[na-user] questions on 10.34

[dap14@chrysler.com]

Addressing questions from WW3S:

>Is there a way to add a prefix on the fly as in CT. the country.dat
>didn't recognize TO8B as FM. How can I add it now ?? CT allows TO=FM
>in the callsign field.

This is a very useful feature for those odd times when you need to
tweak the country scoring on the fly.  However, this is a tremendously
complicated coding exercise.  You have to add the country to the
internal scoring tables and rescore the log (not in itself a horrible
task), but then re-read the ACII country file from the hard disk and
add a new text entry for that country (or else the new country will be
missing the next time the log is re-loaded).  K1EA told me that this
was the most awful coding task to get right that he did in CT.

What is the alternative?  What we do is use Alt-N to make an entry in
the notepad and fix it after the contest.  (Its always good to gain a
mult or to once the contest is done :-).)

I feel that every NA user should know how to edit and regenerate the
country tables.  AD1C does a stellar job keeping the tables up to date
but there are almost always one or two unusual stations that pop up
during a given contest.  Editing the table with an ASCII editor is not
too hard.  We'll do a DATOM Tech Note on this in the very near future.

>The enter key from the numeric keypad doesn't work when sending a
>packet spot but seems to work otherwise.

Hmmm...we'll look into this.

>Is there a way to send the qsx freq when split as in CT ( CT allows
>the "/" key between freq.. 7050/7203 would be sent as 7050 qsx 7203)

This could be added, but be aware that NA does not store the split
frequency.  In other words, if you work IQ4A 7050/7203 then log the
QSO, if you move the cursor back up and send the spot NA does not
know the guy was worked split.  The feature will only work when you
are actually entering the spot.  On the other hand, is this really
such a time saver over typing IQ4A 7050 qsx 7203?

>I think the coordinates for 3V8 are incorrect. Got a real weird
>beam heading on 3V8BB.  All the others seemed ok.

I'll look into this.

>The autocheck partial will display calls twice if you have worked
>the station; apparently once from your log and once from the
>database. Not a big problem but what I would call a minor annoyance.

This does not happen consistantly, or it WOULD be a major annoyance.
It seems that there is some small bug that under certain circumstances
the call appears twice.  It does not happen every time.  Its also
possible that the call appears twice in the database - I've not
confirmed this so this is not a knock on AD1C.  However, a few years
ago some other folks were publishing callsign databases that had lots
of bugs in them and we saw stuff like this.

>Can the zone be added to be displayed with the rest of the country
>info/F10 key?

We would have to make the Check Partial Window smaller.  I'm not sure
what benefit this would be - if you have a call in the window, pressing
space bar dumps the zone into the field.

>I can say the only thing I miss from CT is the mouse support and the
>ability to resize the windows/VGA mode.

The NA user community was polled a year or so ago and the vote was quite
markedly against using the mouse to control NA.  On the other hand,
50-line VGA mode with movable windows is one feature consistantly asked
for.  50 line mode would be easy if we could abandon 25 line support.
Are there many NA users still using non-VGA screens?  As for movable
windows, I started working on this last year but it turns out to be a
huge project.  Maybe if I quit contesting altogether I'd have time to do
this stuff...

73,

Dave/K8CC




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