K4PB's ARRLDX CONTEST SOFTWARE BY ALAN HARP K4PB 8113 BELGIUM DR. RALEIGH NC USA 27606 REVISION 3.0 Copyright 1988 Alan Harp PURPOSE The purpose of this program is to provide an expedient means of entering log data into a computer file while checking for dupes, tracking score, country status, and checking rate. This data can then be edited and a file printed that is suitable for submission as a contest log. The intent is to make the programs fast easy and flexible while keeping programs and data storage to a minimum in order to permit storage of a maximum number of QSOs. BRIEF DESCRIPTION Four programs: ARRSTART.EXE This program prompts you for your callsign, country etc. This data is formated into a file and stored on disc as ARSTART.DAT All other programs will read and use this data. If ARSTART.DAT is not present on disc the ARRLLOG.EXE program will chain to this program and run it. This program will chain to ARRLLOG.EXE when complete. This program should be run prior to the contest. ARRLLOG.EXE This program is run during the contest. It starts by accumulating a data base from several files on the disk. ARSTART.DAT has data about you and this contest. DXCCLIST.LST has the DXCC list. It looks for and reads a file CQWWLOG.DAT that would contain the logs for the contest up to now. It reads these logs and accumulates score and dup sheet data creating DUPXX.DAT files for each band as it goes along. QSOs are displayed on the screen as this process progresses. If no CQWWLOG.DAT file is present the program will start logging with QSO #1. The logging process has been designed to allow you to enter data for a prospective QSO prior to actually logging it, telling you dupe and multiplier information. Once data is entered it can be removed or logged at the current time by one keystroke. When possible country and zones are determined by the program. 59 or 599 reports are automatically entered but may be easily changed. Any zone country data that the program determines may be easily changed. Country status are easily accessed as well as DUP sheets if desired. Score and rate are shown on the main logging screen. The program does not keep the log in memory. It does keep DUP data for the current band. DXCC data are in memory. This is done to preserve memory space in order to handle the maximum number of QSOs. (We don't know what that number is yet.) NOTE: The term chain refers to the computer command which means branch and execute another program. (1) ARRLMOD.EXE The purpose of this program is to permit you to modify the log file. When this program is run the entire log file is loaded into memory but only DXCC data is held in memory. With this program you can add, delete or modify QSOs any place in the log. You can chain to this program from ARRLLOG.EXE. When terminated this program chains ARRLLOG.EXE. ARRLFIN.EXE This program creates final logs suitable for submission. This program is not needed until after the contest. It will create an ASCII text file that can be further edited by a text editor if desired. It can also be sent straight to the printer. However you may want to review it on screen with your text editor prior to printing. This program can be run as many times as necessary while branching back to CQWWMOD to make corrections. BRUN45.EXE These programs have been compiled using Microsoft Quick Basic. When executed this program must be present on the disc. If a path statement has not been executed from DOS pointing to it a prompt will ask for the path: Input run-time module path: If you get this message type the path and\or drive name where it exists. If you don't know or have omitted it you may recover without rebooting your system by typing Ctrl-Break. This situation is avoided by adding a path statement to a batch file that executes the program. EQUIPMENT REQUIRED IBM PC or compatible computer with color graphics card. This program will operate with a monochrome monitor on a color graphics card but not via a monochrome card. The program will run with EGA or VGA cards. 640K memory recommended minimum. Fast dot matrix printer, minimum 80 column. A printer buffer will permit you to continue using the computer while printing. It is recommended to have an ASCII text editor near at hand. (We use IBM PE2 -- Personal editor II). The editor can be used for viewing final logs thereby avoiding printing until all corrections are made. The ability to edit will permit you to add any desired personal touch to your logs before printing. The editor may also be useful in modifying the DXCCLIST and provide a second means of modifying the log file. (2) GETTING STARTED Set the system clock and date on your computer to UTC time. You will be using this clock for logging. Prepare an execution diskette or hard disk sub directory with the following files: ARRSTART EXE ARRLLOG EXE ARRLMOD EXE ARRLFIN EXE BRUN45 EXE DXCCLIST LST These programs have been created from basic programs and have been compiled with Micorsoft Quick Basic. BRUN45.EXE must be present on disk and a PATH statement executed in DOS directing to file. If you are operating from a diskette and have a two drive system put these on a bootable diskette. An AUTOEXEC.BAT FILE should execute ARRLLOG.EXE. Put this diskette in drive A. A formatted diskette then should be used in drive B: to receive data files. If your system has a hard drive we suggest that you put these files on a subdirectory and operate from there. Running ARRSTART will collect information about the contest you are operating in, what class, and state or provence you are in. This information is put into a file named ARSTART.DAT. This file must be present for proper execution of the other programs. ARSTART.DAT is read and updated by other programs. It must be present on the same directory with the above programs. When ARRLLOG is executed it will look for a file named ARSTART.DAT. If not found ARRSTART.EXE is executed. All of the programs are executable if ARSTART.DAT is available. ARRLLOG is used to enter logs during or after the contest. ARRLMOD is a program used to make corrections to logs. ARRLFIN reads the log and prepares an ASCII file that can be edited or printed that is suitable for submission. If it is necessary to re-enter this data it can be done by executing ARRSTART.EXE or deleting ARSTART.DAT and executing ARRLLOG.EXE. The program will ask for a disk and path address for storage of log and dup file data. If you have a two floppy drive system you should put a formatted diskette in drive B and specify drive "B:". If you make a subdirectory in your hard drive for this purpose specify your hard drive (with colon) and the path name. Read this manual to become familiar with commands and procedures. Pressing Home will list commands currently available. You must however press a key to return to the logging screen before executing any of these options. (3) Logs are stored in a file named ARRLLOG.DAT on the specified drive or drive/path. If the ARRLLOG program is re-executed it will read the log file and tally dup sheets , country status , and score. The screen will display 22 previous QSOs. QSOs are always entered on the 23rd line of the screen. The 25th line will show pertinent status information. THE BOTTOM LINE First the lower line will show what band you are currently on. The default when starting the program is 160 meters. If there is a log file, the band will be the same as the last QSO. To change bands press Alt-B. This will toggle through the bands. Stop on the desired band. Be sure this is always set to the proper band. Next on the bottom line the status of the FAST feature is shown as ON or OFF. FAST can be toggled by pressing Alt-F. When FAST is ON repetitive parts of the log entry are omitted or automated. When FAST is ON the date of the previous QSO is always entered. Sent RST is always 599 or 59. The program will automatically determine the country from the callsign. Functions that are passed by the FAST feature can be revisited by pressint shift and tab together. If the program selected the wrong country, pressing F1 from the time location will permit manual entry of the country. QSOs that are entered incorrectly can be corrected by the log modification program ARRLMOD.EXE. Pressing Alt-M will chain this program from the logging screen. This process does take time that may be valuable during the contest. It may be desirable to wait to do this although the indicated score may be incorrect. We suggest making notes for QSOs needing modification and doing it later or after the contest if possible. The status of the PRINT ON/OFF feature is displayed next. Type Alt-P to toggle this feature. If you are logging in real time and not keeping a hand written log in parallel you may want to have the printer keeping a journal of your entries incase of computer failure etc. With PRINT ON the printer will print each QSO as it is logged. The next thing displayed on the bottom line is the LOG EACH/TEN feature. This feature is toggled by ALT-L. With LOG each the log file is appended after each QSO entry. If you get tired of listening to the disc drive LOG TEN will append the file every tenth QSO. Log each may prevent loss of data due to a power failure. Last on the bottom line the system time is shown. This will only be updated every time a log entry is completed. Log entries are entered and stored in one single file for all bands. When the final logs are prepared separate logs for each band are produced. (4) ENTERING A QSO: QSOs are always entered on the 23rd line of the screen. QSO number: The first four positions on the line display the QSO entry number. This will serve as a prompt for QSO logging. Remember all bands are entered into one file. This is your total number of QSOs. Not the number for the current band. CALLSIGN: -CURSOR POSITION 17- The cursor then moves to position 17 where the callsign is entered. Callsigns may have up to ten characters. Press enter after typing the callsign. The call is then checked calls previously logged. If it is a DUPE the computer will send a morse code D and "DUP" will be printed in the TIME location. In this event you may continue entry and the program will not award score for the contact. It is logged as a DUP for reference only. You may also abort the entry by pressing ESC. This can be done at any point during entry until time is entered. The country of the call is determined. If the country is a new one the letter C is sent in morse code to alert you. Use this signal to help you make decisions like weather to hang through a long pile-up to work this one or not. SENT RST: -CURSOR POSITION 29- With FAST ON 59 or 599 is entered automatically. You may manually step back to this position by pressing SHIFT & TAB simultaneously. With FAST OFF enter two characters (RS) for phone, three characters (RST) for CW. RECEIVED RST AND POWER: -CURSOR POSITION 34- From this position you may enter six digits for RST and power for CW or five digits for RS and power for phone. Entering three digits or less automatically enters 59 or 599 and assumes the entry is only power. Pressing enter without typing will enter the same RST and power as the previous QSO. KW is an acceptable power entry. (5) COUNTRY: -CURSOR POSITION 56- With FAST ON the program will enter the country determined by the program. If this has failed you will be prompted to enter the country. With FAST OFF you will be prompted to enter the country manually. To enter a country manually you must consult the country list that can be printed by pressing F9 from the logging program. Countries on this list have been arbitrarily numbered. Countries can be entered by the number from the list or by spelling exactly as they are in the list. If the program made an error and selected the wrong country press F1 and the prompt will be opened for manual entry. There is a possibility that new countries will be declared or that we may have omitted countries. In this event we have added EXTRA A through EXTRA E as numbers 323 through 327. These may be used and edited by a text editor in the final log. DATE: -CURSOR POSITION 7- With FAST ON the date from the previous QSO will be entered. If date and time are entered from the TIME position by pressing ENTER with no entry the date is also entered. With FAST OFF enter one or two digits reqresenting the date. If an invalid date is entered the computer will beep and the cursor will be positioned for re-entry. TIME: -CURSOR POSITION 11- For real time logging when you reach this position you are ready to take the final step in entering a log. Once entered you must go through the log correction process to make changes. Pressing enter alone with no other keystrokes will enter Date and Time from the computer clock which should be set to UTC. To manually enter time type up to four digits and press enter. If only three digits are entered a 0 will be automatically placed in front of it. Typing one or two characters will take the first characters of the previous QSO time and insert them. For instance if the previous QSO time was 0632 and the next one is 0635 you only need type 5 and enter. If you want to enter the same time as the previous QSO you only need type the last digit and press enter. (6) If an invalid time was entered the computer will beep and the cursor will move back to the tenth position. RATE The top line of the logging screen will show a RATE that is caluclated over the last ten QSOs. If there are not ten QSOs on the screen or the rate is less that .01 then zero will be displayed. SCORE The upper right of the logging screen has a small score screen that displays the current score. This lets you know how well you are doing at all times during the contest. PROGRAM PROBLEMS Information of the program failing to discern correct countries from valid callsigns or any other program problem should be forwarded to the program writer in order that future editions of the program can correct the problems. FEATURE SCREENS Several screens can be viewed by a keystroke. Logging can be resumed after another keystroke. The screens are: Alt-S Score Alt-C Country Status Alt-D Dup sheet These operations are fast and useful while logging. The following operations are also available from the logging screen but may take time to complete. Alt-M Go to Modify mode where logs can be corrected. F-7 Print DXCC list with current status. F-9 Print dup sheet for current band. F-10 CHAIN program to write final log file F-7 and F-9 will take less time away from logging if your printer has a buffer. Be sure your printer is connected and on line before executing these operations. If your printer is not ready errors may result that can cause you to boot your computer and reload the program. (7) MODIFYING LOGS Pressing Alt-M puts the program in the log correction mode by loading and executing ARRLMOD.EXE. The program is kept separate in order accommodate large log files and keep stored string data to a minimum. Pressing Esc will return to the logging program. The program will read the log files while testing for various discrepancies. Faults will be listed on a screen that can be referred to while corrections are being made. Pressing any key after the logs are read and discrepancies listed will move to the modification screen. You may return to the discrepancy list at any time by pressing Alt-X. Modifications are made from a pointer in the log that is indicated by a highlighted QSO. The highlighted pointer can be moved from one QSO to another by pressing the up and down arrow keys. Screens of 22 QSOs can be changed by the PgUp and PgDn keys. A highlighted QSO can be deleted from the log by pressing Alt-D. A QSO can be inserted above the highlighted QSO by pressing Alt-I. A highlighted QSO can be modified by pressing Alt-M. The procedure for modifying or inserting is done from left to right and doesn't follow the order of regular logging. If the data is the same as the highlighted QSO it can be entered by pressing enter without typing. If you decide the modification is a mistake the modification can be aborted by typing Alt-A. (8) SEARCH FEATURE Pressing Alt-S from the modification screen will take you to another screen where you will be offered three options to search the log and place the highlight on a selected QSO. 1. QSO NUMBER 2. DATE TIME 3. CALL SIGN (NEXT FROM HI-LITED QSO) 4. RETURN TO SCREEN 1. Will further prompt you for a QSO number in the log. Remember this is all bands together. 2. Will prompt you for a six digit number. The first two digits will be date, last four time. 3. Will prompt you for a call sign. This will search only after the highlighted point of the log. 4. Permits you to return with out doing a search. THE FINAL PRODUCT Pressing F10 from the logging screen will execute ARRLFIN.EXE. This program will prompt you for a file name for the final logs. Entering "LPT1" will cause the file to be printed on the line printer directly. Entering a valid file name will cause the program to create an ASCII character file with the final logs. This file then can be viewed and modified with a text editor before printing. If there are problems with the log return to ARRLMOD and fix the problems. Then run this program again. Keep doing this until the log is satisfactory for submission. DUP SHEETS Dup sheets are required to be submitted with logs. Dup sheets can only be printed from the ARRLLOG program by pressing F9. Bands can be changed by typing Alt-B. A dup sheet can be printed for each band and should be submitted with the log. TEST DRIVE Recipients of this program are invited to test the program on last years logs or create a fantasy log working the rarest of DX. Check the programs ability to identify countries. Observe any bugs and report them to us. We want to improve the program when possible. (9) COMMANDS FROM THE LOGGING SCREEN Alt-B Change bands. Current band appears in lower left corner of the screen. Keep pressing key until desired band appears. Alt-C View country status screen. Use PgUp and PgDn to scroll through the list. Alt-D View DUP SHEET for current band. Alt-E Exit program Alt-F Toggles FAST. As shown on bottom center of screen. Alt-S View score screen. (Displays current summary sheet.) Alt-T Enters TIME from the computer clock. (only available when F-8 entering time.) Use either F-8 or Alt-T. F-7 Print DXCC list with current status. F-9 Print dup sheet for current band. F-10 CHAIN program to write final log file Alt-M Go to Modify mode where logs can be corrected. COMMANDS FROM THE MODIFY SCREEN Up Move highlighted QSO up one. Down Move highlighted QSO down one. PgUp Move back 22 QSOs PgDn Move forward 22 QSOs Alt-A Abort modify or insert process Alt-D Delete highlighted QSO Alt-I Insert QSO ahead of highlighted QSO Alt-M Modify the current QSO Alt-S Search feature Alt-X View discrepancies list. Home Display command list Esc Return to logging program (10) AUTOMATIC COUNTRY IDENTIFICATION Much work has been done to provide this feature. The DXCC list and callsigns do not fit well into a database system. In some cases it is impossible to identify countries correctly from the call sign. The following is a list of countries that the program can not identify. If you are fortunate enough to work them in the contest you must enter them into the log manually. 17 ANARTICA 19 SAN FELIX 20 FERNANDEZ 93 M. TORISHIMA 94 OGASAWARA 102 NAVASSA 103 E. CAROLINE 104 W. CAROLINE 105 GUANTANIMO BAY 142 FERNANDO N. 143 ST PETER & P. 144 TRINDADE&MTN. 172 FRANZ JOS. LD. 190 SABLE I. 191 ST PAUL I. 195 LORD HOWE I. 194 WILLIS I. 195 CHRISTMAS I. 196 COCOS I. 197 MELLISH REEF 198 NORFOLK I. 199 HEARD I. 200 MACQUARIE 212 S. GEORGIA IS. 213 ORKNEY IS. 214 S. SANDWICH IS. 215 S. SHETLAND IS. 227 ANDAMAN & N. 228 LACCADIVE IS. 254 SO. COOK IS. 255 NO. COOK IS. (11) ARRLLOG.DAT FILE This is a file of 29 character strings contain logged QSO data. The is an ASCII file and can be viewed and edited with a text editor. We don't recommend this for the novice computer user but the following information is for those who want to manipulate the files for what ever reason. You may want to write a program to enter this data into your own logging system. The following is a view of a few lines of a typical file. Characters 3 - 6 contain Characters 7 - 16 QSO time ------------\ contain CALL SIGN \ / Characters 1 & 2 ---200002ZF2KE 5995990004253 contain month day 200004NP4A 5995990004113 200007PY4PZ 5995995004141 200011J34A 599599 KW4091 200017ZY5AKW 5995991004141 200023HI8DLA 5995991004077 200024LU6EF 5995991004123 2000264N2D 599599 KW3244 2000284M7A 5995991003245 200033HA9RG 5995991003071 200035I4IND 5995993003088 200036HG1IS 5995995003071 Characters 200037YT7A 599599 KW3244 28 - 30 200038OA4ZV 5995995003126 --DXCC country # / / | Characters 17 -19 / | contain sent RST / Character 27 / one of 6 BANDS Characters 20 - 26 contain received RST and Power EDITING THE DXCCLIST An ASCII text editor can be used to edit and modify the DXCCLIST.LST file. About the only modification that can safely be made would be a change of spelling. Do not change the order of the list! Do not delete countries from the list! Anything done to change the sequential number of countries will cause the country identification procedure to fail. We will add new countries to the list in future versions of the program. We have no plans to delete any country from the list. (12) DE K4PB Profit is not the objective for writing this program. The objectives are to write a program that a useful aid to working the ARRLDX contest and to learn programing techniques. Amateur radio is a hobby where the participants contribute their efforts without a gainful return. Feel free to make copies of the program and give it to those who may use it. Please leave all identification of the author intact. The program is not to be distributed for profit or gain. We would like to hear from users who are using and enjoying it. A QSL card would be fine. Maybe we can make WAS or even DXCC. This program has been written with Microsoft Quick Basic and is patterned after a similar program written for the CQWWDX contest. If these programs are accepted by users we will try to improve them and make them available. We may also write programs for more contests as time permits. Since we are not receiving profitable revenue for our efforts we can not be responsible for the accuracy of or effects of the programs use. We are interested in knowing of any problems or bugs. Good luck in the contest! DE K4PB AR. (13)