ATAK Field Course

• Phone in hand, outdoors when you can. Nobody learns ATAK from slides. Every module has a drill on the real MDJ map.
• One tool per block, 15–20 minutes. Show it once, have them do it, then have them show the next person. If they can teach it, check it off.
• Work in pairs. Most of Levels 2 and 4 need a second person who is somewhere else: across the yard, down the block, in another city.
• Fix settings first. Before anything else: units to feet and miles, callsign set, team color and role set. Half of all confusion is someone reading meters or showing up as a gray dot.
• Mistakes are free. Nothing a trainee drops on the map hurts anything. Delete it and drop it again.

G0 · The three paths

Three ways things reach your phone

Everything you get from the team arrives one of three separate ways. When something is missing, first ask which path it travels on.

• 1. Network (the server connection): positions, chat, markers, alerts, aircraft and mesh tags. Broken = no green dot and nothing live.
• 2. Package (data packages): maps, icon sets, overlays and the links for live layers. Broken = connected, but the team's maps and layers are missing.
• 3. Plugin (add-on apps inside ATAK): extra tools such as weather or traffic. Broken = that tool is missing. Plugins are built for one ATAK version, so don't update ATAK on your own.

The mesh radios aren't a fourth path. Their tags come in over the network path.

G1 · Get access

Get on a TAK server

1. Install ATAK-CIV from Google Play (Android) or iTAK from the App Store (iPhone). Computers can use WebTAK in a browser.
2. You need an account on a TAK server. To practice on ours, email [email protected]. You'll get a private setup sheet with your username and certificate steps.
3. In ATAK, add the server from your sheet: Settings › Network Preferences › Network Connection Preferences › Manage Server Connections › +, tick Enroll for Client Certificate, and load the trust store file that came with the sheet.
4. The server line turns green. On our server, the team's maps, overlays and icons are pushed to your phone within a minute or two.

“No user found” means the username is mistyped. “Invalid password” means what it says. After three tries, stop guessing and ask whoever set up your account.

No server yet? Level 1 works on any ATAK install. Start there.

G2 · Who you are

Callsign, team, role, units

1. Settings › Callsign and Device Preferences: set your callsign (a ham call like KJ6YJR or a short name), your team color and your role (Team Member, Team Lead, HQ, Medic and so on).
2. Settings › Display Preferences › Basic Display Settings › Unit Display Format Preferences: distance in Feet/Miles, speed in mph.
3. Leave GPS on. A teammate with a diagonal line through their dot has no GPS fix.

1.1 · The map

Compass, self-marker, layers

• Your self-marker is the blue arrowhead. The Android back button re-centers on it. The crosshair button locks the map to you.
• Tap the compass (upper left) to switch between North Up and Track Up. Long-press it for manual rotation and 3D.
• Change the base map in Maps & Favorites. MDJ Starter adds 22 map sources: USGS imagery and topo, Esri, OpenTopo, Bing, Google.

1.2 · Markers

Point Dropper and the radial menu

Open the Point Dropper, pick a marker, tap the map. Basic markers come in the four affiliations, and their colors mean the same thing on every TAK map:

• Tap any marker for its radial menu: Details, Fine Adjust, Send, Delete, Range & Bearing.
• Details holds name, type, remarks and attachments. Put photos on markers with the paperclip.
• Long-press the map with a marker picked to type in exact coordinates.
• MDJ adds its own iconsets: Public Safety Air and MDJ Hazards. Switch iconsets by swiping in the Point Dropper.

1.3 · Measure

Range & Bearing

• Open ≡ › Range Tools. Turn on the R&B Line (it goes yellow).
• Tap a start point and an end point. Long-press instead to measure from yourself.
• Tap the line for its radial: change units, switch to Degrees Magnetic for a compass heading, or open Details for an elevation profile.
• The R&B Circle draws range rings. Anchor it to a marker and it moves with the marker.

2.1 · Contacts and chat

GeoChat

• Contacts lists everyone on MDJ-TAK. Tap a name to chat. All Chat Rooms goes to everyone.
• A filled check next to your message means it was read. An outlined one means it was delivered but not opened. The server holds messages for people who are offline.
• The buttons under the chat box are canned messages. Long-press one to rewrite it.
• On our server, the AI teammate (MDJ Assistant) is on the team as a contact. Type it a request in chat (“draw a ¼-mile circle around me”, “where is KJ6YJR?”, “route me to the nearest hospital”) and it answers in a few seconds to a minute. It can drop markers, circles, lines and street routes for you. It can't change the server or your phone.

2.2 · Share

Send, Auto Send and data packages

• Any marker, line or route has Send on its radial: to one contact, several, or everyone.
• Auto Send in Details re-broadcasts a marker about every 60 seconds. Use it for things that move or must stay on everyone's map.
• A data package bundles markers, routes, shapes and files: Data Package › + › Lasso, save, then send to contacts or upload to the TAK Server.
• Anything on the server shows up under Data Package › Download.

2.3 · Find each other

Bloodhound and routes

• ≡ › Bloodhound: From is you, To is your teammate's dot. The green box shows live distance, bearing and ETA. The line flashes at 6 minutes, turns yellow at 3 and red at 1.
• ≡ › Routes › +: tap check points, long-press to add more, End, then GO to navigate.

2.4 · Trouble

Alert and track history

• ≡ › Alert: pick 911 Alert, Ring the Bell, Geo Fence Breached or In Contact, then flip both switches. It goes to everyone and keeps broadcasting. Flip both switches off to cancel.
• ≡ › Track History records your breadcrumbs. Export as KML/GPX or publish to the server.

Only practice Alert after telling the team in chat “ALERT DRILL”, then cancel it right away.

Blue blob around your own dot at home? It's your own breadcrumbs: GPS jitter while you sit still. In Track List turn Show All off and delete the 0-mph tracks, and turn breadcrumbs off on your own marker. It isn't a shape, so the lasso won't find it.

3.1 · Overlay Manager

Turn the noise down

• Overlay Manager sorts everything into categories. The eye icon toggles a whole layer.
• Markers › Slicer toggles by affiliation and by Air, Ground or Sea. One tap hides every aircraft.
• COP Refresh clears temporary items: other users' stale dots and old aircraft tracks.

3.2 · Live feeds

What the layers are

3.3 · Stay current

Data Sync and plugins

• ≡ › Data Sync: subscribe to the MDJ-Team mission so new packages arrive on their own.
• ≡ › TAK Package Mgmt › gear › Quick Configure Update Server URL from a TAK Server: this points ATAK at your server's plugin list. On our server that includes Meshtastic and Weather.

4.1 · Radios

Pair a radio to ATAK

• Pair your Meshtastic radio to the Meshtastic app over Bluetooth, then turn on the Meshtastic plugin in ATAK.
• MDJ radios run the LONG_FAST preset on our team channel. Whoever runs your mesh sets up the radios, so don't change channel settings yourself.
• MDJ tags (MDJ0, MDJ1…) show on the TAK map through the mesh base station, even when the person carrying one has no phone.

4.2 · Range

What to expect

• Handheld to handheld at street level: a few hundred feet to about half a mile through houses. Height wins: a radio on a roof or a hill reaches miles.
• Positions update every few minutes on the mesh, not every second. A dot that hasn't moved may simply not have updated yet.
• Keep messages short. LoRa is slow and every radio shares the air.