[SD-User] Amending "My Call"

[Paul O'Kane]

From:
Sandro i7ALE <sandro at i7ale.com>
Date:
13/12/2023, 14:36

Good afternoon.

I wanted to test/play for the next Marconi Club "Qso Party Day" on next 
6th of january.

After a few qso I realized that when I have "created" this contest in SD 
I have inserted by mistake my contest call IR7A.
-in Italy a contest call is authorised only for major contests.
-I was sending the CW with the paddles, signing as I7ALE.


Since when restarting a contest there is no access to the initial 
"settings" page, if this happens in a real contest how do I change IR7A 
to I7ALE, both for the qso already in the log and for all the further 
ones? (and the IR7A in red in the attached screenshot). I tried without 
success to modify my call in the .ini and .all files.

Thank you!
Sandro, i7ALE

________________________________


There are several issues here.

When starting a new contest log, it is the user's responsibility to 
confirm that the call is correct, and to change/edit it if necessary 
before continuing to the logging screen.  At the end of the first screen 
of a new log, and before going to the logging screen, SD asks the 
question "Continue to log QSOs?" and, underneath, it says "Enter N to 
change your callsign".  If you accept the default "Y" (by hitting 
Enter), you've lost the chance to edit your call for this log - you're 
supposed to know what you're doing :-)

If, nevertheless, you have logged QSOs in a live contest (not a test 
log) with the "wrong" callsign, the simplest option is to keep going 
with that log.  SD doesn't know what call you're actually using on-air.  
If you're using WinKey or SD's internal keyer, edit the CW messages to 
show your "on-air" call.  For example, if the F1 message is "#C #C TEST" 
or "IR7A IR7A TEST", change it (using Shift-F1) to "I7ALE I7ALE TEST".  
You'll need to do the same for other CW messages that include your call.

After the contest, use SDCHECK to create your Cabrillo log (with the 
"wrong" call IR7A) and use the Search & Replace option in NotePad to 
replace IR7A with I7ALE.  Then upload your Cabrillo log.  If you're not 
familiar with Search & Replace in NotePad, test it on an old log first.

You can also use Search & Replace on the .ALL file but, in this case, 
you MUST replace "like with like" in terms of the number of characters.  
For example, replace "IR7A " with "I7ALE" - note the single space 
character after IR7A.  That way, you're replacing 5 characters with 
another 5 characters, and the structure of the .ALL file will be preserved.

73,
Paul EI5DI