[Dx4win] New application note: Adding a New Entity

[Jim Reisert AD1C]

Hi Folks,

First a couple of comments about the recent problems.  If you want to skip the
comments, skip the next few paragraphs for the URL of the new application note.

First of all, I was on vacation when FJ was added to the DXCC Entity list,
otherwise I would have released the country file sooner.  However, while not
straightforward, I believe that it is possible to successfully edit the country
file and not cause data corruption.

Second, I work with raw country file data in text format outside the DX4WIN
program.  I have a special utility that Paul wrote to generate DX4WIN.CTY from
this raw data.  So my method of editing country file data is much different
than what a user would do.

I'm sorry if people suffered data corruption while editing their country files.
I can't say specifically what caused the problems, but what appeared to happen
is that the addition of "FJ" pushed all the subsequent entities down by one,
thus linking United States to "JZ0" instead of "K".  Since JZ0 doesn't have
states, state data in the logbook may have been lost.  I can only see this as
being a problem if the logbook is OPEN while editing the country file, but
DX4WIN does not let you edit the country database unless the logbook is closed.
 Again, this is just a theory, and I can't actually explain what happened.

I hope this unfortunate incident has impressed on you the need for regular
backups.  I have previously written a long application note on DX4WIN backup
strategies, and I suggest you read it again:

    http://dx4win.ad1c.us/appnotes/backup.htm

Unfortunately, this is like closing the barn door after the horse escapes.

If you have upgraded from another DX4WIN version in the past, it's possible
that you can recover some of your missing/corrupted logbook data from an
earlier installation of the program (look at the dates of your old .DXL files).
Note that there is a known import bug 7.03 which caused imported QSOs in the
DX4WIN# (.DXQ) format to all be marked as Invalid. There is no multiple QSO
operation to change these QSOs to invalid, however.  Paul is aware of the
problem and it should be fixed in the next version.


Today, I have written the following application note describing how to add a
new entity:

    http://dx4win.ad1c.us/appnotes/entity.htm

I would appreciate if a few people could apply these instructions to the
*previous* country file (that does not contain FJ) that you can download from:

    http://www.country-files.com/dx4win/download/DX4WCTY_20071211.zip

and let me (or the reflector) know of their experiences (i.e. did I leave out
any crucial steps?).

I empathize with those of you who lost data, but there's not much I can do to
help you recover it.  Read the backup application note; there's a chance that
you may find one of DX4WIN's internal log backups from before you made the
country file change.  Or you might have a log from an earlier version of DX4WIN
that you can use to help restore the missing data.

If you have any questions, please reply to the reflector.

73 - Jim AD1C


--
Jim Reisert AD1C/Ø, <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu>, http://www.ad1c.us