[Dx4win] V8.01 Observations (long)

[Randy Farmer]

>I too am excited that Paul finally implemented a start date for DXCC 
>CW.  I also have QSOs dating back to 1967.  I have been comparing 
>the Summary totals and the Listing totals for CW between ver 8.0 and 
>7.07.  I personally like the way that Paul has implemented the DXCC 
>Listing for CW.  For example, I have a CW contact with ZL4OL/A from 
>1971 that I had submitted for DXCC Mixed and 20M Band credit.  Prior 
>versions would always attempt to submit this contact for DXCC CW 
>credit.  Now it does not.  When I do a DXCC Listing for CW mode, 
>there is an asterisk on 20M for that contact -- and that is correct 
>since I did make a CW contact on that band -- and I want to see it 
>since I may have submitted it for DXCC Band/Challenge credit. 
>However, the new Listing for CW does not have an asterisk for that 
>contact under the first column which is CW mode.  And that is 
>correct also, since it occurred prior to 1975.  The Listing also 
>works fine for Deleted Countries prior to 1975.  For example, I have 
>a number of KZ5 contacts on CW that prior versions would always try 
>to submit for CW credit.  The Listing shows asterisks on the bands 
>on which I made those QSOs on CW, but does not show an asterisk 
>under the CW mode column -- which is exactly the way that I would 
>want the data displayed.

Now that you explain it this way, I see your point. I was myopically 
trying to do stats only for DXCC-eligible CW contacts, but since 
there's no per band CW DXCC award there's really no point in 
segregating the older CW QSOs from the analysis. If you think of the 
asterisk as an indicator that means "Don't bother submitting this one 
for DXCC CW" as opposed to "This one has already been credited for CW 
DXCC" (a subtle but important distinction) Paul's logic all makes 
sense for the reasons you cite. I can and will live happily with this 
convention in my own offline record keeping. As you point out, the 
entity CW DXCC credits are correct now.

I'm still trying to figure out if there's some sort of a bug in 8.01 
in the Reports -> Summary function, however. No matter what 
selections I make from the dropdown list of options I ALWAYS get the 
summary for All bands / All modes. Does this happen to just me (on 
two different installations on two different computers) or does 
anyone else see this problem? It for sure worked just fine in version 
7 and earlier.

>I still do not see a way to easily submit both Lotw and Card 
>confirmations for DXCC.  I wish the Submission report would list how 
>the contacts were confirmed -- e.g. Lotw, Card, etc.  That way I 
>could more easily separate out Lotw submissions from Card 
>submissions when making an online submission of both types via the 
>Lotw website.

This is what originally drove me to set up separate tracking 
functions in Excel. Since the inception of LoTW I had nothing but 
troubles getting submissions together. It took work in Excel to 
figure out what was going on anyway, so I just started doing the 
whole submission thing that way. The fact that the program logic also 
will invariably select a Phone QSO for a Band or Mixed submission 
when there's a  perfectly good CW QSO that could fill the same bill 
doesn't help, either. I'm just a CW kind of guy, and I'll always 
submit CW stuff when I can :)

Thanks for the slap upside the head that got me out of a bad rut in 
my thinking. I'll now quit bellyaching about the handling of DXCC CW 
and enjoy the features of the new version.

73...
Randy, W8FN