[CQ-Contest] Contesting with an Apple Mac computer?

[Anthony Rodgers]

Hi John,

I am a little pistol, and an almost exclusively Mac user. Work, home, 
laptop, the works. Except contesting. The only non-Mac machine in my 
life.

Why? There is an excellent radio-interfaced logger for Mac called 
MagLoggerDX (http://www.dogparksoftware.com/MacLoggerDX.html). As a 
general logger/DX Cluster client/radio memory manager/schedule 
minder/awards tracker/QSL manager/(you get the idea), it is peerless.

However, as a contest logger, I still use TRLog on DOS. There is 
nothing like TR for having the contest exchange pattern built into its 
very DNA - it has DVP and keying built right in and, most importantly 
for me, integrated right into the flow of a contest exchange.

You're running a mini-pileup, you enter a call and TR sends your 
exchange - no function keys to remember to press, no mouse to move, 
nothing. Enter the correct call along with the exchange elements in 
most any order in the exchange window and, with one key press, TR 
corrects the call, sorts out which piece of the exchange is which, 
enters them into the correct fields and sends your QSL (can you tell 
it's the week after SS?).

I don't think I could run at 100+/hr (stop laughing, big guys - my best 
is 128!) with a logger that didn't work this way. The only exception is 
RTTY - then it's Mac all the way, with W7AY's excellent cocoaModem 
(http://homepage.mac.com/chen/), but that's a more leisurely pursuit 
than CW or phone, at least at my house.

I use Mac for everything else - literally. The DOS machine runs TRLog 
and nothing else. DX Cluster (including a feed into TRLog), 
propagation, antenna modelling, CW decoding, Morse code tutors, 
satellite tracking (again, you get the idea) - there's a ton of 
superior amateur radio programs for Mac.

Now, if someone would just port TRLog to Mac OS X..... how about it, 
Tree ;-) I keep meaning to try TLF, but haven't gotten round to it yet.

Hope this helps - contact me directly if you want to discuss more.

73 de VA7IRL,
--
Anthony Rodgers
Email: VA7IRL at rac.ca
iChat/AIM/MSN ID: arodgers at mac.com