQ

[John P. Toscano]

Al Bergman wrote:

> Hello All,
>    Does anybody on this reflector know of a bearing/distance calculator
> that works with grid squares and runs on a Windows CE platform?  I have
> an Ipaq 3650 and want to use it for rover work.  Perhaps I could make
> your c source file build..
> 73, Al

Depending on how badly you want to make this happen...

I have a program called GridLoc for the Palm Pilot.  You can see the 
description at:
   http://www.qsl.net/w0jt/Contests/Palm_GridLocator/index.htm

I realize this is not what you can use directly, but keep reading.

It is written using a program called NSBasic.  Their web site is:
   http://www.nsbasic.com
They have versions of NSBasic for the Palm, the Pocket PC (Windows CE), 
and the Newton.  The standard versions are about $150 each, and you can 
freely distribute any programs that were created with them.  If you had 
a copy, or knew someone who had a copy of the CE version, I would be 
happy to send you or them the source files for my program, and they 
could try to compile a version for your platform.  I really don't know 
how much work it would be to convert the program from one platform to 
the other, since I have not done any work with Windows CE.  On the other 
hand, a little prior experience in Microsoft Visual Basic for the 
Windows platform allowed me to learn NSBasic quite quickly.  And I think 
that the folks at NSBasic try to make their development tools as similar 
as they can for the three different target platforms.

They make a demo version of NSBasic/Palm available for free on their web 
site, so you can try out the program -- it generates normal programs 
except that they stop running 5 days after being built.  This is great 
to see if your idea will work before spending $150 on a software 
development tool.  Unfortunately, unless I missed it somehow, I do *NOT* 
see a similar demo download available for NSBasic/CE.  Bummer.


On the other hand, if you want a better program than mine, which is 
written in C already, then you may want to check out the program known 
as GL for the Palm Pilot.  Once again, it is designed for the "wrong" 
platform (for your needs), but the C source is readily available from 
the author, and if you are used to writing C programs for Windows CE, it 
could be a good starting point to work from.
   http://users.rcn.com/rexa/Projects/gl_dist.html


Another source that may be of some help is the program RoverLog.  This 
is a very full-featured program for logging and a whole lot more, 
including computing bearings and distances.  For better or worse, 
although the full source is available for free, it is in a programming 
language that I consider to be somewhat obscure except to Unix/Linux 
power users, namely Tcl/Tk.  I have no idea how hard or easy it would be 
to adapt any of the code to a Windows CE program.
   http://www.2ub.org/roverlog/

In addition to the full source for RoverLog, at the very bottom of the 
home page are some links to Tcl/Tk programs for doing only the bearing 
and distance calculations.  You might want to start there to see what 
the code looks like.


Finally, if you are adept at Windows CE programming, and just need the 
algorithms for computing bearing and distance, and you are also a power 
user of Microsoft Excel, you could check out my 10 GHz logger 
spreadsheet.  On the LogData page of the spreadsheet, way over to the 
right, are the formulas that convert Maidenhead Grid Squares (with 
sub-squares) to Lat/Long in decimal degrees, from which bearing and 
distance are computed.
   http://www.qsl.net/w0jt/10GHz/index.htm


I hope that somewhere in there is something of use to you.
73 de W0JT