Power Users

Software-On-Board Online Manual

PLEASE NOTE
Information presented on this page often assumes a high level of Windows™ proficiency, 
(mostly in regard to file handling, opening and manipulation). 

   Targets : AIS, ARPA, RADAR, Remote WAN Connections 

Quick links:

• What is AIS? A brief introduction from our FAQ page.
• How/where do I get an AIS Receiver for use with SOB?
• AIS Live website.
• AIS organisation.

SAMPLE AIS-TARGET DISPLAYS
English Channel, UK	Guernsey, UK
Sydney, Australia	Curaçao, Caribbean Sea
Click an image to view full size

Target display settings

Press the on the Target form to change AIS display settings  Notes on the screen shots The RED targets are those that pose a collision threat as per the settings in SOB that you enter to define what poses a danger (see image of the SOB Settings options to the right). The YELLOW targets are still "alive" according to the Time to Inactive setting.  The GREY targets indicate that a message has not been received from the target for the time set by Time to Inactive. If "Auto purge if Inactive" is checked, or the [Purge Now] button pressed, then all the GREY targets will be removed.

Detailed information is available for each target
Quick Info  [Enter] Click the [Info] button (or press the [Enter] key) and hover the pointer over a target to get some Quick Information about it. This selected target becomes the Active Target for tracking. See next ...   Note, the "hotspot" for each target is the tip, not the centre.

Tracking Targets   [Enter]

With Info mode active, the last target that the info cursor hovers over will display detail in the Targets Panel    If enabled (on the Targets List, the [Mark CPA] button), the Hazard waypoint symbol will be displayed at the CPA. This is a temporary waypoint and will not appear in SOB's waypoint list. Its position is updated whenever the CPA with the chosen target changes location, it is therefore possible that a new position for the CPA waypoint will overlap previous positions, however with the next chart refresh, only a single CPA waypoint will be drawn at the current CPA.

The example scenario (right, click for full size image), shows a collision threat with the red target in the lower-right of the image (MMSI 232001710), which is marked as a Tracked Target, with received data and CPA calculations in the white Targets Panel. A wpt shows the CPA with this target.

Detailed Target List   [T]

Looking at the right-hand panel of the Acquired Targets list tells us that it is a 135 metre long Passenger ship bound for Calais. However if you run the logfile, you can watch this ship LEAVING Calais, so I would suggest that the Ship's officer has not updated the "destination" yet. There are often errors noticeable in the "Ship's Static Data" that must be entered by the operator in their AIS transponder. The dynamic data however, (lat/lng, sog, cog) is never in error (theoretically) as it originates from the GPS or other instruments, and is not subject to human mistakes! The list can be sorted on any column by clicking the column's header box (eg: the MMSI, Name, Rng, Crash, TCPA etc grey labels). Click the header box again to reverse the sort order. ClearAll, Delete and Hide Targets buttons require no explanation.  [Pan to Target] will centre the display at the target's position. The cross-hairs that always mark the centre of the SOB screen (unless in de-clutter mode) will make it easy to identify the Target chosen. [Pan to CPA] is only enabled if the target poses a collision threat. Then it will centre the screen at the CPA. [Mark CPA] will place a regular SOB waypoint at this position (which, of course, can change its location never, frequently or continuously). [Send Message] requires a transponder and is not yet implemented.

RADAR Targets

ARPA / MARPA Targets SOB reads the TTM, TLB and TTL NMEA sentences, sent from compatible RADAR units, and displays the targets in the same way as the AIS targets. However ARPA targets don't transmit the same amount of detail about themselves (so no Ship Type, Destination, dimensions ... ie: none of the Static Data at all). SOB creates a unique MMSI number to associate to each received ARPA target. A user-defined name for any targets will also be used by SOB (the target's name is typically keyed in at your RADAR device's console). Not all RADAR units are ARPA (or MARPA) capable. Check your RADAR's specifications if you are unsure.
VRM / EBL Targets
	The RSD NMEA sentence contains information about the RADAR cursor's current location, and up to two separate RADAR targets (usually referred to as VRM/EBL marks), as set by the user of the RADAR device. The targets displayed in SOB are simulated targets that SOB creates from the VRM/EBL marks set by the user of the RADAR device. SOB will draw these simulated targets on the screen as a circle (rather than the triangle used for AIS and ARPA targets). SOB can also re-display the RADAR unit's cursors, marks and range-rings directly on the chart surface.

NOTE: SOB can not display the Raster Image that the RADAR builds from the returned echoes of its magnetron.

Refer to AllWaypoints

"SOB NMEA DATA.log" 

The NMEA DATA log file is used to replay a voyage in SOB. In fact ANY plain text file containing NMEA data can be used by SOB to replay a voyage (ie: data captured by HyperTerminal). These files can be easily copied (or emailed) between different computers and the past voyage replayed as often as you wish.

The data written to the file will resemble the text in this example, each line as known as a NMEA Sentence:

Optionally save ALL NMEA data received by SOB to a standard NMEA format log file by "ticking" the checkbox on the Raw NMEA Data form which selects whether to write this log file or not.

Regularly throughout a long voyage, or at the completion of your voyage, use Windows™ File Explorer to save this data to an appropriately named file and place it in the \LogFiles folder for easy replay from the buttons on the Raw NMEA Data form.

The folder that this file is found in is the SOBvMAX\Logfiles folder.

NOTE: This logfile is ONLY AVAILABLE after SOB exits. If you try any file operation on it while SOB is running you get a "File Open Error" from Windows.

See also Easy Tool Page

When SOB exits, the current on-screen PastTrack will be logged to two different files:

Analysing your Voyage

SOB will automatically create a Log File: LogFiles\!PastTrack.txt
However, if SOB has not been Unlocked, then PastTracks will not be logged to file (ie: if AccessLevel = 0, or trial period has expired).

SOB logs a lot of data about the ship every few seconds to a standard "row/column" formatted text file for direct importing into a spreadsheet for archival purposes or voyage analysis.

The logfile is appended every few hours (about 4.5) of running time, and any unlogged data is added to the logfile when SOB exits.

This file can get quite large when SOB is employed in a real-time navigation scenario. The file grows at about the rate of 1 Megabyte every 24 hours of running time. 
A typical use would be to import the logfile into a spreadsheet every day or so, deleting the !PastTrack.txt file after importing. The logfile will be re-created the next time (about every 4.5 hours) that SOB is logging data.

The data logged by SOB to this file is:

When imported into Excel, the resulting data will appear as: (after some simple formatting)

Now use Excel's powerful tools to analyse or present this data in a multitude of different ways. For example, a graph of the apparent wind speed for the voyage can reveal much interesting and useful information:

Zoomed-in from the example chart (pictured above), the entire voyage, or any part of the voyage can be visually analysed with Excel's powerful charting tool. To create this chart in Excel, simply highlight the Time column and the AWS column (for this example), then press the  Chart Wizard button on the Excel toolbar, select a "Line Graph" option from the choices provided and press [Finish].

Voice recognition is built into Windows XP, refer to your Windows™ User Manual for instructions on how to enable and use this feature.

Voice (or speech) recognition can function in two different ways:
(1) Commands, or (2) Transcription.

With adequate "training" of the speech recognition engine, and a disciplined "dictation" voice, it is not unreasonable to expect better than 95% recognition accuracy during a "transcription".

However SOB does not have a use for the dictation properties of speech recognition, rather, SOB uses Spoken Commands to activate Macros that are linked to SOB's features.  Each user must set-up these macros for their own use (using techniques as described in the Windows™ voice recognition manual).

The design of SOB should allow any feature to be accessed with a two or three word command. Organise and plan your tasks thoroughly before beginning to create the voice command macros.

Some examples:

In addition, many of the standard command macros created by the speech engine will be suitable for using with SOB. 
ie: Maximise, Minimise, Tab, Go-Down, Go-Up, Page-Down, Enter etc...