[Dx4win] DX4WIN.CTY country file Release #21.2 - 27 January 2021

[Jim Reisert AD1C]

If you don't chase Islands on the Air (IOTA), you can skip this message.
If you do, but are not a DX4WIN v9.xx user, you can skip this message.

In the early part of 2019, I started adding IOTA callsigns to the
country file for DX4WIN 9.xx.  This was so that if you log a
particular callsign on a particular date, the IOTA field in your
logbook would be filled in automatically, even if there is no direct
mapping of prefix or country to IOTA for that country.  DX4WIN even
has a Multiple QSOs operation, "Check IOTAs", which will fill in the
IOTA field for you if it is empty.

These IOTA callsigns were harvested from DX spots beginning with the
year 2010.  Though I wrote some filtering and sorting software to
enable me to find the callsigns and IOTA, there is still a lot of
manual work involved in actually turning the data into country file
entries.  As of 2019, I had finished almost all continents and Europe
up to callsigns beginning with I* (there are none that begin with J*
or K*).  Then I got busy with work and other things and never
finished.

Fast forward to 2021 (feel free to skip 2020).  I finally got started
on this again, trying to finish Europe.  This time, I got through all
the callsigns beginning with L*, M* and O* (none begin with N*).  This
resulted in about 1400 new callsign-to-IOTA mappings for past European
IOTA operations.  Because much of the work was done by hand, there are
bound to be (and probably are) errors.

If you are an active IOTA chaser, please run the "Check IOTAs" action
under "Multiple QSOs operations" (after first saving your log).  This
will identify mismatches between your log and the DX4WIN database, and
you can then search your log for IOTAMSG in the "Notes for this QSO"
field.  Please investigate any errors, especially those that have been
confirmed via QSL card, LoTW or Club Log.  If there is an error,
please tell me the callsign, date and correct IOTA and I will fix the
database.  I would suggest not saving your logbook after doing this,
unless you are confident that all the changes were correct.  You can
simply "File | Open" your log without saving the changes.

73 - Jim AD1C

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