Displaying Special Country Flags
WARNING - This section covers alterations to the RadarBox systems files. Changes you make might prevent RadarBox from functioning correctly, or might stop it from working altogether. In the worst case, be prepared to uninstall and reinstall RadarBox to recover your original settings.
However, having said that, this is reasonably simple to get working. Please note that this will only work with the LATEST version of RadarBox software. These instructions assume that you are running Windows XP. These modifications have not been tested with Windows Vista.
Three British Military aircraft detected by RadarBox (2 Gazelle and 1 AS50 Squirrel)
How does this work?
The RadarBox D008.dat (AirNav RadarBox 2009/Data directory) file contains the aircraft Mode S allocations plus wild cards in the form:
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------
where UK represents a UK.BMP flag in the Data/Flags directory
Below: A section of the D008.dat file opened with Windows Notepad
United Kingdom is the description
and 010000------------------ is the 24 character Mode S Binary version of the 6 character Hex code (with wildcards for the) UK.
All UK Mode S codes start with Bin 010000 (a sweeping generalization, but you get the idea!)
When RadarBox detects a Mode S Binary 010000 then it shows the UK.BMP in the aircraft list.
However, British Military aircraft codes are a block within UK allocation, starting with 0100001111, so a line in the D008.dat as follows, will "trap" these:
RA,RAF,0100001111--------------
and now codes starting with this will show the RA.BMP flag - 
. Putting the 2 lines together you can see how it works.
RA,RAF,0100001111--------------
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------
The same principle applies to the US military codes, but as there are more allocations, it's a bit more complicated:
UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------
US,United States,1010--------------------
Instructions on how to modify the D008.dat File
1. Shut down RadarBox
2. Use MS Explorer to navigate to the RadarBox Data directory, the default should be:
C:/Program Files/AirNav Systems/AirNav RadarBox 2009/Data
3. Make a copy of the D008.dat file and rename it (for example D008.dat.org) so you can revert to the default settings if you need to. If you can't see the file extension (.dat), you will need to go to Tools/Folder options/View and untick "Hide extensions for known file types".
4. Using Windows Notepad, open the original D008.dat file (not the one you have just saved as a copy) and you will see that the file is in this format but has many more lines:
AF,Afghanistan,011100000000------------
AL,Albania,01010000000100----------
DZ,Algeria,000010100---------------
AO,Angola,000010010000------------
AG,Antigua and Barbuda,00001100101000----------
AR,Argentina,111000------------------
AM,Armenia,01100000000000----------
AU,Australia,011111------------------
AT,Austria,010001000---------------
AZ,Azerbaijan,01100000000010----------
BS,Bahamas,000010101000------------
5. Copy the following line and insert it in the D008.dat file above the UK line:
RA,RAF,0100001111--------------
So that the appropriate bit of the .dat file looks like this:
TM,Turkmenistan,01100000000110----------
UG,Uganda,000001101000------------
UA,Ukraine,010100001---------------
AE,United Arab Emirates,100010010110------------
RAF,RAF,0100001111--------------
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------
TZ,United Republic of Tanzania,000010000000------------
6. Copy the following lines and insert them above the US line in the .dat file:
UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------
So the appropriate section of the .dat file now looks like looks like this:
TM,Turkmenistan,01100000000110----------
UG,Uganda,000001101000------------
UA,Ukraine,010100001---------------
AE,United Arab Emirates,100010010110------------
RAF,RAF,0100001111--------------
UK,United Kingdom,010000------------------
TZ,United Republic of Tanzania,000010000000------------
UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------
US,United States,1010--------------------
UY,Uruguay,111010010000------------
UZ,Uzbekistan,01010000011111----------
VU,Vanuatu,11001001000000----------
7. Click "Save" in notepad to save the modified D008.dat file. Points to note here:
- the number of "-" characters is vital. Every Mode S Hex code (111010010000------------) MUST be 24 characters in length.
- make sure that you don't insert any blank lines or spaces when you are inserting the new lines.
- the D008.dat file MUST be saved as a txt file (so don't use Word or Wordpad any other program) and it must be named D008.dat and NOT D008.dat.txt which might happen if you use "Save as". Look at the file in Explorer to make sure the name is correct.
8. Right click on this image and choose "Copy" and paste it into your favorite graphics editor.
The picture must be saved as a bmp to the c:/Program Files/AirNav Systems/AirNav RadarBox 2009/Data/Flags directory and must be named RA.BMP
Same again for this one, but this time it must be saved as UF.BMP
9. Close Notepad and run RadarBox. Wait for a Brit Mil or US Mil aircraft to be picked up either as live or network traffic and you should see the Mil flag in the aircraft list if you have the Flags set to show in Preferences.
Displaying Other Flags
Although this has only covered 2 new flags, the principle can be applied to display flags for any group of aircraft, or for individual registrations. All you need is the Mode S Hex code, Windows Calculator to convert the Hex code to a Binary code and a bmp saved in the /Flags directory.
See the AirNav Utilities Website for flag files.