Version 3.23, 27-10-2002

NEW FEATURES

• Following a suggestion from Gus/SM5JE we have included a new search item in KEYWORD LISTINGS. The submenu SCOPE was extended as to allow listings of all logrecords for which NO_QSL was received as yet. This enables you to select the candidates for special treatment.

• The same search facilty was implemented in LOGBOOK & DXCC LISTINGS. The logic for selecting the search parameters requires to locate the NO_QSL condition under the FILTER submenu. You can now run a specific search for the notorious "NO_QSL-ers" and retrieve full details from the log records.

• By the way: While running the sort operations for a specific search task some users were confused about record numbers exceeding those being displayed on the logging screen's subwindow as log totals. There is no fault behind this because TL counts calls with extensions such as OZ/DJ9KG or DJ9KG/m, etc. internally as separate entries: One for the main body of the compound (full call without extensions) and another for the call as it is. This allows to retrieve both callstrings in a query.

  In order to omit confusion we have slightly changed the mode of the count display while the sorting is in progress. The first entry now shows the number of logrecords which have been retrieved to fulfill the search criterion. The second count then shows the progress in formatting the selected logrecords for output, e.g. display, print, etc.

• TL turned out to become rather slow on sorting logrecords for output. We slightly increased the size of the overlay buffer which took care for this. You will be pleased to see how fast the program became by spending about 7KB from the heap. We hope this will not cause problems with users being at the verge of available memory due to other programs being loaded along with TL.

• You can now start the Filtered Spots screen in either "worked" or "QSL" mode for the display of the Band/Mode-Analysis window. Your start-up preference can be selected in the ADVANCED SETUP--->LOG CONFIG---> FEATURES menu. Submenu item "K" will allow you to toggle between both modes and keep your choice for future sessions. Of course you can also toggle between "worked"- and "QSL"-display mode by simply pressing the "Q"-key when you are running the Filtered screen...just as before.

• Following a request by Phil/G4OBK we extended the list of available bands in "Locator-Listings" by 2 more bands. Thus there are 14 separate bands now to select from or to be used in total. This should help in particular those users in analyzing their standings who run the VHF/UHF- bands exhaustively.

• Working on the Lists & Reports facilities we took the opportunity to improve the graphical representation of the summary of choices which you selected from the various submenu items. The report summaries are listed in a separate frame in the lower part of the working screen. Headers and choices are grouped as to provide a much better overview of the selected choices and parameters. This should help to improve faster and better access to these important facilities.

• In response to the new DXCC-10-BAND-Challenge which was established by the ARRL this year we have now implemented suitable means to track this award along with the other DXCC awards. In order to perform this we have extended the DXCC-summaries page which comes up under the F7-key. Pressing the C-key will now allow you to toggle between the 9-bands and the 10-bands (-Challenge-) display.

  Necessary provision for the correct results to appear on the screen is to mark those bands which count for the DXCC-Challenge-Award. This requires to go into the ADVANCED SETUP---->LOG CONFIG---->BANDS menu. We introduced a new parameter called 10-BANDS which becomes visible after you opened the full set of band parameters for the marked DXCC bands. The "10-BANDS" item has to be set to "YES". You need to do this for all bands (...currently for 160m to 6m...) individually but this assures potential for future changes of the DXCC rules and your own intentions of what you want to count.

  Please do not forget to save your entries before you leave the SETUP facilities.

A special thanks goes to Gus/SM5JE for his proposal with respect to this topic.

• We slightly changed TL's behavior in response to the cluster disconnect message. Most clusters return something like " *** DISCONNECTED fm...." after you have been aborted. Unfortunately this message varies with different cluster software versions and eventually TL would not realize having been aborted and remain in "CONNECTED" status. TL will now still respond correctly to a string being received as above but besides this will also react on any DISCONNECTED"-string which appears in any position between 1...10 from the start of a new line.

• ADIF-import revisited: The import routine is outlined above under the description of the new features in V3.21. It has to be pointed out again that the ADIF-standard requires the following fields as a minimum content of a log file record:

  CALL

  DATE

  TIME_ON

  BAND

  MODE

  All other fields which may be available in some other logs may or may not be added. The point is: What shall we do with a field type which is available in one log when its data is imported into another log which does not keep a suitable field definition for it??

  For instance, TL3 does not keep a distinct field for ZONE information. If you now want to import ZONEs from a foreign log you have two choices:

First, in case of a contest exchange it would have been wise to put the ZONE-number into the contest-exchange which will be imported since TL3 has a distinct field for this quantity.

Second, you import ZONE anyway and the import routine collects the data in TL's COMMENT field.

Thus the import in TL3 will automatically assign fields of common contents to the equivalent field in TL. If TL has no such field the data will be put into the COMMENT field. Please note, the COMMENT field can only content 37 characters. So you need to decide on your preferences and a reasonable order for the import. The import routine in TL3 otherwise follows this order:

NAME, +

QTH, + ....if there is still more space...

COUNTY, + ....if there is still more space...

CONTEST-ID, + ....if there is still more space...

CQ-ZONE, + ....if there is still more space...

ITU-ZONE.

The fields are separated by a blank Please note: The two latter quantities ( CQ- and ITU-ZONE )are new with this version By the way: TL4 will manage 30 userdefinable fields plus a number of KEYWORD fields.

COUNTRY.DAT:

• Thanks to an advice from Phil/G4OBK we checked the ITU-zone assignment of the Cook-Islands and corrected it with respect to the available documentation.

• Following Nigel's, G3TXF, advice we corrected the prefix OR4 to belong to Belgium. DT was added for S-Korea whilst P6-P9 were corrected for N-Korea. D5 was added for Liberia and AO for Spain and the Spanish Islands.

• PJ2M would have come up as Sint Marten ( PJ7 ) but is now an ordinary prefix for Netherlands Antilles. It was corrected according to this change in assignments.

Outlook for version 3.24:

• More preparations in view of the ARRL project "The Logbook of the World"
• Lots of internal improvements and preparations towards WINDOWS.
• Main emphasis, however, on TurboLog 4, the WINDOWS version which is under construction!
• Updates on COUNTRY.DAT, bug fixes ( hopefully not necessary....hi )
• Etc. etc.....

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