vPAR QuadRadar - Connection Manager
March 1, 2005
Michael Oxner


The Connection Manager lets you know who is connected (by callsign), gives you the option of killing a pilot's connection, and allows you to see where a pilot is in terms of lat/long, altitude and range and bearing from the touchdown area. It also allows you to see when a currently connected pilot first connected and how many position reports have been received.

One of the reasons that list was kept on the main screen in the old program was to remind you of who you have on your radar screen. ATC in the past in real life always had a data board where "flight progress strips" were kept to record information even when they didn't have "data tags" on screen, and this Connection Manager served that same purpose, although in a very limited manner. In Version 1.XX, the Connection Manager had been removed from prominent view since the Traffic and ASDE displays have the data tags. The need for the Connection Manager to be accessible at all times turned out to be a desired feature by a few users, so it was retained. When opened, the Connection Manager will "sit on top" of other windows, and can be repositioned out of the way, such as on a separate monitor in a multiple monitor configuration.

ConnectionManager As you see by the image at right, opening the Connection Manager now offers more information. The opening and closing of the port to allow or refuse outside connections still exists, but it's in the main menu. The Connection Manager itself focuses more on the existing connections. It allows you to select a callsign in the list box and display information on that target. The latitude, longitude, altitude, climb rate, groundspeed and range and bearing from the radar antenna are now available for viewing. This information can be useful for troubleshooting connections. You can also see when the target was first connected to QuadRadar program, and how many position reports have been received since connecting. If an aircraft disconnects and reconnects, these two bits of information are reset.

Clicking the "Boot Pilot" button will do the same as before, kick the pilot off. Note that this will not refuse future attempts from the same pilot to reconnect. Currently, there are no plans to implement such a block.

The Connection Manager is accessed by the main menu or by use of <CTRL>+<M>.