Main Screen

From the opening (Main Screen) you can perform various functions via the menu.

The Main Screen is Tabbed with four options.

Network Totals:

This shows a snapshot of the network. This is not a load analysis. Just a report on how many of these different types of packets are being received.

At the top, the number of stations being tracked and the total packets heard.

Total Positions and Total Misc show how many packets have been received in each category since the program start. These values are also graphed.

Stations Reporting indicates how many stations are reporting each type of packet.

Software Used indicates how many stations are using each type of software on their stations (if they are correctly creating their UnProto address fields.

If you minimize the program to the task bar then:

Included on that taskbar is the number of stations and the total packets heard. That screen capture might indicate different numbers than the main screen above ONLY on this web page. I don't want to have to recapture it each time I update the pages. Take my word for it, the numbers will match.

The status bar on the bottom has 5 boxes.

1. Box one indicates how many stations are being logged in plain text, that is, their packets just as they are received from the tnc are written to a log file.

2. The second box indicates how many stations are being logged to Tracking Log files

3. The third box indicates how many stations are being logged regardless of their movement.

4. The fourth box indicates how many hours, minutes and seconds the program has been accumulating data.

5. The time shown is current windows system time.

By Time

The first tab, Network Totals, keeps track of all packets received. Data is displayed in two ways on this screen .

On the top half of the screen, a chart and data display information about packets received within an arbitrary window of time beginning from the present and moving into the past. You set the length of this window with the drop down combo box in the upper right corner of the screen. The interval must be in whole minutes (integers) and not exceed 60 minutes. 1 Hour is the size of the buffer that holds this data. The combo dropdown includes 1,5,10,15,20,30 and 60 minute intervals. However, you can type in any whole number, say 32 and get a report on packet activity within the last 32 minutes.

A note here. The program is constantly accumulating and deleting data so if you watch the above screen, when the time changes from 7:21 (lower right corner), the program will throw out all data that was received at 6:21 PM and start building new data for the current minute. When this happens the number of all packets received is likely to be affected. Certainly ALL will be affected, the others, well it just depends on when the packets for each type were heard. If you forgot to turn on the TNC for 10 minutes, well there wouldn't be any data for the previous hour's first 10 minutes, so nothing would change.

More realistically, suppose no one is transmitting GPS data, then 10 minutes ago someone starts up a GPS tracker for one minute, beacons out 2 packets and turns the system off. Well, those two packets will show up under GPGGA/RMC  until one hour from the time they were turned off. So, don't be surprised if some totals don't reduce each minute as old data is purged and new added.

Then ... for the next minute, data for each "container" will increase each time a packet for each type is received.

In other words, this is live data. The numbers are always moving and so is the chart.

If you run the program for long periods of time, this time restricted window can be useful for seeing what's happening right now or within the last few minutes on the network.

The bottom half of the screen is something else entirely!!

The data there are AVERAGES. These figures have nothing to do with the current state of affairs. They are all extrapolations based on the total number of packets of each type received and the total running time of the program.

When you start the program and receive the first packet, the program will fill out all data for that data type.

For instance, you launch Net Spy and an ID packet comes in within one second of the program start time. The program then calculates that ID packets arrive every second, so you should receive 60 IDs per minute, 3600 per hour, 86400 per day. Right? Well, of course not but, that is how the program works. Each time a packet is received this screen is refreshed. So lets say exactly 60 seconds after program start you get a second packet. It's a Mike-E packet... OK, when this screen refreshed it examines all the data and finds it has heard one ID in the last 60 seconds. So, it re-evaluates the rates for IDs and now makes it 1 a minute, 60 an hour and 1440 a day.

After you have run the program for 10 or 15 minutes you get a surprisingly accurate picture of activity for your area. But a really good analysis probably will take an hour as many beacons only come out once an hour.

Misc:

More data similar in nature to the "By Time" screen. You can change the far right hand boxes data display by altering the length of the packet window just as you do for the By Time window.

Terminal:

Nothing special here, just a terminal screen. The background color might change to red to indicate the program is logging ALL packets, a possibly space consuming act.