User-Created Database (.NDB format)
You can create databases containing your own waypoints and/or for navaids/airports not
in the main database. You don't need programming experience - the files can be created for example using Microsoft
Excel's ascii-file export feature or even the venerable notepad. Here's an example of an NDB
file.
Note the following about NDB files:
- They have extension NDB. Name can be anything.
- These files are text files with each navaid/airport in a separate line.
- The line terminator can be CR or CR-LF.
- The fields within a line are delimited by the TAB character.
- There are two record types - one for navaids and the other for airports. Both can co-exist
in the same file.
Navaid Record:
The navaid record has 8 fields:
- ID - upto 5 letter id.
- Name - full name. Displayed when clicked on ID.
- State - US state. not used.
- Type - one of { "VOR", "NDB" or "FIX" }
- Lat - format [+/-] ddd.sssss. Negative for southern hemisphere.
- Lon - format [+/-] ddd.sssss. Negative for points west of prime meridian (see example
below).
- Magvar - magnetic variation. not used.
- Freq - freq for the navaid. Displayed when clicked on ID.
-
For example:
SAX SPARTA NJ VORTAC 41.067514 -74.538325 11W 115.70
The fractional part for lat/lon, is a fraction of 1 degree. For example 10 degree, 59 min and 58 seconds should
be specified as: 10.0 + (59/60) + (58/3600) = 10.983.
Some books/charts specify position as deg min.sss where sss is a fraction of 1 minute (e.g. 41° 31.95´
S). To make it easy to enter such entries, there's an alternate style. The example above can be specfied as -41:31.95.
Airport Record
The airport record has 10 fields:
- ID - full ICAO airport code in uppercase.
- Name - displayed when clicked on ID.
- State - not used
- Address - not used
- Lat - same as navaid
- Lon - same as navaid
- Elevation - in feet (MSL) - Used for airport info. If you don't know the elevation,
leave the field blank.
- Magvar - the number of degrees and 'E' or 'W'. Used for gps units that do not output
magnetic variance. See example below. If you don't know the mag-var value, leave the field blank.
- Runway - not used
- Length - not used
For example:
CDW CALDWELL NJ ESSEX COUNTY 40.875223 -74.281357 173 13W 04/22 4553
Note: The NDB files you create have to be in the install folder - that's the same folder
where navgps.exe is installed.
Note: Navgps will not report syntax errors during load-time. But if you're using Navgps Pro 3.14+,
"My Documents\navgps load status.txt" file will contain the load status of
the last session. If your entries are not showing up, open that file with File Explorer.
