Navigating the site

The Main Menu of the Spectrum Direct site has links to the principal functional areas of the site:

• Licence Applications: Select Land Mobile Application or Microwave Application to access the on-line licence application forms. You can also access the licence Application Utilities from this area, allowing you to add to the Radio Model or Antenna Model lists.
• Radio Frequency (TAFL) Search: The tools provided on the site allow users to search in real time the non-protected Technical and Administrative Frequency List (TAFL): a list of Canadian radio frequency data from Industry Canada's ALS database.
• Account Information: The Land Station Browser allows you to browse and search all administrative and technical information about the radio licence accounts associated with your web profile.
• On-line Invoice Payments: The Invoice Payment option allows any client to pay Industry Canada Radio Licence invoices on-line. You are prompted to enter the account number and invoice number for the invoice that you want to pay.
• Web Profile: A web profile provides the user name and password that allow access to the secure areas of our site, where you can submit applications and browse information for the associated accounts.
• On-line Help: From this area, you can access this on-line help file.
• Related Sites: This section provides links to other useful sites that are not part of the Spectrum Direct site.

Navigation

This site is part of Industry Canada'web site ic.gc.ca. A standard navigation toolbar appears at the top of every page and as text links at the bottom of every page. On the Spectrum Direct site, these links behave as follows:

• Francais links to the French version of the Main Menu. (On the French pages, an English button accesses the English Main Menu.) Note that this link does not show the current page in the other language. If you are editing information when you click this button, all changes are lost.
• Contact Us links to a help topic that provides an e-mail link to the Web administrator for this site. If you have any questions or comments on this site, the Web administrator will see that they are forwarded to the appropriate contact.
• Help links to the Contents topic of this help system.
• Search links to the Industry Canada search form.
• Canada Site links to the main Government of Canada web site.
• Home links to the Main Menu in English.
• Site Map links to this topic.
• What's New links to the What's New topic in this help system.
• About Us links to a help topic that introduces Spectrum Management Services, and provides links to more information.
• Registration links to the Create Web Profile page where you can register for access to the protected areas of the site.

When you navigate to the main site, these links will have different functions.

On-page Navigation Tools

Navigation aids for the Spectrum Direct site appear just below the header and navigation toolbar. There are three principal navigation and location aids:

Navigation Bar

The grey navigation bar appears first (and on the bottom of the page), and contains a hyperlinked hierarchical path to your current location on the site. For instance, if you are currently adding a new frequency to a licence, the navigation bar reads:

You are here: Main Menu->Application List->Application->Station->Frequency

All headings except the current page are hypertext links. This navigation bar allows you to quickly get a visual picture of where you are in the site, and link back to any page in the path. Note that this is a hierarchical, logical path through the site, and does not necessarily represent the "history" of your path to the current page; you may have arrived at the current page from another direction, and should use your browser's Back button to retrace your steps, if desired.

Also note, though, that using the Back button can cause an error in the application under specific conditions. That is, if you delete a component (for instance, frequency details for a specific licence) and attempt to use Back to return to the parent component (for instance, the Licence Page), you will get an error.

Page Heading Bar

The black page heading bar appears immediately beneath the navigation bar. It contains the title of the current page, links to sub-areas within that page, and a Help button. For example, the Application Summary page heading bar contains the title "Application Summary". Below the bar, you will find links to the page sections "Letter of Intent Summary", "Station Summary", and "Application Submission", allowing you to move to those sections of the page without the need to scroll. Clicking on the Help button on this bar will open the page overview help for the page.

Section Heading Bars

Each page contains at least one olive section heading bar below the page heading bar. It names and groups related information and fields on any given page. They contain a "back-to-top" arrow that returns you to the top of the current page when clicked, the title of the section, and a Help button. Clicking on the Help button on this bar will open detailed help on the fields in that section.

On-page Application Functions

The application pages on the site have been designed with their own links and programming routines to assist in the completion of a radiocommunication licence application.

Most application forms (e.g., Letter of Intent, Station, Frequency, etc.) have action links immediately below the heading bars or form buttons on the bottom, depending on the state of the page.

When you complete a new form, the buttons on the bottom are to Save the information or Cancel the form. Click Save to save the completed form as part of your application package. Click Cancel to discard the form without creating it.

When saving, if an element on the form is missing, or the information in a field is not valid, an error will appear requesting that you correct the error. The form will not be saved until the error is corrected.

Once you have saved a form, it is added to the application package, and you are returned to the previous page.

When you view saved information, the page is typically displayed with two action links at the top of the form: Update the information or Delete the information. Click Update to make changes to the page. Click Delete to remove the page from your application package. Note that you can only update or delete a page if the application status is "Not Submitted". After the application has been "Submitted", you can no longer make changes to any application pages.

If you click the Update link on a page, the page is redisplayed in editable format. At the bottom, the buttons allow you to Save your updates, or Cancel your updates. Click on Save to overwrite the saved page with your new changes. Click Cancel to discard your changes, and keep the saved page without changes.

If you click the Delete link on a page, the current information and all related information is removed from the application. For example, if you delete a station, all frequencies, link stations, reflectors, and repeaters associated with that station are deleted from the application.

Again, if an element on the page is missing, or the information in a field is not valid, an error will appear requesting that you correct the error. The page will not be updated until the error is corrected.

The Application Navigator

A special navigational tool on the application pages allows you to quickly navigate to any component in your licence application, and to easily see which components have been completed for the current application. The frame on the left side of the page displays a dynamic, hierarchical list of links to application components; as new components are added to the application, they appear automatically on the list, in hierarchical order. On that list, the current location (that is, the component you are currently viewing) is shaded. To move to another component of the application, click the link to it.

Each entry is preceded by a small graphic representing a page. In most browsers, when the mouse cursor is over this graphic, additional information about the entry will appear. For example, when the mouse cursor is over the graphic next to a station call sign, the station location appears.