This screen provides an fully interactive display of the minimum FCC spacings required for a given class of TV station. The user can change the reference station's location simply by clicking on the map with the mouse. When this is done SEARCHTV will recalculate the distances and place the newly selected location at the center of the map. This screen makes it easy to find drop-ins and to move to their locations with the click of a mouse. The green circles on the map below are the minimum FCC spacings required from the transmitter site of the plotted stations. The circles turn red when the reference point (center of the blue cross-hairs) is inside a minimum spacings circle. The blue circle (with the cross hatching) defines the unusable area with regard to a DTV station or allocation. If the reference station is a DTV station then small blue hole in the middle of the the larger circle defines a usable location area for the reference station. The Big Map screen can be resized by dragging the corner of the window using your mouse.

The SEARCHTV spacings map (Big Map) has a series of drop-down menus that we will describe:

This menu allows two choices when selected. You can print the out graphic which will appear at the top of your page followed by the channel study's tabular listings. Or you can select "Graphic Store" which will capture the bitmap of the map only and send it to your computer's clipboard where it can be called up for insertion into a word processor or another graphics program.

Channel:

Clicking this menu item will cause the drop-down channel slider to appear. You can enter a new channel number of use the slider to select a new channel. Once you have selected a channel click the "OK" button to remove the slider from the screen and to initiate the change.

Find:

This menu item brings up the "Find" screen.

Screen:

Clicking this menu item brings down a new menu item allowing the following screen commands:

Identify Cities with mouse:

Once a map has been displayed with major cities shown the user may click any city with the mouse to see the cities name.

Toggle Distance Measurer:

Clicking the "Distance Measurer" menu item then clicking a location on the map will give you the distance in kilometers between the reference location and the location you clicked. Turn off the "Distance Measurer" mode by clicking the "Distance Measurer" menu item a second time and then clicking "Off".

Fill Unavailable Areas:

"Fill unavailable areas" will cause the minimum separation circles to be filled in with a red fill color that indicates where on the map you can not locate a TV transmitter. Clicking the menu a second time removes the "fill" feature.

Views:

Main Form, Data Form, Side by Side Views

This menu item will make your main screen the active window or open the "Data" screen or the "Side by Map " screen

Place Token:

This menu item places a user defined area around the reference site which can be used as a rough representation of the reference station's city of license contour. The user simply enters the distance of the circle's radius in kilometers when prompted.

Toggle Call letters:

This menu item turns off the call letters for the stations shown on the map. Clicking the menu item a second time will turn the call letters back on.

Toggle Channel Bar:

This menu item toggles the channel-bar on and off. This bar automatically pops up after a "Seek" is performed which successfully finds a channel. If the Big Map screen is resized the Channel-Bar will become hidden. Checking "Channel-Bar" in the menu will cause it to reappear. If you click one of the buttons in the channel-bar the program will immediate show the channel shown on the button. You can load channels into the channel-bar using the "Load" button and then return to the selected "memorized" channels by clicking the button. The channel-bar can be moved by a left-click and a dragging it to a new location. (The bar cannot be placed over the map graphic.)

Scale zoom:

This slider or scroll bar changes the scale of the displayed map allowing you to zoom in and out.

Display Volume:

This slider is a "stations" scroll which when moved to the right adds more stations to your map at increasing distances from the reference.

The <Down and >Up buttons move the channel up or down one channel each time a button is clicked.

Seek:

The "Seek" menu item works the same as the seek button described for the "Main Screen". When channels are identified using the "Seek" button the identified channel numbers will appear on the face of the row of buttons at the bottom of the map. You may instantly change to any one of the channels simply by clicking the channel button of your choice.

Check the "Cities" check box to display all the cities within 50 kilometers of the reference location. You can erase the cities by clicking the "Cities" check box item again or by moving the top scroll button to the right until you are zoomed out enough that the cities disappear. This feature is useful for determining to which city a drop-in channel could be licensed.

Keyboard hot keys:

The "Esc" key on your keyboard will return you at any time to the "Main Screen". The "N" and "B" keys work as the same as the ">" and "<" buttons.