[AReU] Computer Logging

[Robert Haynes]

I am planning to get back on the lowbands.

Can you recommend a computerized logging program?

If I were designing my own logging program for the laptop:

            As soon as I type in the callsign of the other station, the computer would log in the date and time the QSO began automatically.

            As soon as I finished the QSO I would type a command or keystroke into the laptop and my computer would automatically enter the time and date I logged off.

            Since I am a Road Runner user I am always on line, so the ideal logging program would check into a data base as soon as I typed the callsign and display the other ham operator's name, address, and class of license.  Therefore in order to send a QSL card I would only have to verify that the information I already have on my screen is correct during the QSO, rather than go to the effort of copying an address off the air, particularly a foreign one.

            The ideal computer logging program would automatically send an e-mail QSL card

            When I receive a snail mail QSL card or e-mail QSL card, the software would accept the information and add an entry where I logged the contact, acknowledging that my QSO had been confirmed.

            It would also give me the option to let my printer make a QSL card I could mail, using information already in the computer.  All I would have to do was enter the RST report during the QSO.  I would be able to add comments to the QSL card, whether it is paper or electronic.

            There would be a way to enter remarks about our conversation in the in my computer log while I am on the air and also after the QSO has finished.

            If I contacted the same operator even years and hundreds of contacts later, my screen would display my entry from the original QSO(s) as soon as I type in the callsign of the other operator, including my original remarks

            At my option, the computer would display the other contacts I have made in the state or country of the other operator

            At my option, once I log off, I could have the computer display all contacts I have logged for a state, a county, or a country and also display all countries worked if I want to see the list

 

We can put a man on the moon, so it seems possible to me that if I enter a callsign, RST numbers, remarks and tell the computer when I log off, all the rest ought to be possible.

 

When I earned my novice license in 1975 I used a handwritten logbook, a world map of callsign prefixes and a callsign book.  I spent time listening to the signal from Colorado each time I got ready to go on the air, to carefully synchronize my station clock, figuring out how to correct it to Universal Coordinated Time.  It seems to me all that information should be available by computer.

 

The laptop I just bought my wife has wireless capability, so hopefully my ham transmitter would not interfere with my internet connection and I could just buy and load some software and set our laptop on my radio table and be ready for some fun of the radio sort.

 

Care to recommend the software?



73,

Bob WB4AKA