[SD-User] SDI and Russian EU Ref Numbers

[Paul O'Kane]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "THOMAS TAYLOR" <thomas.taylor19 at btinternet.com>

>  When logging RI1AA, SDI showed EU... for completion   and
> I typed in 133 ro make it EU133.    No Problem.

This whole thing is a litle complicated, but I'll try
to keep it simple.

SDI attempts to make things as easy as possible for users,
and tries to save time by omitting what it believes to be
unnecessary or redundant fields.

When you enter a callsign that might represent an island
(as determined by the corresponding country, or call-area, 
entry in SDIOTA.CTY) SDI takes you to the IOTA reference
field after you enter the serial. The prefix (or part-call)
RI1A in included in the UA1A (St. Petersburg) record in
SDIOTA.CTY, and that's why SDI takes you to the IOTA
Reference field for RI1AA. On the other hand, if you enter
a Czech callsign, SDI knows (again from SDIOTA.CTY) that
there are no Czech islands - and logs the QSO when you
enter the serial.

> However when logging RK3MWL/1 and RI1CA - both who were
> saying they were EU133, once I hit ENTER after their
> Serial Number, the QSO was entered into the log

That's because SDI sees RK1M (that's not a typo) and RI1C
as European Russia (UA), and not St. Petersburg (UA1A),
and does not expect an island reference.

One solution (for me) is to add all possible island
references to the European Russia record in SDIOTA.
The only disadvantage is that SDI will then take you
to the IOTA Reference field for all European Russia
callsigns - and the vast majority will have no
reference. On balance, I think it's better to add them.

There was a more insidious problem related to those
two callsigns RK3WML/1 and RI1CA.  They were both
listed in IOTA07.LST (which I was using), and SDI
autofilled the IOTA Reference correctly.  However,
those fields were lost (dropped) when the QSO was
logged.  That was a bit disconcerting, to say the
least.  Of course, you can immediately edit the logged
QSO, so long as you haven't forgotten the reference :-)

73,
Paul EI5DI