Version 3.18, 15-04-2000

NEW FEATURES

• Extracting contest reports from the multimode screen was extended in view of the variety of ways contesters tend to transmit RST + zonenumber. (Included in 3.17a)
• There are now two CAT files available (variety A and B) for the IC-746. The difference is in the number of junkbytes preceding the frequency info received on reading from the TRX.
• New CAT files for the ICOM-rigs: IC-756 and IC-756Pro were included. Based on user feedback the rig address for the IC-756 was set to 50. Based on info from SM5JE the rig address for the IC-756P was set to 5C.
• The print driver for HP devices was modified as to command the printer to start closer to the top of a new sheet of labels. The new driver can be downloaded from our homepage as special service right away. (Devoted to G3VMW who first gave feedback. Thanks!)
• Good news is coming from Asle, LA6IHA, who reports that he successfully runs TL under OS/2 Warp 3. This adds another PC operating system to the list of usable environments for TL. We now have proof of:
  • DOS
  • WINDOWS 3.1x
  • WINDOWS 95
  • WINDOWS 98
  • LINUX
  • OS/2 Warp 3

  Thanks for the nice information, Asle!

• After you have made a new log you can now directly jump into it.
• A trap existed in the Advanced Setup--->Transceiver menu. When CAT was disabeled (item "A") and later enabled menu item "M" was reset to "OFF" irrespectively of any selection for the frequency capture scheme. The CAT would apparently not work unless item "M" was set to its earlier condition. This was quite confusing. From now on the selection under "M" will be stored for the present session and independently from the choice of "A".
• G3YXX pointed on an inconsistency with respect to the KEYWORD in the red input line. Moving from left to right would display the KEYWORD for input. Starting backwards from the COMMEMTS FIELD, however, the cursor would jump over the KEYWORD position. Corrections on this field where only possible by going to the right from the RST_IN field. We have now made the KEYWORD field accessible from both directions. This indeed appears to us as the logical way to do it.
• Based on an advise by G4BGW the DXCC-application listing was corrected with respect to the sequence of data as requested by the ARRL on their latest application forms.
• You can now overwrite existing Print-Files which were earlier created by the "Lists & Reports" facilities. You are prompted for this action before it is performed if you have selected an existing file name for input. The same applies for the menu item "Save as..." under the same topic.

• The "Lists & Reports"--->"Logbook & DXCC-applic." facilities were greatly extended by including CABRILLO report templates for various contests.

  We were briefed by several users of the fact that the ARRL will not accept printed logbook reports for contest application unless in the so called CABRILLO format after the 1. September 2000. More details may be found at:

  www.kkn.net/~trey/CABRILLO/qso-template.html

  This gave rise for starting to include the most important report templates in TL well ahead of the deadline.

  Here is the full story:

  1. What is Cabrillo?

  Cabrillo is a set of QSO templates in printed reports from contests. These templates were standardized by the ARRL for ease of fast and easy contest evaluations. The requested report standards go far beyond the formats which were implemented in TL as yet. Thus we had to perform a large reconstruction and extension of the existing code. Principal guide line was to keep all proven procedures as they were and add the new ones along this line.

  2. How does it work?

  If you use the F9-facilities in order to move into contest real time logging you now have the following choices on the contest menu:

  1. Standard TurboLog Contest Mode...........as before, plus:
  2. ARRL, CQ, Stew Perry Contest.............a new choice
  3. Sweepstakes Contests.....................the second new choice
  4. NAQP, NA Sprint, California QSO Party....the third new choice

   

  Provisions are taken to place additional contests on this list. If you open "A" you will see the familiar prompts which are needed for any contest. If you open any of the other options you will see prompts for specific data which either needs to be included in the print reports or exchanged within a valid contest QSO in addition to just serial numbers. After you have completed all inputs TL is ready to start the contest operation. If you now step along the red input line you will be prompted for input of the specific informations exchanged during that contest. You can move left and right by means of the Cursor-Down key as you are used to in "normal" QSO logging operations. The info which you input will be packed into the comment field and can be inspected and/or edited as before ( F8-toggle key, F6--->F6 for review, respectively).

  3. How do I get my log results printed?

  After you have finished contesting you move into the "Logbook & DXCC- applic." listings. All familiar menu items are available as before. You pass all QSOs and filter by dates or QSO-numbers before you arrive at the key new feature "CABRILLO". If you select this output format a menu box opens from which you select the appropriate report template. The following options are well known standards....and there is the print in the requested ARRL format.

  Done!

  The rest is performed by the contest evaluation team.....as we understand the whole procedure.
  

  Under CABRILLO TL automatically performs the transition from SSB, CW, RTTY and FM to the ARRL two letter abreviations PH, CW, RY and FM respectively. Bands are also reformatted according to the ARRL standards. If you come across an " A " you should bear in mind: this is the requested output for 50MHz and by no means a bug...

  Of course you can still print all contest results with TL's standard printing facilities and menu options. In this case even the contest QSOs show up in the well known formats and abreviations which have been in TL right from the beginning.

  Please note:

The call entered into the QSO-templates is derived from the LOGNAME which is displayed in the left corner of the top/banner line. As mentioned above the logname must always be a valid callsign for this reason!!

• The "Lists and Reports"-menu was largely extended by the completely new submenu "Locator". This facility is devoted to the needs of the VHF/UHF community but to those collecting locators on HF-bands for various purposes as well. Please note, we are only processing locators based on the Maidenhead system where we count distinct fields and squares. Thus the leading four characters will be evaluated for counting, e.g. IO71xx and JO42xx count as distinct squares while JO42xx and JO42yy will yield just one count.

  Along with the LOCATOR-listings we restructured the code of the Lists & Report facilities in order to have a maximum commonality among them. This was a quite ambitious task, but it had to been done after all. The code is now implemented in terms of so called "objects" following modern "object oriented" software design. You don't see it but it pays for the future and for your benefits.

  If you enter the LOCATOR menu you will find the following submenus:

  • FILE
  • BAND
  • FILTER BY
  • SCOPE
  • DELIMITER
  • EXECUTE
  • QUIT

 

Each of these submenus again has a couple of subitems which you should be familiar with from the long existing list operations. The choices which are offered are self explaining and straight forward. They cover virtually every investigation in locators we can think of ( for the time being ). Your selection of parameters can be saved for future use in a file which you may name. The file extension is automatically generated and will be .LCF .

Please also note, since there are 32.400 squares in total we decided to better suppress printing if you chose the scope "Not worked all time". However, the output will still show your missing totals.

On your choice from EXECUTE you will finally get a list of locators formatted to a table with eight entries per line. Along with the table comes the locator count. The results are presented on the selected output device.

• Furthermore, we would like to draw your attention to the new layout of the report summaries. They are now much more appealing and offer a better overview on the first glance.
• The CTRL-B facilities which you enter from the logging screen in order to monitor the handshake between TL and the CAT or TNC have been extended in a userfriendly way.

  You can now write the data to a file and in case of troubles send this file to us for close inspection ( preferably by E-mail ). TL generates two distinct trace files under the root directory. TL3TNC.TRC will contain handshake data communicated with the TNC whilst TL3CAT.TRC will take care for the CAT data.

Please note:

Both files will be overwritten on every new "save"-command. Thus only the latest TRC-files are kept under the TURBOLOG directory.

COUNTRY.DAT:

• Our sincere gratitude belongs to GW4FRX for providing us with an update on editing the politically correct country names of various old and new countries.
• VA....VD, VF, VG, VX and VY were included as valid prefixes for Canada.
• Geographical coordinates for T33/Banaba and S7/Seychelles were corrected based on info received from G4BGW. (Thanks, Ivan)
• 4W**, East Timor, was included as a new DXCC entity, valid as of 1. March 2000. The new country number assignment is 396.
• TX0*, Chesterfield Islands, was included as a new DXCC entity, valid as of 23. March 2000. The new country number is 397. It may be necessary to correct the ad-hoc prefix to its final assignment later. There may be a correction of the zone assignment as well ( Is it 30 or 32 ?)
• AN* was added as another valid prefix for stations in EA, EA6, EA8 and EA9 after this prefix appeared to be widely used in contests now. VH....VJ were included as valid prefixes for Australia
• VP1 ( Former British Honduras, now Belice ) was removed from the list

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