[Dx4win] New application note: Adding a New Entity

[Alan Zack]

Thanks for the info, Jim.

You have always been very prompt in providing CTY file updates, 
even with this one for FJ, especially considering your recent 
move, it being the Holiday Season, and the amount you are paid 
for your hard work.

I, for one, knew that you would be putting out a new CTY file in 
short order and reading of the problems others were having 
decided to wait until I had your expert update.  I didn't see any 
real rush to change things.  I knew what bands I had worked them 
on and what bands I needed.  The only reason I could see to rush 
to update the CTY file is if someone was ready to send their 
cards in to the ARRL or attend a ARRL Convention where cards 
would be checked to assure they got credit for the new country. 
Even then, they wouldn't really need the new CTY file to have 
recent FJ contacts count as a new country.  So, as the saying 
goes, haste makes waste.

IOTA:

One thing I find interesting about FJ becoming a separate country 
is how the RSGB IOTA people are going to handle it.  St. Barts 
(FJ) is IOTA NA-146, St. Martin (FS) is IOTA NA-105.  It appears 
DX4WIN automatically assigned NA-105 to FS which included St. 
Barts.  After I did the CTY file update I find my only contacts 
with NA-146 (ST. Barts) are the new FJ/OH2AM and FJ5KH contacts. 
That means I need to pull out all my FS QSL's and check if the 
address info shown on the card is St. Barts or St. Martins.  I 
usually look for an IOTA number on the QSL's as I log them in as 
being received to be sure DX4WIN has the IOTA number correct but 
not all cards show the IOTA number on them.

Thanks again Jim for your hard work.  Enjoy (HI!) the snow there 
in CO.
_______________________________________________________
Alan Zack
Amateur Radio Station K7ACZ

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Reisert AD1C" <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu>
To: <dx4win at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 1:39 PM
Subject: [Dx4win] New application note: Adding a New Entity


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
_______________________________________________