ATCS Monitor on the iPhone
Posted by voice | Filed under Techie
Recently I became the owner of a iPhone, I know, right now AT&T and Apple are the devil, I’ll see how things pan out in a year or two. However I have to say I have been enjoying the fact that I actually use the phone more often then I thought I would, especially for organizing and whatnot, the POS freebie phone I had before had problems doing this. Anyways, I happen to like trains and watching trains, the term for this being “Railfan”, and as such knowing where the trains are is usually a plus.
For about a year now I’ve been using a program, only for Windows (boo!), called ATCS Monitor. A little education on the subject matter, ATCS stands for Advanced Train Control System and it basically is a protocol for standardizing how software the railroads use communicates with their hardware out in the field. There are various methods they use to transmit ATCS data but one of them, and the one ATCS Monitor uses, is via radio. Of course you’d need a radio scanner to pick this data up, and then a special to setup to connect your scanner to your computer and ATCS Monitor, but ATCS Monitor also has a server system where one scanner/computer acts as such and other ATCS Monitor clients connect, the end result is you see the data and can even get a view of what the dispatchers see on their monitors.
So where does my iPhone come in? Well, of course I’m a lazy bastard and I want to be able to know when a train is comming. Out at Rochelle, Illinois, an area where theres a train hotspot, they have a park for Railfans and the giftshop includes a computer running ATCS Monitor. The laziness comes from that the viewing platform is at one end of the park and the giftshop is at the other end. So, I wanted to see if I could find a way to get ATCS Monitor on my iPhone. Obvious problem, there is no ATCS Monitor iPhone App, yeah, theres not an app for that. I eventually settled on that I’d just have ATCS Monitor running at home and I’d remote desktop to it. Four hours later I had ATCS Monitor working on my iPhone, and heres how its done:
- First off, you’re going to need a Windows computer of course, you’re also going to need the ATCS Monitor application which is only available through their Yahoo! Group, you’ll need to apply and when I did I was asked why I wanted the application.
- Next you’re going to need to enable Remote Desktop, aka RDP.
- Then you’re going to need a RDP Client on your iPhone, theres non-free and free apps for this, I personally went with iRdesktop which is free and works fine for me.
Now, when I did my setup I happened to have a copy of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, thank you DeVry!, however Windows XP/Vista/7 should have a working Remote Desktop method. For plain old Windows all you need to do is follow this path: Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Remote tab -> Check “Enable Remote Desktop on this computer”. Create a seperate user account, Control Panel -> Users, and then set that account as the only one allowed to remote into your home box. Check it locally, Windows has a client in Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Communications -> Remote Desktop Connections, just to verify its working, google to solve any problems you encounter.
Now that you’ve gone ahead and created your new user, and you’ve verified that RDP is working as it should the next step is to allow connections from the outside world. A WORD OF CAUTION: When you perform this next step you are exposing your home network to the Internet, I highly recommend you have good Firewall and good Anti Virus programs in place before you proceed, otherwise do so at your own risk. You’re going to need to open a port on your home router and this is referred to as Port Forwarding, you’re also going to need to have a specific IP address on the computer you intend to use that will not change even if the computer is rebooted. For setting a static IP you can follow this guide which will explain setting that up. Routers are different depending on the model on how you setup a port forward so you may need to google, however I will tell you that you’re going to need to forward TCP port 3389. You’ll need to know your home IP when you’re out in the field, so before you go out take a trip on your home computer down to network-tools.com which will give you your current IP.
UPDATE: As pointed out in the comment below, what you see is my iPhone running over a Wifi connection, however I have tested this with 3G and it does work. The webpage for iRdesktop claims this: “Connect through WIFI or your cellular data network (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA etc.)” so it should work on AT&T’s EDGE network which is, as I pointed out, the network type available out at Rochelle.
In the end when you try it it’ll look like this:
ATCS Monitor on the iPhone via RDP
ATCS Monitor on iPhone via RDP Screenshot
August 12th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Sweet! I have ATCS and use it at home. Now I can set up for use on my itouch. Of course I still need to have
a wifi connection hen Im out railfanning.
Have you seen this site?
http://www.coloradorailfan.com/data/atcs/atcs.asp
Its pretty cool idea but with a 1 minute refresh cycle.
I tried it on my itouch and would need to enlarge the
layout display every time it refreshed. If he had a
single page devoted to the layout display it would be better.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Glad to see you enjoyed my little article here. Yeah the screenshot shows that I’m connected to a Wifi network, however I have tested this on AT&T’s 3G network, admittedly not out at Rochelle which is EDGE territory (I may have tested this on EDGE if I did I don’t have any recollection of it), and it worked just fine, albeit a little slower. What you’re seeing there is more a proof of concept than anything else. I checked out the link and I do have to say it is a pretty interesting concept, amazingly being as knowledgeable in computers as I am I wouldn’t know how to go about accomplishing that. You could theoretically accomplish your idea by just writing a HTML page that uses just the image on his page and simply refreshes every 60 or 90 seconds.
EDIT: Oh wow, I completely misread your comment a little bit, ie iTouch, which is actually the iPod touch btw
Anywho I guess its important that I get the usability over cellular networks out of the way anyways.