[Dx4win] V8.01 Observations (long)

Wed Aug 5 11:35:27 EDT 2009

Hi Randy,

I do second your very accurate review. I've found the same CW problems; 
yes, should be nice to change the asterisk in the reports and get back 
the listing report to the version 7 format as well.

73 DX de PY2YP - Cesar

Randy Farmer wrote:
> I downloaded and had a look at the new version today. I don't yet 
> have my license key, but I was able to import my version 7 log and 
> check out some of the new features. Importing the Version 6/7 format 
> log file into Version 8 was absolutely trouble free. I did have to 
> re-do some of my custom Logbook Report formats to account for the new 
> fields, but this was no problem at all. All of my Selections and 
> Group definitions imported perfectly.
> 
> I'm especially glad to see the improvements to the LOTW record 
> keeping and the elimination of the need to explicitly filter the log 
> by date selection to get accurate DXCC CW statistics. The testing 
> I've done so far has concentrated on checking out the DXCC CW 
> reporting. Unfortunately, I have found some problems.
> 
> I have around 56K QSOs in my log, the vast majority being CW. The log 
> files go back to 1965, so there are a good many CW QSOs in the log 
> that were made prior to being eligible for CW DXCC credit. Some of 
> these have been submitted for Mixed and Band DXCC credit. I also keep 
> track of my DXCC records using a fairly elaborate Excel spreadsheet 
> and make sure it's updated every time the DX4WIN log changes and/or I 
> receive new DXCC credits from ARRL. My standard procedure is to do a 
> quick compare of the DX4WIN DXCC Summary reports against this 
> spreadsheet each time after importing LOTW data or making any other 
> changes to the log.
> 
> I checked out the Version 8 DXCC Summary reports and found right away 
> that regardless of the selection made in the dropdown boxes the 
> Summary report ALWAYS gives the stats for All Bands / All Modes. The 
> good news is that these stats are completely accurate, including the 
> CW numbers. I tried all combinations of the "Modes" and "Bands" 
> dropdown choices and always got the All modes / All bands report.
> 
> I then took a look at the Listing reports for various band and mode 
> combinations.To use the Listings data, I use the Write to File option 
> to dump the report data to csv format to import into Excel. It's 
> disappointing that while the Listing report format has changed 
> slightly, it STILL uses the asterisk (*) character to designate 
> "Checked" status. The asterisk is a special wild card character in 
> Excel, and directly importing the csv file makes it impossible to 
> edit and manipulate the data -- weird things happen. This means I 
> still need to first run the csv file through Wordpad or some similar 
> text editor to do a search and replace of the asterisk with some 
> other character so I can use the file in Excel. It would be real nice 
> if the report output used some other character to show "Checked" status.
> 
>   All of the DXCC reports except for CW were completely correct. 
> There were multiple discrepancies for CW DXCC, which upon close 
> examination all turned out to be the result of counting pre-1975 QSOs 
> for CW credit. If these old records were excluded from the 
> statistics, the CW report would be totally accurate. I have taken 
> great care in setting the Mixed, Band and Mode credit flags for these 
> older QSOs in the log file, and none has the Mode credit flag set, 
> yet the report claimed that they were credited for CW. Apparently the 
> internal logic of the program looks at neither the QSO date nor the 
> status of the DXCC Mode flag when it generates the DXCC report.
> 
> So we're almost there... The Summary gets the CW statistics correct, 
> so there's clearly some logic that runs on QSO date, but it's 
> obviously incompletely implemented.
> 
> Also regarding the Listing report, when including Deleted entities 
> the new version sorts its output in alphabetical Prefix order without 
> regard for whether the prefix is for a Deleted entity or not. The 
> older versions put all the Deleteds in alphabetical order at the 
> bottom of the prefix list, a MUCH better way to present the data. I 
> had to immediately re-sort the imported csv files to get them in the 
> same order as the data from Version 7. Please restore the Version 8 
> Listing report to the same format as the Version 7 and earlier listings!
> 
> There is also some sort of internal coding error that caused me a bit 
> of hair pulling. For some reason, while the prefix for Minami 
> Torishima is JD1/M, the Listing report renders it as JD1/W and thus 
> interchanges the lines for Minami Torishima and Ogasawara, JD1/O. It 
> was no fun dealing with this until I took a close look at the report 
> and saw the incorrect prefix.
> 
> Apart from these small problems, I like the looks of the enhancements 
> to this new version of DX4WIN. I'm looking forward to getting my 
> license key and doing more testing with live hardware. Thanks to Paul 
> for a significant improvement in this new generation of the program. 
> With a little tuning it will be a great leap forward.
> 
> 73...
> Randy, W8FN
> 
> ______________________________________________________________
> Dx4win mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/dx4win
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:Dx4win at mailman.qth.net
> 
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> 
> __________ Informação do ESET NOD32 Antivirus, versão da vacina 4306 (20090804) __________
> 
> A mensagem foi verificada pelo  ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
> 
> http://www.eset.com
> 
> 
> 
> 