Hello WriteLog users,
The following is a list of 'bugs' in the ARRL UHF Contest module, the ARRL
VHF QSO Party module and/or the ARRL VHF Sweepstakes module. Some of these
have been noted by myself and others here and in direct communications with
the appropriate WriteLog authors. I'd really appreciate it if some or
all of this was dealt with before the next contest(s) for the modules in
question. If that is too soon for the authors, I would also be willing to
donate my own time to debugging the existing module scripts (I'm told they
are in C++.) if the uncompiled scripts are available.
(I don't want to reinvent the wheel however.)
Bugs:
1) Call sign duping - W1AW, W1AW/R, and F6/W1AW are duped as
separate staions. [Only the actual call sign should be dup checked.]
2) Beam Heading window - As soon as a Grid Square is entered in the Call
Sign
Entry window, bearing and distance to that location should appear.
[Your own location should use the full 6 character grid, and the
calculation
should allow for the station being worked to give either 4 or 6.]
3) Cabrillo File generator should limit information on the 'Catagory:' line
to
actual allowed classes of entry. [UHF: Single Operator Low Power,
Single
Operator High Power, Rover, Multioperator][VHF: add to above: Single
Operator Portable, Limited Multioperator] [While single band awards are
given out, single band is not a listed class of entry.]
4) VHF contest modules only: type in a call sign without hitting the
space-bar
and QSOs made with that call appear in the Check Call window, except for
QSOs on 6 meters. To see if you have worked someone on 6 meters you have
to hit the spacebar. Then a dup will be indicated in the Check Call
window (and if the frequency in the computer is set to 6 meters also in
the
Call Entry window). However as soon as you hit 'enter' to log a QSO
(on any band for that call sign), the dup info in the Check Call window
for a 6 meter contact disappears again. [Dup info should be uniformly
available.]
5) This 'bug' was noted in the ARRL VHF QSO Party module. I assume it can
be
found in the others, but I haven't checked. Properly duped contacts
became improperly handled when marked as 'unclaimed'. (We operated
6 bands in June but originally were going to file as a Limited Multi-
operator station. When we marked the contacts we could not claim
for score in that class as 'unclaimed' the Cabrillo File generator
changed some of the unclaimed QSOs into marked dups. It then
deleted the QSO points for the 'unclaimed' contacts, but did not delete
grids worked from the totals. It therefore also calculated the score
wrongly.) [ARRL requests that Cabrillo logs list the unclaimed contacts
for check log purposes. The unclaimed contacts were not in the Cabrillo
log made by the generator. I have not looked at the Cabrillo log specs
to see how they are supposed to be listed yet 'unclaimed,' but there must
be a way to do so since they are asking for them.]
6) The correct frequency for a typical red diode laser is listed on several
webs sites that sell them as being in the area of 474 THz, not
300000 MHz. [Green ???]
[Hey ARRL is green another band?] <-- Just kidding although red and green
are probably farther apart in MHz than any two regular ham bands.
Additional features I'd like to see added to the VHF/UHF contest modules:
1) A VHF stations worked database that would remember antenna bearing and
bands worked from one contest to another. [This is not cheating. The
information in this database would be only that which is available to
the station which generated it. A case might be made however that
sharing this information between stations (in the manner that super-
check partial callsigns are shared) would be cheating, at least for
single ops.] [Change the color in the Check Call window of bands
worked in previous contests.] (The only program I've ever known of
that stored this information was the one I wrote when the computer
I was logging with used a Z80 for a processor and DBaseII for the
programming language. I've missed it ever since we went to CT soon
after it came on the market. Now that we've found a better program
its time to get it back.)
2) For most of the country the initial frequency listed on each band
might as well be the calling frequency for that band (i.e. 144200 and
10368100) rather than the lower band edge. It seems that's where
everyone operates anyway. Many of us operate narrowband radios
on all these bands and the exact pass frequency is needed, not
just 10000M(Hz). [For VHF/UHF it probably would be better to start at
MHz not KHz.] (For many of us the rigs on many of the bands
in VHF and UHF contests are IF rigs which are too old to have ports
for frequency info on the net. Yet passing is easier if the real
frequency
appears than just a band indicator. Yes we can all enter the info
from the keyboard. I'm just trying to save a few moments of set up time
on each band. As for frequency info from the rigs themselves, at a
multioperator station with separate radios for each band up to 48 GHz
plus
lasers, the number of computers, ports, and level converters gets a
bit
costly.)
BTW nothing in this message is to be taken as a indication that we are
unhappy
in any way with the principals (authors and distributors) of WriteLog. This
is
by far the best logging software for contests that we have seen or used. The
ease and reliability of networking with WriteLog makes any problems it has
very minor compared with every other logger we have tried. But any program
can be improved. Also I'm not using the 'royal' we in this message. I'm
writing for a group of hams who contest from multioperator stations regularly
and
where I used 'we' I meant all of us. Where it was only me I used 'I'...
73 for now,
Jim
w0eea@aol.com
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