Only a single $15 fee that will cover you for life.

This helps cover our basic hosting costs, development costs, and maintenance costs. A site like this takes a lot of time and effort on our parts to operate. This also gives us freedom to develop new features down the road that will expand the site's capabilities.

Any modern browser should be able to operate the site just fine. We try to keep things simple and reliable so that we could reach as many users as possible. The site has been tested on:

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 (Windows)
• Firefox 2 (Windows and Mac)
• Opera (Windows, Nintendo Wii - yes, we even tested on the freakin' Wii)
• Safari (Mac)

If you're still running Netscape 2.0 from 1996, well... we can't help you there.

The site is hosted on our own server, located in a hardened Data Center in Miami, FL. The building is fully hurricane-proof and features multiple redundant power sources and connections. We also have tech folks on hand 24/7 to provide any technical support.

To operate the site, no. However, if you are going to make backups of your hours to download, print out or e-mail, you will need one of the following:

• Adobe Acrobat Reader (FREE): This is a free download from Adobe's web site that will allow you to read PDF files ("Portable Document Format"). Many computers come with this plug-in already installed. This format allows us to generate very clean and elegant reports of your hours that are easy to read. It's a very flexible format that works well for printable documents.
  • Download Link
  • Click here to see a sample of an ATC Hours PDF file (the plug-in is required to open it).
• Microsoft Excel (Included in Microsoft Office): You would need to purchase this software in order to be able to open the files. When you export your hours in this format, you're exporting the raw data. No formatting, no fonts - just plain data. As opposed to PDF files, which "freeze" the reports when they format them (for maximum compatibility), the information in an Excel file can be calculated, manipulated, and imported into other systems.

In short:

• PDF: Pretty but static.
• Excel: Functional but ugly.
  

There's no limit to the number. Add as many as you need for your training.

Yes. All calculations are done automatically. Once you add in a training log, your position totals and facility totals are automatically updated.

Easy. Just go to http://www.ATCHours.com/phone on your phone's browser.

There are a huge variety of phones out there, so we designed the site to be as simplistic and undemanding as possible to try and accommodate as many as possible. Basically, if your phone is able to display simple form fields, it should be able to run our phone site.

You can: View, Add, Edit and Delete records.
You cannot: Manage your settings, like update instructors, positions, or facilities. Those functions are reserved for the full site.

Yes, we do back up our data. However, we STRONGLY urge our users to make their own backups using the tools we provide.

It's easy. After you login, go to Main Menu > Export. Then you can choose whether you want your backup to be a Microsoft Excel file or an Adobe PDF file. You can select a date-range there.

As with anything, there's pros and cons.

• Microsoft Excel: This format is terrific for backing up the raw data. It may not look pretty, but your data is easy to import and calculate. This is by far the more functional format.
• Adobe PDF: This is the prettier format, recommended for printable backups. For instance, if you want to print out a monthly report of your hours, this would be the one to use. The drawback is that the data is more or less "frozen" and is not easy to extract.

Unfortunately, not at this time. It's something we've explored, but the tremendous variety of different formats and timekeeping methods make it impractical at this time.

However, when you create a position, you can add in "carryover" hours. That's the time you already had on the position before you started using our system. That way your time remains accurate and you won't be starting from zero.

That's a legal gray area, so not at this time. Ideally, we would like to be able to pre-fill some of the form fields - session hours, total hours, session date, instructor, etc. - and generate a printable PDF from that. It's something we'd like to do eventually but for the moment you'll have to fill out the standard forms.

As many as you want. This site is designed to work with ATC trainees throughout their entire career as they transfer from facility to facility. If you work at six different facilities throughout your career, you can add all six. There's no limit.

No. We separate hours by facility.

The first facility you create (when you first set up your account) is automatically set as your default. If you'd like to add another facility, after you login go to Main Menu > Settings > Facilities. Use the form to add a new facility or - if you've already added it - click "Make default" next to the facility you'd like to set as your default.