This program is intended to assist
Civil Air Patrol search crews determine
the geographic boundaries of their assigned search areas. Although this
information is readily available in publications such as CAPM 50-15, it is
sometimes cumbersome to access, especially while in flight. Using this
tool on a Palm Pilot, crew members can simply enter a search grid identifier
and then quickly read the latitudes and longitudes of the grid boundaries.
Installation
To install from a Windows computer:
Download the program file "sargrid.prc" from
here.
Remember where you save it.
From you Palm Desktop application click on the "Install" button.
Select "Add", then specify the location of the file you just saved.
Select "Done".
Hotsync your Palm device. The program will be downloaded to the
device, and you should see the "SAR Grid" icon on the application
screen.
Usage
Start from the Palm application screen; click on the "SAR Grid"
icon. Your screen should then look similar to the sample screen
shown here.
Select the sectional chart you wish to use from the popup menu
(click on the inverted triangle). "GRB" (Green Bay) has been
selected in the sample screen.
Enter the search grid number, one to three digits followed by
an optional subgrid letter (A-D). Grid "460A" has been entered
in the sample screen.
As you enter the grid number the four boundaries of the grid
will be displayed. Invalid grid numbers will be so indicated
by all zeros in the grid boundaries.
Disclaimer
This application was developed by a Civil Air Patrol member to assist
fellow members by simplifying some of the search and rescue workload.
It comes with no warrantee of any kind, so
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Never blindly trust the results of the program.
The source code for this program can be found
here
at SourceForge.
Feedback
Please report bugs and suggested improvements to the
author.
Please also report your experiences (good or bad) if you use it on
practice or actual missions.
