[WriteLog] M2 mult station setup

[Mike Heideman]

Kostas/SV1DPI wrote:
> How can I say to writelog that the mult station is used as mult1
> (mult 
for the run1 station) or mult2 (mult for the run2) station 
> every moment 
to be according the allowed band changes?

This is a very good question. This can be done in Writelog fairly easily but it is not automatic.

To start with you have to assign initial roles to all of the radios. The confusing part of this is that the menu selection at first glance seems to suggest M/S roles only, although in reality both M/S and M/2 are handled according to the documentation. For M/S the roles are Run/Mult. For M/2 the roles are A/B. I'm assuming the CQWW contest.

For the first Run radio use the Radio menu and select "This window is RUN (A) radio". You've now assigned this radio to "station A" of your M/2. For the second Run radio use the Radio menu and select "This window is MULT (B) radio". You've now assigned this radio to "station B" of your M/2. Ignore the words RUN and MULT in these menu selections, that's for M/S and the A and B are what's used for M/2.

Finally, for the "Mult" radio use the Radio menu and assign it to be either part of "station A" or "station B". Let's say you select "This window is RUN (A) radio" which assigns it to station A.

In the Band Change window for each radio, right-click and choose "Band Changes per hour". This is not set by default because WriteLog does not know whether you are M/2 or M/S. Automatically setting everything through a M/2 or M/S selection sounds ideal, but given the many possible assignments of more than 2 radios to Run/Mult/A/B it doesn't seem practical.

To test the logging and Band Change functionality log some QSOs on station A, changing band on each QSO. Mix it up, logging some QSOs from Station A's Run radio and others from the Mult radio that has been assigned to Station A. Note that the column labeled "m" is logging all of these QSOs with a 0. The band changes are tracked in the row labeled A in the Band Change window. Log one or more QSOs on the B Run radio, also changing bands with each QSO. These QSOs are logged with a 1 in the "m" column and the band changes are tracked in the B row of the Band Change window.

Continue making QSOs with band changes on Station A until 8 QSOs have been made on A. The circle in the A row will change from green to yellow and instead of listing the cumulative band changes on station A it now reads "One band change OK" and has a countdown timer until the end of the clock hour. Logging another QSO on a new band on station A will cause the circle to change from yellow to red and the text to read "Must stay on ??m for" followed by the countdown timer where "??" is the band on which the final QSO was made.

Getting back to the original question, the Mult station can now be reassigned from the A role to the B role to continue making QSOs on the non-Run bands until the 8 band changes have been exhausted on station B. This reassignment is made by choosing "This window is MULT (B) radio" on the Mult radio Writelog instance.

The "m" column is exported into the Cabrillo file as the transmitter ID so the contest rules for M/2 are satisfied.

One word of warning... it's probably best to distribute the Mult radio QSOs between the A and B roles instead of exhausting all of the band changes in either A or B. If you need to make another band change on the Run radio when you've used up all of the band changes for that role then you're either stuck on the wrong band or will have to carefully edit the log or Cabrillo file to avoid exceeding the band change limit. I speak from experience after losing 30+ QSOs in one M/2 effort in which we were not careful enough in editing the logged radio after exceeding the band change limit in one role but not the other.

I hope this helps. Most of the earlier responses didn't seem to understand the question.

73,
-Mike, N7MH