Evan Reiter

Surprisingly, they've been around since 2003.

For those who aren't familiar, Friday Night Operations, or FNO, is a weekly event held by VATUSA. Twice a year, each ARTCC has the opportunity to host the event in their airspace. It's typically one of the busiest events that we see outside of Cross The Pond or Tea Party. We hope members will think of this event like a KACK/KMVY and KBOS Regional Circuit. The idea is that we'll get many of our local Cape Air and N-number member pilots flying between Boston and the Cape, mixed in with the VATSIM traffic flying airliners into KBOS. Should be a great event!

As promised, I have been following up with our ISP regarding the numerous recent outages of the forums and website that were well beyond our control. Here's the reply: They have also credited our account for 3 months' service ($18) per their uptime guarantee.

The Logan Informer is Boston Virtual ARTCC's monthly newsletter. The newsletter, released on the 1st of each month, contains news, events, and updates from the community. Historically, the Informer has been delivered to members via a .pdf attachment in an email. Previous versions of the Logan Informer are posted on our website. As a result of Project Vector, fewer than normal issues of the Logan Informer have been available this year. However, as things return to normal, we'd like to re-initiate the newsletter starting on December 1. At this time, we'll also be switching to a new format, using a web-based email with links to forum posts instead of the static .pdf that has been sent out in the past. In support of re-launching the Logan Informer, the administration team is seeking a volunteer to help with some content generation as well as the distribution of the newsletter. The job would involve: Reaching out to individuals around the middle of the month to request content Editing all content received Developing a maximum of 1 article per month (some months will not require any) "from the administration" Combining all articles together into the email template for release I would estimate the time commitment to be approximately 3-5 hours per month, with most of those hours falling toward the end of each month, and with the occasional month requiring a bit of extra effort (e.g., large events, special updates, etc.). If you are interested in volunteering your time with the community, have strong attention to detail, write well, and ideally have access to web-based photo and editing tools (not required), please apply to [email protected], or find me in person.

Today, we completed Jay's OTS to fully certify him for On-Peak Center! Jay has been working hard over the past several weeks, putting in the many hours required to gain the proficiency with VRC to run something like this. Now...buy a desk!

For the past few days, there have been intermittent issues with users being unable to login to the website (www.bvartcc.com). I think I've found the cause of the issue and resolved it, but I may be wrong. Remember, to save cash, we host this website on a shared server that really isn't meant to host a site of this complexity/size. As far as I know, the issue is being caused by our shared MS SQL server running out of space, likely because the ISP has tried to cram too many other databases onto one server. I just reduced the size of our database, which will help, but ultimately they are going to have to get some of their other customers to do the same. While we wait for that, two things: Firstly, if you haven't already, you can choose the "Remember login" option and you won't have to enter your password or login ever again. It will totally bypass this issue for you: And if you prefer to login each time, and to help me troubleshoot the issue, could you please make a post on this thread if you try to login and aren't able to? I have the website set to remember my login so I don't actually notice this issue until someone reports it.

Boston is one of the featured departure airports for the 2015 Cross The Pond Eastbound event! VATSIM's biggest and most challenging event takes place on Saturday, October 24 from 6:15am-5pm ET. Pilots flying the event book departure slots for Cross The Pond. Slots are limited, and they typically book very quickly. Bookings and more information at: http://ctp.vatsim-uk.co.uk/. This is a serious event and pilots who are planning to book or fly transatlantic should be flying an add-on jetliner with FMS/routing capability as well as familiarity with oceanic procedures. Departure Airports: Newark/Kennedy - KEWR/KJFK Miami - KMIA Washington Dulles - KIAD Boston - KBOS Atlanta - KATL Arrival Airports: Manchester - EGCC Amsterdam Airport Schiphol - EHAM Paris CDG - LFPG Berlin Tegel - EDDT Vienna - LOWW

Congratulations, and welcome to the team! Looking forward to working with you at BDL tomorrow.

Nice to know someone other than me uses this feature! As BN said, you can add http://events.bvartcc.com to your calendar and should be able to see all the events.

We've just released a 50-minute video on getting set up for VATSIM. The video walks through the steps to get the simulator set up for the first time, installing our downloads, and configuring model matching. The video was recorded from our live seminar held this weekend.

Reminder: tonight's session begins in TeamSpeak momentarily. A recording will be uploaded to YouTube for anyone unable to attend live.

BVA will be holding a second live seminar on connecting to VATSIM this Sunday, September 20, from 6:30-8pm ET. Pilots who haven't yet configured vPilot, need help with model matching, or just want a step-by-step walk-through of setting up your simulator for VATSIM are encouraged to join us for the live session. Depending on the audience, we'll either spend the time walking through the entire setup process, or spend time answering questions and helping out with individual issues. The session will be held in BVA's Member TeamSpeak. If you aren't able to make the session, you can find a recording from a previous session on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmYFf2BOHWQ. After the session, ATC will be online starting at 8pm ET so you can try it out!

It is a pleasure and honor to be following in the footsteps of WY as ZBW's new Training Administrator. I am excited to begin working with VATSIM’s finest controllers on ensuring this ARTCC continues to make excellence routine. I am also delighted to see that WY is planning to remain an active member of our training staff. As you know, the Project Vector Team has been working diligently on creating the Standard Operating Procedures and ATC Handbook that are now available on the Controller Resources page of the website. We plan to continue those efforts by reviewing and updating our facility's exams where required and reviewing the Training SOP. In the next few days, we will be combining the training requests sections of the forums, and introducing a unified process for training requests for all controllers. As we've mentioned on a few occasions, controllers won't ever have to re-do any training or exams. All certifications and ratings remain valid. While there a few new items in the SOPs (e.g., Pilot Ratings Program), the majority of the updates to the SOPs reflect additions that explain how we're already doing things. Thank you again to WY for his past and continued dedication to training here at ZBW. I look forward to working with him, and the rest of our staff, in the future.

Love it! I'd be in.

Permissions and visibility settings on the forums have been updated to allow non-members to have better access to content. The following boards are now publicly-visible: Announcements NOTAMs Public Discussion General Discussion Aviation Discussion Events, including child boards Troubleshooting Feedback Screenshots & Photographs Add-on Reviews In addition to being able to view content in the forums listed above, non-members are also able to register and post for the "Public Discussion" topic. The "Random & Off-Topic Discussion" and "Project Vector" boards are both visible only to members. The same is true for the boards under "Communities" and "Controllers Only". Any BVA member will be able to register for the forums. Similarly, all air traffic controllers, including visiting controllers, will have the same forum access as any regular member. To enable these changes, several forum threads have been moved to improve organization and to ensure that member-only information (e.g., TeamSpeak 3 connection details) are not available publicly. Please let us know if there are any questions.

Thanks for checking -- my mistake! I've just updated the image on the homepage.

In the next few days, the www.bvartcc.com website will be created. Based on the former www.bostonvirtualatc.com website, this temporary site will be used for the next few months until a permanent website is created from scratch. Pages from each original website will be merged, and any content that can't be included into the website template will be available separately. Additionally, based on member feedback, forum permissions will be changing. Some threads will be made visible to the public, and non-community members will be welcome to register for the forums and post on certain threads. Other areas of the forums will be visible only to members. Both of these are relatively large projects that will begin in the next few days, but will take several days (or even weeks) to complete. Keep an eye on this forum thread for the latest information.

That's great news! Welcome back.

The Project Vector Team is proud to present the new Boston Virtual ARTCC community forums. Merging the two forum databases was identified as an early priority of the Project Vector Team. Now, all members of the new community have the ability to interact in one place. As of today, we are also beginning to ask members to identify themselves using first and last names. Members from both communities selected the first and last name as the most effective, friendly, and welcoming way of identifying themselves. While a BVA Username will still be required to login to the website, the FSX server, and FlightDeskLite, members can connect to TeamSpeak and the forums using the new format. Long term, BVA Usernames will be phased out in favor of a 'First Name Last Name' identification system. Content from both forums has been merged together into this common location. All of the content from both forums has been migrated into these forums. During the conversion process, it is possible that some parts of some posts (e.g., formatting, certain characters) may have been modified slightly. However, it appears everything has made it across okay. Note that over the next few days, forum moderators will be moving and editing major 'sticky' topics to more appropriate locations, but the general structure of the forums will not change. Members will notice changes to the layout of the forums, and that some boards have been consolidated. If you are having trouble finding something, please let us know and we'll help identify the new location. We would like to ask all users to do the following before starting to use the new forums: [*]Edit your profile. Feel free to upload an avatar, and edit your signature. If you had been using a BVA forum signature, you can keep or remove it. Please note that the online/offline status has been disabled as it was based on FlightDesk data. [*]Edit your account settings. The 'Name' field should show your first and last name. Initials and/or usernames will no longer be used on the forums. Also, feel free to add in a secret question. New Features & Updates When logging in to the forums, you can use either your username or email address and chosen password. During the login, you have the option to "Always stay logged in": There is a new board called Public Discussion. This board is available to both members and non-members, to allow those who aren't part of the community to post questions or comments. Posts made by non-members require approval; members are free to post without restrictions. Outside of that one board, all of the others are restricted to members only, and are only visible with a login. Most of the board features will seem familiar. To start a new topic, first select the board you would like to post under. Then, click the "New Topic" icon. Once you have completed the post, click "Post" for it to appear. To send a private message to a member of the forums, click "My Messages", then click "Send a message": The message can be sent to the display name (first name and last name) of the desired recipient(s). A list of potential matches appears as you start typing, and selecting the matching member addresses the private message to that user: For air traffic controllers, all of the existing training-related boards have been migrated. For now, controllers certified by Boston Virtual ATC can request training and post results in the "BVA Training Requests" and "BVA ATC Mentor Log" threads. The "ZBW Student Availability" and calendar are also on the forums. As the new training structure/process is defined, these elements of the forums will be combined in the next few weeks.

The Boston Virtual ARTCC forums are designed as a hub of collaboration between members of the community. Members of BVA can login to the forums to gain full access to forum features, Discord, and more. Non-members are welcome to explore the publicly-available forum sections, including our events listing and news sections. If you have questions about operating in our airspace, please feel free to Contact Us. We welcome everyone to share comments and suggestions for controllers using our Feedback page. BVA is a community within VATSIM's global network of pilots and controllers. We provide air traffic control (ATC) within the Boston ARTCC on VATSIM. In addition, we have an active community of pilots who work with the controllers to create one of the most realistic air traffic control environments available online. BVA is currently accepting applications at www.bvartcc.com. Read our Letter to Airmen: www.bvartcc.com/lta.

You can check the FSX Scenery Library for the new area "BVA_FeaturedAirports". If it's present, then the installer should have done its job. Of course, that doesn't confirm that all of the old files were deleted. If it's easy, I'm happy to take a quick look around your PC to make sure everything installed correctly. Let me know.

If you do want to change back to the old, blue style, navigate to User Control Panel > Board preferences, select "My board style", and choose the old template ("BVA_Blue").

Please do! I should be online starting around 7:30pm ET, if not a bit earlier.

I'd like to add huge THANK YOUs to Josh ('jdogiedog') and Andrew ('PG158') for helping create and test the installation instructions for the package. We also need to recognize the great contributions of Pierre ('Pierul') and Dan ('SoloWingDemon'), who did most of the work on the new BVA updates that are included with this package.