DATA-EWA

DATA-EWA.EXE is a member of a family of MS-DOS programs which support the use of the EW Barographs and EW Flight Recorders (EWFRs).

DATA-EWA is provided for use by Official Observers to upload traces from EWFRs and export them to .IGC format for analysis and transmission to NACs or the FAI. DATA-EWA provides a subset of the functionality of EWView/DOS which may be used in place of DATA-EWA by those familiar with its operation. The advantages of using DATA-EWA over using EWView/DOS are only the abbreviated user interface and the IGC standard program naming.

Note that the standard IGC term for transferring a trace from a flight recorder to a computer is "downloading" whereas historically EW have used the term "uploading" for this operation. To follow the menu options used by the software this page uses "uploading".

Starting DATA-EWA

DATA-EWA can be started by typing its name at command prompt in the normal MS-DOS manner:

    c:\>data-ewa

Various parameters can be specified on the command line, follow the references in the table for more details.

**DATA-EWA Command Line Parameters**
-c	Colour display.
-m	Monochrome display.
-v	Display program version.
-1, -2, -3 or -4	Select Serial Port.
directory-name	Select working directory.

Note particularly the use of the -1, -2, -3 or -4 command line parameters to select the serial port to be used for upload. For example, on many systems the mouse is connected to COM1 and the EW Flight Recorder is connected to COM2, which could be selected using:

    c:\>data-ewa -2

If there is an EWVIEW.EWC file in the start-up directory then its contents will be used to set options such as the screen colours and the serial port - though any specifications of these parameters on the command line take precedence.

Using DATA-EWA

General Operation

In common with the other members of the EWView/DOS family and a lot of other software in common use DATA-EWA uses a windowed layout with fields in the main part of each window and a menu across the top. Use of this scheme is described in EWView/DOS General Operation.

Connecting the Flight Recorder

You should connect the EWFR to the selected serial port on the computer using an appropriate lead supplied by EW Avionics or constructed as shown here.

If you start DATA-EWA before connecting the flight recorder the following dialog box is displayed.

Connect Barograph dialog box

Connect the flight recorder, turn it on by pressing the key and then after a few seconds put it in print mode by pressing the key.

If the connection has been made correctly the dialog box will disappear automatically. To retry the connection press Alt-O (or return). If you wish to abandon attempting the connection press Alt-C (or escape).

Information transferred between the flight recorder and the DATA-EWA program is displayed in a box occupying the bottom five lines of the screen.

Selecting a Trace to Upload

Once the connection to the flight recorder has been made DATA-EWA uploads a list of traces stored in the flight recorder.

Upload Screen

The list at the top of the screen shows the traces recorded in the flight recorder in reverse order of recording - that is, the most recent trace is shown first.

The Date and Start columns indicate the date and time at which the recording of the trace was started by the flight recorder's internal clock. The End column shows the time at which the recording was ended. The SI column contains the sample interval used for the trace and the User column contains the user number typed by the operator when the trace recording was started. The Uploaded column contains "Yes" if there is already a trace in the current directory with matching dates and times, sample interval and user number - otherwise it contains "No".

Use the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight to the trace to be uploaded.

Uploading a Trace

When the required trace has been selected, choose the Upload command to upload it.

The contents of the trace will scroll up in the box at the bottom of the screen, as if the trace were being printed. There may be short pauses in this operation while the flight recorder finds the high and low points in the trace and calculates the security code. For a long trace the security code calculation make take some time, up to 50 seconds in extreme cases, so the flight recorder prints rows of dots at intervals to indicate that all is well and to ensure that the DATA-EWA program does not time out.

Once the trace has been uploaded DATA-EWA will automatically switch to the Trace Export window.

Exporting a Trace

The first thing that the Trace Export window does is to carry out a series of checks to ensure the validity of the trace. If these checks detect any problems then the "Trace Problems" dialog box is displayed to alert the operator.

Trace Export window with Trace Problems dialog box

This example shows the export of a trace which was recorded using a Garmin GPS-100 receiver which does not output the Geodetic Datum in the NMEA-0183 data sent to the serial port - therefore the trace stored in the flight recorder did not have a valid datum associated with it.

Press Alt-O (or return) to acknowledge the dialog box.

Trace Export window

Normally the trace will be required in the IGC standard format (which is the default) but other formats can be selected using the Format menu.

If you wish to store the exported trace in a file with a name other than that given in the destination file name box then edit the name to the one required. For example, to write the file to a floppy disk you might insert "a:" at the beginning of the file name.

The default is to write the file to the current directory except if the format selected is ".EWT" in which case the default is to write it to the A-drive.

To export the trace, choose the Export command. This will cause the exported trace file to be written and the Trace Export window to be exited.

If you don't want to export the trace choose the Exit command (or press escape). This will show a dialog box requesting confirmation that the trace is not to be exported.