COUNTIES.TXT APRS COUNTY WARNING SYSTEM Document version: 8.4.3 20 Jul 99 Author(s): Bob Bruninga, WB4APR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ APRS can make NWS-WARNings show up on all of your maps. It uses maps with map labels of the form SS_COUNTY in the center of all counties with the display-range value set to the approximate diameter of the county. Adding these circles is easy with MAPFIX35 or later. Just hit the W key to see all the circles and hit R to see range rings. In APRS, just hit WX-DISPLAYS-SHOWcounties. Dont worry about wierd shaped counties, no one will miss the big colored circle. But you can put more than one circle per country if needed. Map Labels in APRSdos are limited to 12 characters and the WX warnings will be transmitted with only 9 in the format of SS_COUNTY. The first 2 are the State abbreviation and an "_" character leaving only 6 for the county name. These 6 must match exactly but an additional 3 can be added for the sake of a better map label. So follow this rule: 1) The first 6 letters of a County name must be exact 2) Abbreviate Saint, and Port, etc to ST and PT etc 3) Eliminate spaces in the county name 4) Abbreviate after the 6th letter in the county name to only 3 more characters. (3 + 6 + 3 = 12) When APRS goes to display these maps, the SS_ will be dropped for normal display of the county names. Also to reduce map clutter, these County names will not be displayed until half of the normal appearance range. Map labels are universal, and always in text format, so you can cut and past these labels between maps using only an editor. STATE warnings. Since I cant put hundreds of county lables in my BIG regional maps (limit is now 210 labels), For those maps, I use STATE circles. These are triggered by the SS_ and any single county will turn the whole state colored. See WX.TXT on how to send out County Warnings..