Version 3.20, 15-04-2001

NEW FEATURES

• Following an information from Dick/G4DJC we have added the BSX-1 to the list of TNCs. The file was derived from the PK-232 TNC-file by modifying two lines: the INIT-command and the STREAMCH.

• We now provide the new service program PRINTGEN along with TurboLog in order to help you to modify or create your customized print driver. You will find the new facility on our homepage ready for separate download or if you updated as a file under the root directory. The procedure is self explaining since the program is eqipped with help remarks. You need to know, however, that the ESCAPE-character is under the SCROLL-key ( top row, second right ). In any case you need to have some knowledge of the control sequences your specific printer requires. Source of information should be the printer's manual or the manufacturer of the device. All you need to do is to assign the control sequences to command letters and to adjust the margins for your purposes.

• The ALT-E edit facility was largely extended. You can now edit any file of the disk drive you are on. Just type ALT-E where available and ENTER as often as you need in order to arrive at the root of the file you want to edit. Of course you can access all of TL's files this way, however, you should edit only those which have been declared public explicitly in our documentation.

• You will now see the FINDIOTA facility predefined in any new configura- tion file. This should help users to have faster access to this powerful feature. Please note: you still need a suitable IOTA reference file. You can edit this file yourself....or order it from us. ( See pricelist)

• The HERE/NOHERE toggle button in the banner line is now available on all PACKET-related screens besides the logging screen (Basic, Multiconnect) and should now work properly.

• On start-up of TL there always appeared the message " Initializing TNC " whether PACKET was enabled or not. This message is now suppressed in case the PACKET facility was disabled. The program then moves right into the main screen on leave from the welcome window.

• LOCATOR listings were largely extended in such a way as to allow the user to decide on the number of significant characters being used for sorting. You can now sort on just the first letter of the locator or any other number up to the maximum of 6. This new feature should make all 6-m and VHF/UHF enthusiasts happy. The prompting is always activated before the data output begins.

• The input of date and time in Post-Event-Logging was made fail proof against data which was accidently pasted/copied into the input line. Upon detection of illegal data the date and time defaults are activated. Repeating the input data reestablishes the defaults and allows input of the whole record with no further action required.

• PSK3 is now included as another standard mode in TL. Its equivalent "599"-mode is CW. The new mode is available in newly installed configu- ration files. Users updating are referred to the handbook for including this mode into their collection. All you need to do is to include a line reading: O> PSK3 MORSE CW in case you want to include PSK3(1). Please note: there are only 4 letters available for a mode's notation.

• Based on data provided by G3YXX from TR-LOG gained from CQWWCW-contest a new importfilter was designed. Althought just the standard ASCII-import facility of TL was used to generate the filter with no changes inside the program we have included this file as another ready to use example. Please note that other contests may require minor adaptations of the filter. Those changes, however, are straight forward and every user should find it easy to perform them. Please also note that it may be useful to remove the top header line of the logfiles to be imported in order to see the first logrecord as top line. This makes it easier to adapt the fields to be extracted from this record.

• A new SEARCH facility was implemented in the BASIC, FILTERED, UNFILTERED, MULTICONNECT and MULTIMODE screens. A similar function was already available, e.g. for the HELP and VERSION INFORMATION windows. Unfortu- nately we could not use the same keystrokes for both applications. Whilst F1 is the SEARCH-key and F2 the SEARCH NEXT-key in the latter windows we had to implement for these functions Cntl-F7 and Cntl-F8 res- pectively. If you press Cntl-F7 in one of the windows mentioned above you will be prompted to enter a search string.

  Please note: On Cntl-F7 the search will always start at the first line of the whole file no mat- ter where you positioned the cursor. The search routine will lead you to the first line which contains the search string and highlight it. On Cntl-F8 the search will continue from this line until another match is found. If no further match was found the search stops with an error message and a short beep. Please also note that there is no backward search being implemented.

• We extended the $Zn facility in QSL label printing. As before, the n-th word of the comment field will be extracted and printed at the position you decided on your QSL label. In order to operate correctly the words in the comment field had to be separated by blanks and blanks only . Now this facility will also accept "," and ";" besides a blank as legal delimiters.

• The file pruning is now extended to cover the history files as well. These files could grow to considerable sizes over the years. Only external action could be applied in the past. If the files had grown too large in size even standard editors would fail. You can now prune these files along with the scroll files. You can further have an eye on the file sizes and decide what to do. The UTILITIES--->PRUNING menu now offers:
  • ANNOUNCE.HIS
  • TALK.HIS
  • WX.HIS
  • WWV.HIS
  • MAIL.HIS

  for pruning, along with the other packet scroll files. This should help to optimize memory consumption of TurboLog.

• Following a suggestion of John/G3OQB for a fully automated but user controlled general pruning facility at the end or the beginning of a new session we have gone a further step ahead. We have created an "Auto pruning" facility under ADVANCED SETUP-->MISC as a separate subitem. You can now select manual pruning as before or command TL to automatically do it for you. If you choose the latter you are prompted for a minimum number of lines to remain after pruning was performed and a maximum number of lines before pruning will be activated. We have included all 10 packet related files under this regime. So you do not need to worry about these things any longer as an automatic disposal of old data will be performed for you. We strongly recommend to activate the auto pruning for the future. The pruning is performed at the end of each TL-session.

• The monitoring facility for CAT and TNC handshake ( CRTL-B from most screens ) was extended as to now let you choose either HEX or ASCII output for display or on file. This translation facility makes diagnosis in many cases much easier. If you press the "H"-key you can toggle between HEX and ASCII presentation. All those devices using HEX coded handshakes should now loose much of their mysteries.

• Based on a question from G3NKS and G4PDQ concerning TL's treatment of ambiguous prefixes in CONTEST REALTIME LOGGING mode we had to confirm an old philosophy that did not offer choices from a pick-list. This came originally in from attempts to save computing time on slow machines under busy contest conditions. The feature has been in there for ever but does not make too much sense these days. We now changed the code as to show exactly the same behavior as in STATION LOGGING.

COUNTRY.DAT:

• The geographical coordinates for S9 suffered from an error/typo in the latitude. This was corrected for the recent versions.
• Based on info provided by Nigel/G3TXF KB6 will not be given a choice for Baker & Howland any longer but pure USA right away.
• Nigel also suggests RI to be taken as European Russia with no alternative Uzbek any longer. Done! (...I just hope they don't change it again....!)

Outlook for version 3.21:

• Soundblaster digital voice processing for contests ( turns out to be more critical than expected )
• Customizing the menu descriptions ( continuous background effort )
• More import/export filters ( e.g.: ADIF)
• Lots of internal improvements and preparations towards WINDOWS, YES, we have started Turbolog 4, the WINDOWS version! * Updates on COUNTRY.DAT, bug fixes ( hopefully not necessary....hi )
• Etc. etc.....

back to version index   Home