Alt Announcer

Altitude announcer is a special-purpose app developed for glider-towing where user requires altitude announced with set intervals when going up and function is activated with switch.

Featured functions

  • Selectable altitude-interval 0-1000
  • Announces altitude at every interval going up
  • Selectable min. altitude
  • Selectable max. altitude
  • Switch selection to enable/disable
  • Can be used with feet and meter
  • Choice of short or long announcement
  • Choice of announcements only on the way up or up and down
  • Works with all altitude-sensors

Available for DC/DS-14/16/24, requires firmware 4.22 or higher. App does not run with older firmware.

Installation

In short: Copy the .lc (or .lua, the .lc is memory-optimized) file from github here to your transmitters Apps-folder, if there is a translation file copy the .jsn file to Apps/Lang-folder on your transmitter. Head on to “Applications” -> “User applications” and add the app. Guide on installation of Lua-apps available here if you need some more in-depth guide.

Setting up and usage of Alt-Announcer

Settings are quite self-explanatory. After selecting your altitude sensor you need to select the switch for announcer to work. This is suitable for example when plane used in glider-towing is used for other flight where announcing value is not that interesting.

Activate every meter or feet is the interval that you want the announcements made. For example putting a value 50 here would mean altitude announcement when model is have reached altitudes of 50, 100, 150 and so on meters or feet.

Minimum altitude is suitable for starting the announcement at some specific altitude. If you are not interested in this set it to zero.

Maximum altitude is suitable for stopping the announcement at some specific altitude. If you are not interested in this set it to a altitude you are reaching.

You can also use this for take-off and landing, for example set interval of 10 meters, set max altitude for 50 meters and you can get announcement on 10, 20, 30, 40 meters going up up and down.

The announce down-option works like this: If disabled you will get announcement only on the way up. (The original glider towing idea). If you enable this option you will get announcement on every interval step both up and down. Let’s say you have interval of 50m and this option enabled, you fly up and will hear announcement at 50, 100, 150, 200. Then you go down to 100 so you will hear announcements again on 150 and 100. If you go up again next announcement is on 150, 200 and so on. So basically this option means “always announce at intervals”

If you are using feet and your altitude sensor gives feet then check this checkbox. Application does no altitude-unit conversions so this is sensor-based values.

By default the announcement is “Altitude fifty meters”, activating the “Short Announcement” option gives announcements in format of “fifty meters”. Simple :)

Settings with example

Here’s a example, sensor is the 5€ sensor Jeti AltMeter here, I have the function activated with my throttle hold so it works every time when my model is flown. I want the height to be announced every 50 meters when going up and down, maximum altitude is set to 1500 meters and minimum altitude to 100. So when the model is flown over 100 meters for the first time I’m hearing an announcement like “Altitude 103 meters”, next would be for example “Altitude 151 meters”. The values announced might not be exactly 100-150-200 and so on, this depends how your altitude-sensor sends values. For example if values are coming as 98-99-101-103 then the value 101 would be announced since it’s the first value higher than 100.

Really simple, enjoy :)

Version history

  • 1.0 Original version
  • 1.1 Added option for short announcement
  • 1.2 memory improvements
  • 1.3 Added Czech translation by Michal Hutnik
  • 1.4 Added German translation by Norbert Kolb
  • 1.5 Added announcement down
  • 1.6 Added minimum altitude
  • 1.7 Min-Max altitude setting bug fixed

Disclaimer

Some rules do of course apply!

  • Never use Lua to control a function that would take the model down if misbehaving!
  • Always, always test the function thoroughly!
  • If you do not know, then don’t!
  • RC-Thoughts or myself is NOT responsible for anything this application does
  • Applications are free to use (MIT-license) and linking to this page is encouraged!