I've been reading up on transponders, their use. I've also been listening to Newark Liberty airport alot recently and listening in to their use
Effectively there is an area in which all squawk codes are managed to be unique. On crossing those borders you will get reassigned a squawk code. So typically it goes like this.
You take off, climb and enter Approach airspace. At this point you will be assigned a squawk code. You callsign is entered into the "management system" along with the squawk code. Now whenever you are handed over, the first thing they seem to do is announce what they are squawking. So the management system could be anything, a piece of paper, a fully centralised database, whatever system their is. Controllers are also quite free to ask the pilot to change the squawk code too.
So the issues we have here are.
1) We pretty much are going to need all aircraft to have working transponders in. In real life normally one of the criteria of entering controlled airspace (A-D) is a working transponder. So I'm thinking we need a OR mode to switch to "no callsign displayed unless squawk entered". So up until then we will need to have a hybrid of real life and what we have now.
2) As we keep seeming to bring up, there needs to be some communication or centralisation going on if a pilot is to keep a sqwark code between ATC controllers. This is something to thing about in that project, but for now I think it can be a procedural thing. To me IRC seems to be the perfect medium for that. say #ATC-EUROPE or the existing #ATC though we do chat alot about anything in there.
3) Ident is a 13th bit, from what I can tell on most systems it "blooms" the contact on the radar so it's easier to find. I think a similar method would work for OR. Make the text bold or bigger I don't think different colours are needed. The flight strip should be alterable to have either call-sign or squawk or both.
The tasks then for Wolfram depend on how realistic we want to be. Currently pilots have enough difficulty with fgcom, flying in controlled areas, and using the correct terms on FGCOM. Adding the requirement for squawk codes could currently be a step too far. However, I'd like to see us in the ATC/OR community ready for them and the more advanced among us give it a try.
So currently we should be looking at this hybrid mode. Currently does anyone know what happens if two users have the same callsign? Squawk codes would help on that if the system does die have an issue with identical call-signs.
Finally, I'm not actually sure what this pof file is for. Could someone try to explain it a different way, as I'm not getting it.