Vatsim Mobile Monitor

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Hi everybody,

 

because I found no Vatsim app for my Android smartphone, I started a little project for myself. To check the status of my favourite airports I created a simple web page for my smartphone. So if you are on your way back home and wanted to check your favourite airports for a flight, just type in the ICAO code and see who's online.

 

Vatsim Mobile Monitor or

http://vmm.strausshome.org

 

Errors, suggestions, ideas are welcome.

 

Thanks to Brian Beach for the VatsimPHP Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] and Gergely Kósa (DLMN) for some inspiration.

Edited December 2, 2009 at 11:12 AM by Guest

[Wycliffe Barrett]

Oliver

 

What an excellent app, just installed the bookmark on my Nokia n95, Brilliant. Although i had to do a search on google via my phone to get it to work. Typing in the link on the phone wouldn't work.

 

Odd.

 

I'm sure it will work when I get my new phone in the new year, a Blackberry Bold

 

 

 

for your info It's top of the list on Google found it straightaway.

 

Wycliffe

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Hello Wycliffe,

 

thanks to hear that. I tested it with my HTC Magic/Saphire and I had no problems. The complete URL is in the first posting, now.

[Brian Beach 915973]

Now THIS is the kind of application that VatsimPHP was intended for! Great job, adding it to my iPhone (even though I also have vRoute.mobile).

[Adam White 1051448]

Could we find it on the App store for the Iphone?

Edited December 3, 2009 at 06:09 AM by Guest

[Brian Beach 915973]

For the iPhone, open the webpage in Safari and save the page to your home screen.

[Paul Biderman]

Just tried this on my Sanyo SCP-2700 and it works great.

[Charan Kumar]

Awesome tool...works on iPhone like a charm (as already mentioned)

[Ross Carlson]

Awesome tool...works on iPhone like a charm (as already mentioned)

 

Since it is a web page, not a program that runs on the phone, it should work on any phone with an HTML web browser.

 

(Pointing that out for anyone else that might wonder if it'll work on their particular type of phone.)

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Update: A complete ATC schedule list provided by Vatbook is available now. <>

[Bigean Allam 936142]

Update: A complete ATC schedule list provided by Vatbook is available now. <>

 

Hi

 

some more details ... I was searching for a quick ATC booking overview for mobile phones. Just to check at afternoon, which airports would be attractive later to fly to. Most VACC-webpages only provided its home country's status. Nothing to give me a global summary, fitting into a cell phone display.

 

It was Oliver Strauss who started to build something, and here we have the result as part of his "Vatsim Mobile Monitor". A Internet Page - again suitable for all devices that can display Internet html.

 

It's kind of a puristic list with just the information needed to get the ATC booking status fitted into a conventional cell phone display. All countries' ATC bookings from vatbook are grouped by day. Current day is also marked with grey background. Within the day the list is grouped by country.

 

Looks like this (Opera 5 Mini Browser, I'm using "small font" setting):

 

 

Column 1-3 are the most important: Left is the ATC station code, followed by start and end time in UTC. Column 4 is special: It's not the station's call sign. We rather wanted to give orientation where in the world that station is located. If you don't know EPWA_GND, you can see PL for Poland and "Warszawa-Okezie". No Ground" or "Tower" ... cause everybody knows that one. Oliver did a great job so far to add many names. With this different naming scheme, his webpage even gives me advantages on my desktop PC. It's not servinfo, but I can find a better orientation where in the world there's ATC tonight.

 

 

If you scroll right, you can see the person's name who booked that Station:

 

 

I'm excited about this and full of thanks towards Oliver.

 

Bigean

[Ross Bristo 1010003]

Hi,

 

An excellent thing you've created, just what i wanted!

 

I've just loaded it up on my phone (LG Renoir), when i enter the ICAO, if i try to tap three times on my touch screen, it says i cant input that many characters, but if i tap once or twice, for say the letters a or b its fine. I just cant get anything past 3 taps.

 

If that makes sense?

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Hi,

 

the input field is limited to 4 chars. It's only possible to enter ICAO codes like EGLL, EDDL, KJFK ... Maybe that's the matter why you can't enter only 3 chars.

 

2 Screenshots of my android device:

 

[Ross Bristo 1010003]

Hi Oliver,

 

I understand you cant input more than 4 chars, but the problem is it wont let me tap my key more than once when im inputting the 4th char. I've checked and im not trying to input a 5th character when tapping it twice.

 

So i have a very limited amount of ICAO's i can search for

[Bigean Allam 936142]

Hi Ross,

 

I've tried to enter a 4 letter station code on my Sony W890i: EDDF-> with the fourth letter being a "3 tap" letter. That worked normal. Generally, Olivers Webpage doesn't have anything tricky, mainly it's standard html suitable for a wide range of standard cell phone browsers. So it's sort of issue to your phone, I guess.

 

Note that with that new ATC overview page, you don't have to enter anything. It just gives you a list with a smart sorting. It's not too long so you can leave filtering away.

 

Regards, Bigean

[Alex Ramos 999218]

Works on my Blackberry Storm flawlessly. Much appreciated for the work you put into it!

 

Ramos

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Next update: A simple desktop mode and a better map view is now available.

[Naresh Gurung 931375]

Hi Oliver,

 

It works great as advertised. Excellent tool/website.

 

One thing that did not work very well for me is that we are based in the USA. I booked myself for ATC via vroute. Because of the time difference, it does not show my booking in the 'ATC bookings for Today' window. I can see it in the All ATC listing for the next day though. It does show my booking if I don't go over the UTC midnight mark.

 

Thought I'd let you know.

 

Cheers,

Naresh

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Hi,

 

thanks for your bug report. I will check this in the next days.

 

One thing that did not work very well for me is that we are based in the USA.

 

move to europe

 

Can you give me an example?

[Naresh Gurung 931375]

Hi,

 

One thing that did not work very well for me is that we are based in the USA.

 

move to europe

 

Can you give me an example?

 

I would love to but I can't, sorry.

 

Ok, here is the deal.

 

I booked myself in Vroute for today, June the 13th.:

 

In the Vatsim Mobile Monitor, it shows up under June 14th, because of the time difference:

 

Obviously, it does not show up under 'ATC for today':

 

If I book myself for earlier hours, it shows up for the correct day/date:

 

 

Hope that helps. Looks like the booking is not very widely used for USA service centers. So, I am not sure if it is even worth trying to get this right.

 

Cheers,

Naresh

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Ahhhh, I got it now. Thank's for the screenshots.

[Naresh Gurung 931375]

Hello,

 

Request METAR link is not working for me. Any ideas?

 

Thanks.

 

Naresh

[Ray Dotulung]

great tools!! cant wait to see this tools become one of blackberry app

[Oliver Strauss 821573]

Hello,

 

@Naresh: It's working now.

 

@Ray: I'm not planing to create a Blackberry App, because I don't have one.

[Naresh Gurung 931375]

Cool, thanks Oliver.

 

It is working for all other airports except KMSP, my home airport.

 

I can get it from here just fine:

http://www.vatsim.net/data/search_metar.php

 

Not a biggie.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Cheers,

Naresh