Duplicate Squawk Codes

[Josh Nunn]

There is this strange issue on vERAM that I cannot figure out. Sometimes I will randomly get unexplained duplicate squawk codes. Either an aircraft is flying along and suddenly starts flashing CODE, or I will [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign a code and tag a target up and he is instantly flashing CODE. Sometimes it will happen when it is incredibly slow and there are no other targets around, and even i've had it happen with the first code I [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign of the session. Sometimes it will happen to aircraft that were tagged up by another controller and handed to me as well. I tried using a different squawk code bank and had the same issue. From talking to other controllers (including someone who was signed on using VRC and did not see the same duplicate code as me) it appears that VRC users may not be affected by this issue.

 

It seems like one or more of these issues is happening:

- vERAM is re[Mod - Happy Thoughts]igning codes that I've already [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned

- vERAM is not detecting duplicate codes correctly, leading to "false alarms"

- another aircraft happened to be squawking a code I [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned and entered my vis range (I don't think this is the case because VRC users would have the issue too)

- another controller nearby is [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igning from the same squawk bank (again I don't think so because of the reason above)

 

Any ideas to help troubleshoot this issue? What triggers vERAM to indicate that a code is duplicate? and how does vERAM know to not [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign duplicates, is it based on my vis range?

[Ross Carlson]

Not really sure what to make of this. I reviewed the code, and it will [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign beacon codes randomly from the pool defined in the facility file. It will not [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign a code that is already in use by another flight plan.

 

The logic for showing the CODE message is that there must be another flight plan in the system with the same [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned beacon code.

 

One explanation for why the VRC user wasn't seeing the same duplicate ([Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming both the VRC user and you had the same vis range) is that vERAM hangs onto flight plans for 30 minutes, where VRC deletes them when the target goes out of range.

 

To help troubleshoot, it would be great if you paid attention to which aircraft are [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned which code (maybe write them down) and then see if you can spot a pattern as to when the duplicate warning appears. It would be especially easy to do this when there are very few flights online, of course.