Notes on Installing and Using UI-View

Invalid & Changed Items In Distribution File  | Windows Vista-7-8-10 Issues |  Add-Ons  |  Installing and Using Precision Mapping with UIview32   | Installing and Using PA7RHM Map Server | Using MapPoint with UI-View |   FAQ  
(Links jump to points further down on this page.)

All discussions below apply to the final 32-bit release of UIview (Ver. 2.03). They DO NOT apply to the older and much more limited 16-bit version (which will work with Windows 3.1 if anyone still cares!).  Note that confusingly, the 16-bit version has a seemingly higher version number (2.39).   Don't be fooled -- all the advanced plugins require the 32-bit Ver 2.03!

The 16-bit (Windows 3.x) version is totally freely downloadable and usable as-is without registration. The 32-bit version requires registration to acquire the key number needed to unlock install and run the program.  The registration, once a USD $15 charge, is now completely free.  See the UI-view.net website for details.  Many of the more advanced add-ons, including Precision Mapping zoomable maps, will only work with the 32-bit version.

Note that the 16-bit version will not work at all with Windows Vista, Windows 7, or later.  Along with support for the classic Windows .hlp  help files, Windows Vista and later have dropped support for any 16-bit programs. (This also includes many older supposedly-32-bit Win95/Win98 programs and hardware device drivers, that often contained chunks of 16-bit code recycled from their Windows 3.x predecessors.)
 

Invalid & Changed Items in Ver 2.03 Distribution File

• The URL to register the program.  The URL referred to in the program help dialogs no longer exists. The URL for registering UI-View32 and receiving an activation key is now: http://www.apritch.co.uk/uiv32.htm. Despite the help system saying a fee of USD $15 is required, the registration of the program is now free.
  
  
   
• APRS Server List    Pulling down "File, Download APRS Server List" tries to send you to the URL  http://ahubswe.net/APRServe.txt to download a current list of available APRS Internet servers.   This address has been obsolete for over a decade. 
  
  One used to be able to replace this list with one downloaded from  http://www.aprs2.net/APRServe2.txt  instead. This link is now dead. The home page at  http://www.tier2.net   now yields a placeholder page with no information or links on it.
  
  However   http://status.aprs2.net   yields a comprehensive list of current servers for both the CORE and TIER2 aprs networks. This is NOT in the form of a simple text file you can download and install into UIview. However, you can study the list, pick a few servers of interest to you (presumably the ones closest to you) and enter them as additions to the original list in UIview.
  
  Or you can use one of the virtual servers that randomly assign you a real server.  Add one of these to the original server list in UIview and check it. Go to "Setup, APRS Server Setup" and press the "Insert" key. Then enter one of the server names below:
  
  rotate.aprs2.net:14580  (randomly assigns a server anywhere in the world)
  
  noam.aprs2.net:14580   (randomly assigns a server in North America)
  
  soam.aprs2.net:14580  (randomly assigns a server in South America)
  
  euro.aprs2.net:14580   (randomly assigns a server in Europe)
  
  asia.aprs2.net:14580    (randomly assigns a server in Asia)
  
  
  
   
   
• APRS Server User-Defined Filter Port 14580  All APRS servers offer this user-defined filter port that can limit the volume of data sent to your APRS program from the Internet.  For example, only stations within a certain distance from your station, or only stations in a certain rectangular region bounded by certain lat/long values.   The F1 Help screens available during the "APRS Server Setup" dialogs include a text file, filter.txt , describing the filter port options.  This file is now outdated.  Additional filter port options, including exclusions as well as the original inclusions have been created since.  The current version 3.0 of the JAVaprs filter port instructions and options are available at:
          http://www.aprs2.net/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FilterGuide  
  
  Here on the WA8LMF website at:
  
          JAVaprsFilters.htm
  
  a version of the  JavAPRS Filter Guide has been reformatted from the original raw text to HTML for easier readability and search.
  
  The new JavAPRS filter exclude options are especially useful if you want to prevent maps from being flooded with thousands of non-ham "CWO" (Citizens Weather Observer) stations that share the APRS Internet system with licensed ham stations. Simply add  filter -p/CW  to the "Extra log-on text" field in the "Setup, APRS Server Setup" dialog. 
  
  You may wish to use a plain-text version of the webpage above to update the local version of this information inside the UIview help system.   The " filter.txt " file is downloadable from the WA8LMF website at:
  
          http://wa8lmf.net/miscinfo/filter.txt
  
  Save the text-formatted web page as "filter.txt", and copy it over the original "filter.txt" located in the subdirectory " \DOCS " located under the main UIview program directory.  The internal F1 help system in UIview will then produce the current and correct information on filter ports.
  
  
   
• Displayed APRS Symbol Set a.k.a "Icons"     There have been numerous changes and updates to the APRS symbol set since UIview became "frozen".  Fortunately, the APRS symbols used by UIview are contained in a pair of Windows BMP graphics files that can be easily replaced (overwritten) after the program is installed. Replacement current symbol sets for UIview (and for the MapPoint add-on "UI-Point"), are located here:
          Revised APRS Symbol Set  .
  
  Important to note:   APRS symbols are NOT transmitted over-the-air as little pictures. Only a two-digit alpha-numeric code is transmitted, that causes a symbol to be selected from the other party's stored symbol set.   Changing your graphics WILL NOT make other people see the new symbols.  They must update their own software.  Conversely, if YOU don't replace the original symbol set in your copy of UIview with the updated version, you will often be seeing the WRONG symbols from other stations. (Many existing symbols have been moved to different code points.)
  
  
   
• UI-Webserver Maps    If you activate the UI-View Personal APRS Webserver built into UIview, the page that displays details for an individual station attempts to draw 3 maps, at varying scales, centered on the selected station. This map display no longer works. The maps were provided by the now long-gone website "MapBlast!" operated by Vicinity Corp.  About the time Roger passed away, Microsoft purchased Vicinity, and proceeded to cut off free access to the site which was renamed "Expedia Maps", and then "Bing Maps". 
  
  F5VAG wrote a replacement site for these UIview inset maps that worked by calling Google Maps and forwarding them to your UIwebserver as HTML "iframes". The code changes for implementing these changes to the UI-Webserver is shown below. 
  
  (This replacement site has now also stopped working,  after Google introduced new and more restrictive procedures and rules for calling their map images from within other programs.) 
  
  The information below is of only historic interest.
  
   

  This will require editing HTML pages in the "UI-Webserver" directory under the main UIview directory.  Complete details, including copy-and-paste code snippets WERE available here:         http://f5vag.nerim.net/ui-view32/uiws_maps/ The essence of the information on the now-missing page above was to edit the pages info_call.html,  infomobile_call.html and  infowx_call.html located in the "\Special Pages" subdirectory of the UIwebserver directory with a text editor or HTML editor in code-view (not WYSIWYG) mode.   Locate the block of code on each of these pages: p align="center"><img width="600" height="350" border="1" alt="Large scale map of ##CALLSIGN##'s location" src="##MAP_LARGE_SCALE##"></p> <p align="center"><img width="600" height="350" border="1" alt="Medium scale map of ##CALLSIGN##'s location" src="##MAP_MEDIUM_SCALE##"></p> <p align="center"><img width="600" height="350" border="1" alt="Small scale map of ##CALLSIGN##'s location" src="##MAP_SMALL_SCALE##"></p>       and replace it with <p align="center"><font face="Verdana"><iframe src="http://f5vag.nerim.net/maps/gstatmap.php?call=##CALLSIGN##&amp;posit=##LOCATION##&amp;sd=##SYMBOL_DESCRIPTION##&amp;range=1000" frameborder="0" width="600" height="400" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"></iframe> </font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Verdana"><iframe src="http://f5vag.nerim.net/maps/gstatmap.php?call=##CALLSIGN##&amp;posit=##LOCATION##&amp;sd=##SYMBOL_DESCRIPTION##&amp;range=50" frameborder="0" width="600" height="400" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"></iframe> </font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Verdana"><iframe src="http://f5vag.nerim.net/maps/gstatmap.php?call=##CALLSIGN##&amp;posit=##LOCATION##&amp;sd=##SYMBOL_DESCRIPTION##&amp;range=2" frameborder="0" width="600" height="400" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"></iframe> </font></p>   The easiest way to to do this is to select & copy the replacement code above from your web browser to Windows Notepad. This will remove the web display HTML formatting.  Then copy the raw ASCII text code from Notepad and paste into the open page in your editor. This changes the map server on these pages from Microsoft Expedia to Google Maps. Note that this still depends on a middleman (F5VAG.nerim.net) to generate the iframe with the map. This middleman could disappear at any time.

   

  Updated replacements for these pages is downloadable from this web site.  The updated pages include:

  • 
    The links to multiple sorted lists of stations ("RF Only", "Mobiles Only", "WX Only", etc) on the main "index.html" page have been eliminated. These links now produce vast numbers of useless hits by web crawlers, AI search bots, etc. Only the main "Stations Heard" list remains.
    
    
    Clicking through a link for each callsign on the main "Stations Heard" list results in a station-details page.
    
    This included attempted map lookups for the station at the long-defunct F5VAG map server (that produced three maps at different scales). These links have been eliminated.
    
    The station details page also included a link to a lookup attempt for the station info from QRZ. This produced a dead end due to a required password-protected log in. This link has been replaced with a link to an standard APRS.fi map for the specific callsign.

  • 
    Click Here for the downloadable ZIP file.
    
     

• SA Map Grabber    UIview includes a utility (on the "File" pulldown) for capturing static (non-zoomable) maps from Delorme Street Atlas for use with UIview.  This utility, (of use to American users only),  only works with the "classic" old-style versions of Delorme Street Atlas ending with Ver 9.0 discontinued in late 2001.  It WILL NOT work with any later versions of Delorme products (now all discontinued and out-of-print) using the "new-style" Delorme interface (i.e. TopoUSA, Street Atlas Deluxe, Street Atlas Road Warrior, Street Atlas 2004 and later, etc.).  The Map Grabber feature is now totally useless; the program files and .XTR files related to it in the main UIview folder can now be deleted to reduce space waste and menu clutter.
  
  
   
• North American users of Kenwood D700 and TH-D7    The TNC initialization files for these radios attempt to leave nothing to chance and totally automate the setup of the radios.  Besides initializing the TNC itself, these files also command the radios onto the the correct radio frequency for APRS.  As distributed, the initializations are correct for the U.K. and Europe where the APRS frequency is 144.800.    For use in North America, you must edit the initialization file and change the frequency to 144.390 .  
  
  After selecting the Kenwood D700 or THD7 tnc type during the "Setup, Comms Setup" dialog in UIview, click the "Edit" button.   Locate the strings
  
    ;Set the frequency to 144.800.
    FQ 00144800000,0!FQ 00144800000,0
  
  Carefully change these to
  
    ;Set the frequency to 144.390.
    FQ 00144390000,0!FQ 00144390000,0
  
  and then save the file. Be sure the total number of digits in the numeric strings are not changed! The changes won't become effective until you exit and restart UIview.
  
  
   
• Any user of the Kenwood TM-D710 APRS mobile rig or TH-D72 handheld with built-in GPS  ( pictures here)     The newer Kenwood APRS radio arrived long after UIview became "frozen in time". As a result, no TNC initialization files are included with UIview for the D710 or D72.  A collection of TNC init files including ones for the TH-D72, the TS-2000 and two versions for the TM-D710 can be downloaded from this website here . 
  
  Further, note that the GPS data pass-through feature (that allows both received APRS data and local GPS data to be sent over a single serial connection to the computer) only works when an EXTERNAL GPS is used.  It does NOT work when the built-in internal GPS is used.  You will still see other peoples' positions on your map, but you will not be able to beacon your own position and you will not see the GPS cross-hairs that show your own location on the map. Unless, of course, you connect an external GPS to either the dedicated GPS port on the radio, or directly to a second port on the computer. 
  
  
   
• Any users of the Yaesu APRS radios (hand-held or mobile)   Basically, you are out of luck. All the earlier Yaesu APRS radios, both mobile and hand held, suffer from what I consider a fatal design flaw/oversight:    You CAN NOT access the internal TNC from an external device for full transmit/receive operation.  The SINGLE serial port on Yaesu radios is used either to program the radio's memories, or for the optional GPS. There is NO access to the internal TNC's TX/RX data at all; i.e. you cannot connect a computer running APRS software to the Yaesus.  NOTE: Some of the later Yaesu models do provide a rudimentary listen-only monitor function through the serial port, but they still lack full transmit/receive access to the internal TNC.
  
  
   
• Users of KPC3 Plus TNCs   There is a serious known bug that plagues KPC3+ TNCs (but not the original KPC3).     After running for several days, a KPC3+ operating in KISS mode  will start randomly delaying the passing of received packets to the attached computer, sometimes by several minutes.  (KISS is the preferred mode for UIview and is mandatory for using UIview's advanced digipeater features.) 
  
  Passing such long-delayed packets to the APRS Internet System (or digipeating them) can cause them to appear many minutes AFTER more recent position reports have been processed by other digipeaters and/or igates.  This causes forward-backward-forward-backward "hyper-jumping" of moving stations on other users' maps.  [The APRS Internet System considers any packet arriving within 30 seconds of the previous one, that contains the identical payload, to be a duplicate, and automatically rejects it. An old packet, even if it is a duplicate,  arriving MORE than 30 seconds later WILL be passed.]
  
  This bug affects all firmware revision levels of the KPC3 Plus. It can be temporarily cleared by resetting the TNC or by cycling it's power OFF and then back ON.   In the case of UIview, exiting and than restarting UIview clears the problem.  If you are using a KPC3+ TNC, set the built-in UIview Scheduler to EXIT and then RESTART UIview once a day when traffic is likely to be very low.  (For example, set it to EXIT at 3:00 AM and RESTART at 3:01 AM.)
  
  
   
• APRS DESTINATION & PATH  Confusingly Combined in Setup    Not a changed standard but a quirk that confuses many newcomers to UIview.    Unlike every other APRS program and Kenwood TH-D7/D700 radios, UIview combines the destination (normally APRS ) and the digipeater path (normally something like WIDE2-2) into a single string in a single field labeled "Unproto Address" in the "Setup, Station Setup" dialog.  It's very easy to overlook erasing the leading "APRS" while editing this field during setup.  This string must look something like
  " APRS,WIDE2-2 " or " APRS,WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 " (mobile) or " APRS,WIDE2-1 " (fixed station) .   The entries must be delimited by commas.  No spaces are allowed.
  
  At run time, the item to the left of the first comma is taken to be the destination. Subsequent items to the right of the first comma are interpreted as steps of the path.   If the leading "APRS" is left out, the program will try to transmit to a destination of "WIDE2-2" (or whatever is in the first position) instead.  Since APRS applications and digipeaters normally only respond to a destination beginning APxxxx (and a very few other prefixes), you won't be seen on other peoples' programs.    And you won't be digipeated.  
  
  Note that this combined destination and path entry is strictly a UIview setup-screen idiosyncrasy. (This is actually a carry-over convention from classic connected packet operation, not observed by other APRS programs and devices.) All other APRS programs and APRS devices provide separate fields for destination and path entries. No matter how it is prompted for during entry, all programs transmit this information over-the-air in the same format.
  
  
   
• Quirky Way of Delimiting Degrees and Minutes in Latitude/Longitude Entries     Like most APRS applications, UIview requires that latitude/longitude entries for positions be expressed in Degrees, Minutes and hundredths of Minutes.  You cannot use Degrees-Minutes-Seconds or Degrees and decimal Degrees. [ DD MM.mm  is the default format of NMEA GPS data, and is also the default format for APRS. ]  
  
  However, unlike NMEA, UIview uses two periods to delimit the string instead of one.  For example, latitude data output from a standard NMEA GPS receiver, for 33 degrees 45.14 minutes north, would look like:
      3345.14N 
  
  UIview requires that this be formatted as:
      33.45.14N 
  
   
• Right-click QRZ.com Callsign Lookup feature needs changes.   One of the choices available when right-clicking on an icon on a UIview map is " www.qrz.com "  which sends you to that website for an FCC database lookup.   As of late August 2009, the QRZ website has changed their interface, breaking this convenient right-click lookup.
  
  To fix this, you will need to edit the UIVIEW32.INI file, located in the main UIview program folder.  Shut down UIview, if it is running. Open UIVIEW32.INI with a basic text editor like Windows Notepad, and search for "[RIGHT_CLICK_URLS]" . Immediately below this heading, you should see:
  
    &www.findu.com="http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?$CALL"
    www.q&rz.com="http://www.qrz.com/database?callsign=$CALLNOSSID"
  
  Edit the lower line to read
  
    www.q&rz.com="http://www.qrz.com/db/$CALLNOSSID"
  
  instead.   (The easiest way to do this is to copy and paste the string from this webpage over the existing one in UIVIEW32.INI .)  Save the changes; then restart UIview.
  
  
   
• UI-NWS feature requires server name change, and additional files to be downloaded.  The UI-NWS feature under the "File" pulldown allows U.S. National Weather Service weather warning areas to appear on top of UIview maps. (This feature is of interest ONLY to users in the U.S. or Australia)  The URLs for downloading these files mentioned in the UIview Help System are now invalid Click Here for the current URLs and more information on downloading & using the NWS "shape files". 
  
   

  As of mid-July 2009, the "virtual igate" WXSVR that injected the NWS alerts into the APRS Internet system to make the NWS feature work was shut down.  A replacement server, AE5PL-WX, is now providing this service. Shapes and symbols for severe weather WARNINGs should appear on maps just as before. Note that the volume of traffic provided by the new server is far, far less than the old one.  AE5PL-WX only transmits WARNINGS (servere weather actually in progress) but not the ALERTS and WATCHES sent by the old server.  As a result, you will never see the yellow ALERT areas and orange WATCH areas that formerly appeared on UIview maps; only the red WARNING shapes will appear.

   

• UI-NWS "Finger" function requires server name change.   Right-clicking entries in the UI-NWS watches & warnings lists offers the option "Finger NWS Server" to retrieve the full text of NWS bulletins.  The original "factory" settings no longer work.

  Thanks to the work of AE5PL and KF0ED, this function can now be restored. Editing the two files  UIview32.INI  and  UINWS.INI , located in the main UIview program folder, re-enables this feature with the present server. 

  • Shut down UIview.
  • Locate the string  FQDN=WxSvr.net in each file, and replace it
    with  FQDN=wxsvr.ae5pl.net .
  • Restart UIview.
    
     

  NOTE: Do not confuse UI-NWS with the NWSget add-on discussed below. 
  
  UI-NWS is a standard part of UIview and will work with any map (that covers part of the U.S).  
  
  NWSget automatically downloads color pictures of Weather Service radar images, similar to the ones on TV weather reports.  It then displays them underneath the roads and other details in UIview.  NWSget is a separate download, and only works with Precision Mapping and the PMap server plug-in for UIview.  NOTE: NWS-GET is now  "abandonware".  Further, this never-updated orphan works very erratically in Windows 7 and later.
  
  
  

  **** Vista/Windows 7/8/10 Issues ****   

  UIview32 "died" in March 2004, in the middle of the "Windows XP era", long before Vista or Windows 7 were released.  No explicit patches or updates for Vista, Windows 7 or later exist.  Revised versions of UIview will never be offered for these versions of Windows.  Uiview CAN be made to work with Vista, Win 7, and later, but it IS NOT a mindless "just run SETUP and accept the defaults" undertaking. 
  
  Three major issues exist running UIview on Windows Vista-7-8-10: 
  
  
  1)     Windows UAC (User Account Controls) very aggressively defends the "\Program Files" folder tree, where most programs install by default.  The constant questioning of actions by programs unknown and "unblessed" by Microsoft causes problems both installing and running older programs.   
  
  You must run both the installers, and the programs after install, with elevated "Administrator" privileges.  If you are NOT logged in to an account with administrator priviledges, you must right-click the installer programs and choose "Run As Administrator".  If these programs are to be run from a normal user account after install, you must edit the options in the short cuts that launch them.  Right-click the short cut and exercise the option to "Run As Administrator".  
  
  Windows Vista-7-8-10 enhanced (some say paranoid) security prevents applications from writing to their own program folders under \Program Files   or   \Program Files (X86) after installation.  (This is a security precaution to prevent malware from attacking or modifying existing programs.)   This makes it impossible for programs to alter their own log files, .ini files, save user settings, etc,   if they are located in the program's own folder. 
  
  [Correct programming practice for Vista and later require that these types of files be placed in the   \Documents & Settings\Application Data  hierarchy instead. However this doesn't do anything for older programs like UI-View that are "hard-wired" to write back to their own program directory.] 
  
  You can avoid these problems by installing UI-View and PMap Server 7 into non-protected directories directly off the root of the drive during install instead of accepting the proposed default locations; i.e. install to something like:
  
      C:\UIview32
  
           and
  
      C:\PMapServer9
  
  respectively.
  
  
  2)     Starting with Windows Vista and continuing through Windows 7, 8.x and 10, Microsoft quietly dropped support for the traditional Windows .hlp Help File format, rendering UIview's extensive help system unusable, along with those of thousands of other older programs. The file "WinHlp32.exe" must be downloaded from Microsoft, and installed into Vista or Win7, before these older help systems will work.  
  
  (Microsoft is now trying to get programmers to write help systems in "compiled HTML" .chm files that can be displayed in Internet Explorer, rather than the old .hlp format that requires the specialized WinHelp.exe "player".)
  
  Quoting from the Microsoft web site:
  
  "Microsoft stopped including the 32-bit Help file viewer in Windows releases beginning with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. To support customers who still rely on legacy .hlp files, the Microsoft Download Center provides WinHlp32.exe downloads for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2."     
  
   Microsoft only provided Winhelp installers for Windows Vista, 7 and 8.x.  They have never offered one for Windows 10.  However, the installer below, archived on this website, will work with any 32-or 64-bit flavor of Windows from Vista through Win 10.
  
       http://WA8LMF.net/miscinfo/RestoreWinhelp32.exe

  This self-extracting zip file installer is based on the excellent work of by Komeil Bahmanpour.  He figured out how to work around the thicket of Windows UAC file protection and privileges to force install of WinHelp32.exe. Information is posted on his blog at
  
       http://www.komeil.com/blog/windows-help-program-winhelp-winhlp32-exe

  
  3)     The plug-in UI-Point 1.22 allows UIview to pass received positions to Microsoft MapPoint, either the North American or European version, for display.  The "official" installer for this plugin on the UI-view.net website will not run on 64-bit versions of Windows. A repacked version of this program installer, built with the ClickTeam Install Creator, (that will run on 64-bit systems) is located on this web site .   Click Here  

  4)     For US/Canadian users only, the Precision Mapping Server plug-in (a.k.a. "PMap Server") for UIview is required to use fully-scrollable/zoomable maps from Undertow Software's Precision Mapping software. Ver 7.07 of this essential plug-in  will NOT install directly into Vista or Win 7 if you use the standard-release install file for PMap Server 7, offered at UI-view.net and many other sites on the Internet.  (The PMap Server installer version-checks the OS, and detects Win7 as an unknown unsupported OS and refuses to run - not surprising since Vista & Win7 didn't exist when the PMap Server 6, from which PMap Server 7 is derived, was written in the early 2000's!)
  
  Note that this plug-in install issue is now irrelevant, since these versions of Precision Mapping are now impossible to activate, due to Undertow Software and it's activation server disappearing from the Internet.

  (This problem only exists for the PMap Server 7 used with the now-discontinued, versions 7 and 8 of Precision Mapping. The PMap Server Ver 9 for the most-recent (but now also discontinued) Precision Mapping Ver 9.0 installs directly into Windows 7 and later with no problems.)
   

  5)   Finally, if you don't want existing Windows 7 or Windows 8.x installations exploited by Microsoft's coercive, misleading hard-sell campaign to upgrade to Windows 10 (that involves the stealth theft of up to 6 GB of your hard disk space, and in some cases actual un-requested installs of Windows 10) read this information on my website:
  
  http://WA8LMF.net/Windows10_Info 

  NOTE:  You can sidestep a lot of hassles with a lot of older software in Vista, Win7 or later, by creating a virtual machine running a Windows 2000 or XP installation inside of Windows Vista-7-8-10.   Virtual machine software (such as Virtual Box or VMware) creates an entire second simulated computer running in a window on your Vista-7-8-10 desktop. The virtual PC is contained in a file on the host machine's hard disk, including space for the simulated machine's hard disk. The virtual machine "steals" RAM from the host machine's RAM pool.  When first installed, the virtual machine is like a brand-new home-made PC with a blank hard disk; i.e. no operating system.  You can install any OS on the virtual machine -- Windows 95, Win98, Win 2K, Win XP, even DOS or Linux! You temporarily borrow the host's CD/DVD-ROM drive or USB flash drive  to run a setup CD for the OS of your choice just as you would on a "real" computer.    
  
  I suggest using Windows 2000 (or the "MicroXP" or "MicroServer2003" distributions floating around the Internet) in the virtual machine since it can run the UI-View "suite" (UIview 2.03, Precision Mapping and the PMap Server) in about half the disk space, and with about half the RAM, required to do the same thing in a normal full Windows XP install.  Win 2K will run this bundle decently in 256 MB of RAM compared to 512 MB minimum for XP, especially if you use the shareware program LitePC to strip the unneeded features out of the Windows installation after the initial install. (During setup, you specify how much RAM and how much disk space the virtual machine should "steal" from it's host.)  Further, you can do any number of installs from a Windows 2000 CD without the hassle of Win XP's "product activation" and CD keys. 

UIview Related FAQ

A useful FAQ (Frequently Ask Questions) for UIview is located on M0CYP's website here:

    http://www.apritch.co.uk/faq_uiview32.htm

UI-View Add-Ons

Although the main program is unchangeable, Roger provided and documented an API (Applications Programming Interface) that allows external programs to exchange data with UIview.  Details on this interface and code samples are located in the subdirectory \DEVELOP, located under the main UIview32 directory.   As a result, add-ons for UIview to continue to be developed.  Some examples are:

• Precision Mapping Server Versions 7.07 and 9.0      Released several months after Roger's death, this add-in allows Undertow Software's Precision Mapping Streets & Traveler Ver 7.0, Ver 8.0, Ver 8.1 or Ver 9.0 to be used in UIview32 as a seamless continuously zoomable and scrollable street-level map of all of the United States  and Canada.  A newer version 9.0 was released in December 2011 for use with the latest Precision Mapping 9.0 that was also released in December 2011.  
  
  Details on configuring PMap Server 7 for use with the now-discontinued Precision Mapping 7.0 are HERE.
  Details on configuring PMap Server 7 for use with the now-discontinued Precision Mapping 8.0 or 8.1 are HERE
  Details on configuring PMap Server 9 for use with the now-discontinued current Precision Mapping 9.0 , released in December 2011 are HERE
   
• NWS-Get    [Note that this program is now orphaned "abandon-ware" no longer under development. Further, it never "played nice" with Windows 7 or later. System will randomly lockup after several hours of operation.]  NWSget automatically downloads US National Weather Service color weather radar images from Internet servers, and converts them for display as underlays for Precision Mapping maps in UIview.  The radar image actually appears underneath the roads, county boundaries, state lines and APRS symbols instead of the usual background shading.   NWS-Get used to be Downloadable from http://billdiaz.dynip.com/nwsgetdetails.htm  [This site has long since disappeared from the Internet.]
  
  If you really want to struggle with this buggy abandon-ware,  I have repackaged NWSget as a full Windows installer that creates directories, shortcuts, etc. Download this version here:   NWSget-2.91-SETUP.EXE  (466KB EXE file)
  
   
• Weather Station Integration   UIview does not directly support any electronic weather stations for APRS weather reporting.  Rather, it only reads a standard-format file called  wxnow.txt . This file must be generated by an external application compatible with the weather station in use. A very versatile freeware application that can generate this file and that supports many common weather stations is "Cumulus". You can download it here:
       http://sandaysoft.com/products/cumulus
  
   
• UI-Aloha    Computes and displays Aloha range circles (the standard measure of reliable APRS coverage range, based on number of other stations on the air) on maps displayed inside UIview. 
   
• UI-PHG   Computes and displays coverage circles of individual stations (if they are transmitting the Power-Height-Gain information in their beacon)  on maps. 
  
  Both of these add-ons used to be available at:    
    http://www.activeham.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=22&Itemid=51  
  This site has now disappeared from the Internet.  Copies of these two plug-ins are now archived in ZIP files on this site:
  
      Click to download UI-PHG       Click to download UI-Aloha 
  
   
• UI Instant Messenger  (Improved APRS Messaging Client)     UIview does include APRS messaging but it doesn't support the decaying retry algorithm that yields the most efficient use of the APRS channel.  This external add-on does.  As a bonus, this program can operate completely independent of UIview directly over an Internet connection.
   
• UI Height-Track   Draws track lines for selected stations on any map displayed inside UIview (i.e. won't work with external maps such as MapPoint).   Track lines can either be specific colors for specific stations, or can be color-coded based on altitude data (if transmitted).
   
• UI-XTR     Files with the extension .XTR (eXTeRnal) placed in the main UIview program directory determine which add-ons should start automatically when UIview is started. UI-XTR provides a convenient "control panel" located in the UIview "File" pulldown to individually enable or disable each of the growing collection of UIview add-ons.
   

These (and many other UIview add-ons) are located at:
     ff  

• UIsounds.exe (located on this website to download)     Makes UI-view beep like a D700 when your own call is digipeated and sound like an AOL Instant Message when a message is received.
   
• PA7RHM Mapservers  Older version downloads map images from the online Microsoft Expedia map server, and optionally captures them as calibrated static maps for off-line use.  The newer "UIview MapServer" version downloads and captures maps from the online Open Street Maps project. Details on setting up and using these add-ons below.

These are only a sample of the add-ons available for UIview. Many more are described and linked from the main UI-view.net website.

• Reducing Distorted Appearance of Maps     UIview and Precision Mapping both use a simple rectangular plot of latitude and longitude that make the North American landmass look oddly stretched.  The distortion is due to the simple non-projected display of map data used by UI-view. UIview assumes that latitude and longitude lines on any map form a simple rectangular grid instead of the converging curved lines that they are in real life.   Further, it assumes a degree of latitude is exactly the same distance as a degree of longitude (only true on the equator).  This makes calculating where to place a given lat/long report on the map extremely fast and simple -- no spherical trig or involved coordinate transformations needed!   The rectangular deviation from curved isn't that obvious in a small area such as a city.  It becomes much more obvious as you zoom out to a state-level or continental display.
  
  Precision Mapping provides a way of tweaking the aspect ratio of the displayed maps. Although it will remain a Mercator-like rectangular display with longitude lines that remain parallel (instead of converging at the poles). the display will have more "normal" proportions.

• 1. Exit UIview
  2. Locate the directory where you installed PMap Server. 
  3. Open the file  MapPro71.cfg with a basic ASCII text editor such as Notepad.
  4. Search for the paragraph heading "Modules" .
  5. Somewhere in this paragraph you should see the entry  "ASP=1.00"     (This means aspect ratio of lat vs long is 1:1 )
  6. Change this entry to something like  "ASP=.800 "
  7. Save the file.  Be sure the file gets saved with it's original extension of  .cfg .
  8. Restart UIview.  

  The continental US and southern Canada should now have more reasonable and pleasing proportions.  This will do nothing to correct the gross distortion in Alaska and northern Canada where the longitude lines are severely converging.
  
  This only affects PMap Server displays within UIview.  It does not affect the display in the stand-alone Precision Mapping program.

  
  
  

Using The PA7RHM Mapserver for UIview

Chris van Gorp's PA7RHM mapservers automatically capture and calibrate maps from online mapping services for use with UI-View. The PA7RHM Mapservers are downloaded from PA7RHM's website at:

     http://pa7rhm.nl/ 

The actual download page for all his programs is:

     http://pa7rhm.nl/index.php?menu=Software&submenu=Downloads

An older version of his mapserver captures maps from the Expedia website. The appearance of these maps is almost identical to images produced by the local Microsoft programs Streets&Trips, Automap or MapPoint.  (Expedia is essentially the on-line version of MapPoint.)  It produces street-level detail in North America and Europe.  Elsewhere in the world only basic outlines of national borders and provinces show, with even large cities shown as simple point objects.  No roads or hydrographic features show. This older map server is downloadable at:

     http://www.pa7rhm.nl/downloads/setup_pa7rhmsvr1014.exe  

The latest version of his mapserver, released at the end of 2014, captures maps from the Open Street Maps project. This improved server can produce detailed down-to-street-level maps nearly anywhere in the world. More information on the new mapserver is here:

     http://www.pa7rhm.nl/downloads/Howto_Install_Use.pdf     Warning: Direct link to a PDF file. You may want to RIGHT-click and "Save as" a local file on your computer rather than open it in a web browser.

Page 36 of the February 2015 "QST" magazine has a detailed write-up on the new mapserver.

Operation with the older mapserver on a live Internet connection, is very straight-forward.  Just install the program from the downloaded setup file, and then select "Map Server by PA7RHM" from the UIview "Load A Map Dialog."    Configuring it to capture maps for use off-line (i.e. without an Internet connection) is a bit more involved.

The mapserver saves captured maps in UIview's optional "Extra Maps Directory".  It won't save any maps until you define such a directory in UIview.  The original intent of this optional directory was to allow the storage of large archives of static (non-zoomable) maps on a CD-ROM instead of filling up the UIview "\maps" directory on your hard disk.   For application with the PA7RHM server, this directory has to be on a hard disk (or other writable device such as a USB flash drive) since it needs to be writable.

1. From the Windows File Explorer, create a directory for additional maps. It can be located under the main UIview directory, or somewhere else you prefer on your hard disk. Since you will want to edit files in this directory and delete unwanted views, it may be convenient to place this directory directly off the root of the drive instead of nesting it inside many layers of subdirectories. 
    
2. In UIview (not the map server) pull down "Setup, Miscellaneous Setup" and locate the "Extra Maps" box at the bottom of the screen. Click the "Browse" button and navigate to the directory you created above .
    
3.  Every time you zoom or scroll the PA7RHM server screen, a new pair of files (GIF image and INF file) with matching random-looking alphanumeric-string base file names will appear in this directory.  These random-looking names will now show up in UIview's "Load A Map" dialog after you do "Map, Refresh Map List".
    
4. The names that show in "Load A Map" are not the file names. They are text strings contained INSIDE the .INF file for each map. Open the .INF file with Notepad or other basic text editor, and edit the third line to something more descriptive such as "Denver Metro Area" or "Westside - Street Level".  The string is completely arbitrary and can be anything you like. When you refresh the map list, you will now have more meaningful map titles.
   .
5. You can quickly accumulate hundreds of maps, since you get a new map-and-inf pair every single time you zoom or scroll. You will probably not want to leave the "Save Map Copies" mode left turned on in the PA7RHM server very long. You will also probably also want to select just a few views to keep,  and delete the rest.  Use an image-management thumbnail-and-viewer utility such as IrfanView to preview and delete files. Or as a last resort, open the GIF images in your web browser for a quick view.
    
6. To use the stored maps, you don't run the server at all. Once they are captured and stored, the maps are just like any other static map, such as the ones that came with UIview.  Just do "Map, Load A Map" in UI-View and select one of the stored static maps. If you have captured several maps that cover adjacent areas with some overlap, and UIview is set to track a particular station, UIview will automatically try to select the map with the best view of the station's current location as the station  moves.
    
7. The Expedia maps, like maps generated by MapPoint, are projected on a non-rectangular grid to minimize distortion when the earth's curved surface is displayed as a flat image.   The disagreement between UIview's simple rectangular x-y grid "non-projection", and the curved, projected view generated by MapPoint, is insignificant at city, county or district level.  You WILL see significant error in the placement of APRS symbols, away from the map center, when the map is zoomed out to beyond 75 miles (120KM) or so.
    
8. An alternative to the 'RHM server, that WILL produce rectangular-grid "non-projected" maps that align perfectly within UIview,  is the Universal Maps Downloader tool reviewed here on my web site. This program can capture satellite or street maps from Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Bing Maps or Open Street Maps at a wide variety of scales.   Note that you WILL have to do some simple math to convert the coordinates produced by this program in degrees-and-decimal-degrees to the degrees, minutes and decimal minutes format used by UIview. 
   
   (A separate tool that converts between all three coordinate formats is downloadable from my website.)  

    Using Microsoft MapPoint with UI-View

UIview can pass it's received position reports to Microsoft MapPoint (either the North American or European version) via the UI-Point "middle-ware" plug-in. Launching UI-Point from the "File" menu inside UIview causes an application that is actually MapPoint minus some of it's toolbar buttons to appear. This modified version of MapPoint, with all of it's normal menu pulldowns replaced with new ones, operates along side of UIview.   Note you must have MapPoint installed before UI-Point will work. MS Streets & Trips or Autoroute will not work with UIview. Click here for more information and details about MapPoint.  

IMPORTANT:  As of December 2014 Microsoft has DISCONTINUED MapPoint.  However copies of the final 2013 edition are still available in many places, including the BitTorrent file sharing networks.

The maps displayed in MapPoint are independent of any maps running normally inside UIview.  UI-Point plots standard UIview icons on the MapPoint display, but alphanumeric overlay characters that appear on top of the base icons on maps inside UIview don't show on the MapPoint display.  None of the other UIview plug-ins or enhancements that add track lines, range circles, weather alerting zones, overlay objects, etc to maps inside UIview will have any effect on the UI-Point/MapPoint display.

Note that APRS position reports received from the APRS Internet system (rather than off-the-air from a radio/TNC) don't appear by default.  Pull down "Options, Traffic Filter" from the UI-Point menu bar. Clear the check box for "Don't Display Internet Traffic". 

MapPoint is a large, resource-sucking, rather slow program. When UI-Point was first released years ago, the author was concerned that the typical PC used by hams wasn't fast enough to keep up with the flood of data from the APRS Internet system, while running the sluggish MapPoint. As a result, he defaulted Internet display to off.  (The over-the-air data rate is only 1200 baud and is no challenge for even slow PCs to keep up with.) Today, with fast PCs with gigabytes of RAM on broadband connections with port 14580 selective filtering (Details Here) of the Internet stream, UIview and UI-Point have no problem keeping up with the Internet data.
 

Displaying Stations Tracked in UI-View on External Mapping Programs. 

Although UI-View can only use Precision Mapping internally for scrollable, zoomable maps, it is possible to pass very limited amounts of data to any external mapping program capable of working with a standard NMEA GPS device. 

The obscure UIview plug-in Pos2NMEA (click here to download) will grab the incoming position data for any single specified callsign+SSID in UIview, convert it into generic NMEA format, and then output it to a virtual COM port. 

In turn, the external moving-map program is "fooled" into thinking it is connected to a standard NMEA GPS device in a moving vehicle.  Only position data (and altitude, if it was included in the original APRS posits) is passed to the external program. APRS symbols, comment fields, callsign, etc WILL NOT appear on the external map; only the same kind of cursor and bread-crumb trails that the program produces normally with an attached GPS receiver will show.   This setup works very well to display a balloon with an APRS tracker on a Delorme TopoUSA relief map as it drifts into mountainous terrain, while following it in UIview.  Examples of the track in both UIview and TopoUSA are here on this website.

Since both UIview and the external program have COM ports trying to talk to each other, you need a virtual null-modem (i.e. simulated serial cross-over cable) to connect the two.  The MixW "Serial Port Bridge" does exactly this in Windows 2000 or later, and is downloadable here.  The Serial Port Bridge was originally intended to allow MixW to act as a software packet TNC to external programs (it works perfectly with UIview). However, the Serial Port Bridge (which installs as a virtual hardware device in the Windows Device Manager) will work to connect any two serial-port-using programs in the same computer to each other.

Changing the callsign, whose data is to be passed out of UIview to the external program, requires hand-editing the .ini file that controls Pos2NMEA with a text editor like Windows Notepad. (Pos2NMEA was a quick unfinished hack of a program without a full user interface. You can't change the callsign from a pulldown menu inside the running program.) You can make editing the .ini file more convenient by adding the edit function to the UIview "Files" menu.   Open Windows Notepad and  copy/paste the following four lines into it:

Pos2Nmea_Edit
"C:\Windows\Notepad.exe" Pos2Nmea.ini
False
True

Save the file as  Pos2NMEA_Edit.xtr . A convenient entry to edit the Pos2NMEA file will appear in the UIview "Files" menu the next time you start UIview.    .XTR files (short for eXTeRnal) allow commands to run external programs to be added to the UIiview menus.  [If your Windows installation is located on a drive other than C: , edit the path above to match.]  An XTR file to run Pos2NMEA is created automatically when the program is installed.  This added XTR just makes editing the  Pos2NMEA.ini  file more convenient.