Evan Reiter

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.

The width is a fixed with by default. I'd like to make it NOT be a fixed width but rather fill the screen. We tried changing those exact values to "auto" but it still didn't span the page. We tried the prosilver theme on the FSX Multiplayer website and thought it looked horrible. However, the beauty of this new update is that you can make your own style choices. For most existing users, the old style ('BVA_Blue') will now be the default. If you wish to update to the new one, navigate to Control Panel > Board preferences, select "My board style", and choose from either the old template ("BVA_Blue") or the new template ("BVA_White"). For new users, "BVA_White" will be the default template (but it can easily be changed as I just described). If the width issue doesn't bother you, then you're welcome to use the old style. Of course it's possible. However, I really like having that link there. I think that eventually we'll get used to it. It's been annoying for me as well, but after a few times I'm figuring it out. I think ultimately it will be nice to have breadcrumbs that make more logical sense for new members that shows where they are (e.g., on the website, then the forums, and then where in the forums).

BVA is proud to release the latest version of the BVA Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement! The package covers 36 airports within our preferred airspaces (ZBW and ZNY), with the exception of KBOS, which is included as its own package. This release combines several of the Airport Updates (released for events), as well as new files at KACK, KBDL, KISP, KOXC, KPWM, and many more. One of the elements that BVA has been missing for a long time is an installer program that will automate the installation and updates of scenery files. Unfortunately, this means that members who already have BVA's Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement will need to manually uninstall the old files before installing this update. The instructions to do this are included below. We have re-named several files to help avoid this issue in the future. We are happy to help you walk through this complicated process. If you would like me to remotely connect to your computer and get this all done for you, feel free to ask in FlightDesk. I can spend 5 minutes on your machine to get the files uninstalled, and install the new stuff for you. If you choose to do the upgrade yourself, uninstalling previous versions of the files is critical in order to ensure you do not see duplicate items when accessing the scenery. Please follow the uninstallation instructions carefully. As always, please let us know if you have any questions about the installation process, or if you notice anything that requires updating in the scenery, the installer, or these instructions. --- [*]Download the New Installer Download the new Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement and save it to your computer. The file is over 50MB, and may take a few minutes to download. [*]Uninstall the Previous Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement From your computer's Control Panel, uninstall "BVATC's AFCAD (Scenery) Enhancement". If the program doesn't exist, move to the next step. Navigate to FSX's Addon Scenery location; for most installations, this is: C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft GamesMicrosoft Flight Simulator XAddon Sceneryscenery. Delete any files that were not uninstalled automatically, including: Anything that has "AFX_" at the beginning (there should be 21 of these files; the full list is included at the bottom of this post for reference*). The files "KPWM_VIS_REF.bgl" and "KACK_VIS_REF.bgl". The file "AFCAD_V3_README.txt". The files "ADEX_KPVD_BVA.BGL" and "ADEX_KPVD_BVA_CVX.BGL". The file "Uninstal.exe" If you don't have any of these files, then the uninstaller worked as it should have, and you can proceed to the next step. [*]Check your Addon Sceneryscenery folder for the following files; if the exist, delete them: ADEX_KBDR_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBDR_BVA.BGL ADEX_KDXR_BVA.BGL ADEX_KDXR_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KDXR_BVA_SBX.BGL ADEX_KPOU_BVA.BGL ADEX_KPOU_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KAVP_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBGM_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBGM_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KBML_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBML_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KLCI_BVA.BGL ADEX_KLCI_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KJFK_BVA.BGL [*]If you have the beta updates released for KACK, KISP, or KPWM installed: Delete the following files from FSX's Addon Scenery location; the files are: KACK_BVA.BGL KACK_CVX_BVA.BGL KISP_BVA.BGL KISP_CXV_BVA.BGL KPWM_BVA.BGL KPWM_CVX_BVA.BGL KPWM_VIS_REF_BVA.BGL [*]If you have previously downloaded either of "Military Bases of BVA" or "Boston Area Hospitals" from our "Optional Software" page: Delete the following files; these are included with the new package: Otis ANGB.bgl AFX_0MA1.bgl AFX_0MA4.bgl AFX_16MA.bgl AFX_MA20.bgl Beverly Hosp.bgl Boston Med Ctr.bgl Lawrence Hosp.bgl Mass Gen Hosp.bgl [*]Install the new Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement Run the installer downloaded in Step 1. The automated installer will place all of the necessary scenery files, and then activate the new "BVA_FeaturedAirports" scenery area. If you would prefer to manually install the files, a link to the manual installation is included in the installer. [*]If you use ORBX's FTX Global Freeware Airport Packs: After running the installer, you should manually delete the files for the following airports from BVA. You can do so by navigating to the C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft GamesMicrosoft Flight Simulator XAddon SceneryBVABVA_FeaturedAirportsscenery directory and manually deleting the appropriate files. Some of the airports will have two .BGL files each. KPVC KMVY KLCI KBTV KBGR KBDR Finally, you should navigate to the ORBX FTX Global folder (C:FSXORBXFTX_GLOBALFTX_FTXG_AIRPORTSScenery) and delete the following files: ADE_FTX_FTXG_KACK.bgl ADE_FTX_FTXG_KACK_CVX.bgl NOTE: LEAVE the file "FTX_FTXG_KACK_objects.bgl" in the directory. This will ensure that you have the ILS Runway 6 Approach at KACK, but still see the beautiful ORBX terminal and other objects. And that's it! The new files are a combination of updates from BVA as well as our external scenery design partners Dihedral Design, Jim Cook, Mike Funk, and Ray Smith. There are a few updates (e.g., KEWR and KLGA) that are not entirely accurate, but represent improvements over the default FSX scenery updates available. Including those updates in the package now will make it easier for us to update them when the time comes. --- * NOTE: As referenced above, the full list of files from the PREVIOUS version that should be DELETED before installing the new one are: - ADEX_KPVD_BVA.BGL - ADEX_KPVD_BVA_CVX.BGL - AFCAD_V3_README.txt - AFX_CYMX.bgl - AFX_CYQB.bgl - AFX_KABE.bgl - AFX_KACK.bgl - AFX_KALB.bgl - AFX_KAVP.bgl - AFX_KBDL.bgl - AFX_KBED.bgl - AFX_KBGR.bgl - AFX_KBTV.bgl - AFX_KBVY.bgl - AFX_KCQX.bgl - AFX_KHYA.bgl - AFX_KISP.bgl - AFX_KJFK.bgl - AFX_KMDT.bgl - AFX_KMHT.bgl - AFX_KMVY.bgl - AFX_KPVC.bgl - AFX_KPWM.bgl - AFX_KSYR.bgl - KACK_VIS_REF.bgl - KPWM_VIS_REF.bgl

Unfortunately, the old blue style that we used isn't as compatible with this latest version of the forums. It's still usable, but it no longer takes up the full page width, meaning that the forums aren't as easy to read when using a device with a large monitor. I personally like the new colors; I think the white looks cleaner. That being said, we're certainly open to changing the color scheme. I tried a few different things earlier today but couldn't figure out anything I liked. I can keep trying to play around with it over the next few days to see if there's something that works a bit better. Another option would be to have the old style as an option for people who would prefer that color scheme (and want to live with a slightly less responsive design). How are others feeling about the colors? So far, it seems like most people dislike them. Normally, we would try to "preview" the new style to get feedback and make changes before doing the update. However, none of us is an expert on phpBB and we don't have the resources or time to create a separate "demo" platform. Any other changes we make, we'll have to "do it live".

As you have likely noticed, our forums received a major update today to the latest version of phpBB. Along with an entirely new and cleaner look, there are a number of new options available for our members. Amongst other changes, you will likely notice a more intuitive menu system, responsive design, easier access to common links, and more logical menus for notifications and private messages. Please take a few minutes to look around the new board and, as always, let us know if you have any questions about the new functionality or notice an issue with the upgrade. phpBB is highly customizable so if there is something about the new template that doesn't appeal to you, there's a good chance it can be updated. There are a few things we suggest you explore as part of the new User Control Panel. You can access it by clicking on the 'person' icon at the top right, then selecting the "User Control Panel" menu: Once in the User Control Panel: [*]Click Profile, and update your information, signature, avatar, and anything else you would like to include. [*]Under Board Preferences, set your timezone. Also, select your preference under "My board style" and choose from either the "White" or "Blue" theme. [*]Click the "edit notification options" menu on the left. The new notifications system allows for email or online notifications for a much broader variety of events. [sizeimg=800:942yzwjy]http://i.imgur.com/2G578jV.png[/sizeimg:942yzwjy] You may also notice that we have swapped the order of the buttons on the "Post a new topic" screen to better align them with other phpBB boards out there. This can be swapped back if people prefer having the "Submit" button on the left. This phpBB style ('basic') was developed by Arty. We are also using the American English Language Pack, developed and copyrighted by Maël Soucaze.

Devon -- apparently this wasn't working for some people. I don't know exactly who but that was the feedback. Zac is one of them. You might want to try to troubleshoot/follow-up for future.

If you have a specific guest in mind, feel free to give him or her the server information. If you send me a quick email with the username(s) that your guest(s) would be using, and agree to be responsible for their conduct, then there's no issue with a non-member joining.

Reminder for all pilots to download/modify their aircraft so that aircraft in the session appear without substitutions: