[Ham-Mac] FW: The ARRL Letter blurb on LoTW for Mac

[Richard Kriss]

The following is appended for that do not get the ARRL Letter.

Kudos to Steve Palm N9YTY - the Mac ham community appreciates your efforts

73 de Dick, aa5vu@arrl.net

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From: "ARRL Letter Mailing List" <letter-dlvy@arrl.org>
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 21:44:50 -0500
Subject: The ARRL Letter, Vol 22, No 44

==> LOGBOOK OF THE WORLD NOW WORKS ON MACINTOSH COMPUTERS

ARRL's Logbook of the World continues to grow and expand, and it's now
operational on the Macintosh OS X operating system. Mac enthusiast Steve
Palm, N9YTY, compiled a version of TrustedQSL to work with newer Macintosh
computers. The program was built using MacOS version 10.2--"Jaguar"--and
was tested on versions 10.2 and 10.3, the new "Panther" upgrade.

Palm, said he had a lot of fun porting the TQSL code to the Mac
environment, and was satisfied that he was able to help fill a real need
for Mac users. "There was a lot of discussion about this on the HamMac
mailing list. It was obvious that many Mac users were looking for
something," he said. Palm, the author of EchoMac, a Macintosh OS X
EchoLink program, said it took about a week of concentrated effort to
complete the port to the Mac platform.

"The base code developed by the TrustedQSL team at ARRL didn't really have
any issues that prevented it from being ported to the Mac, so kudos go out
to them for doing a good job writing portable code," Palm said. He tackled
a few Windows-Mac translation issues and made the Macintosh program "more
Mac-like," with configuration and help files embedded in the program so it
can be installed in drag-and-drop fashion.

ARRL Web and Software Development Manager Jon Bloom, KE3Z, said he's also
working on integrating Palm's MacOS changes into the official source tree
so that other Mac developers will be able to easily build a library and
their applications from the source code. The TQSL software also runs on
the Windows platform, and Red Hat Linux versions 7.2 and 8.

Palm, a ham since 1994 and a programmer since the early 1980s, said that
with the new program development tools Apple has recently released, he
believes that more Macintosh Amateur Radio software authors will now get
involved with porting existing ham programs and creating new ones.

In the six weeks the system has been open to the public, Logbook of the
World has accepted logs from 4,000 users from 158 DXCC entities. These
users--all with secure digital certificates--have uploaded nearly 21
million QSO records into the system, as of November 3. All of those
contacts have so far resulted in more than 350,000 records being
generated, Bloom said.

ARRL Assistant to the CEO David Patton, NN1N, said Logbook continues to
evolve, with the ability to claim confirmed contacts for ARRL awards
credit being just around the corner. He said the cost per credit would be
between 15 and 25 cents, making each credit far cheaper than the cost of
mailing a paper QSL card with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and
possibly an international reply coupon, as well.

For a complete overview on Logbook of the World, just head on over to the
LoTW Web page at www.arrl.org/lotw or check out the article by ARRL
Membership Services Manager Wayne Mills, N7NG, on page 46 of the October
2003 QST.

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