HOME Gallery Graphics Hardware Software Radio Wiki Links Donate About Me About This Site

The configuration program

When you start the program it will ask for the contest year. The year is used as the name of the sub-directory containing your configuration information, log files, and summary sheets.

• An SWL may use the programs by entering 'SWL' as the first three characters in the call field.
• The station type (Fixed/Mobile/Rover) is automatically set based on the call sign entered. Mobile stations should use /M at the end of their call and rover stations should use /R.
• CW keying mode can be set to normal or inverse. The setting for this will depend on the interface circuitry you use between your computer and your radio. If the radio is keyed up when you start the logging program, even when you aren't sending CW, change the keying mode.
• TONE is the frequency of the tone that will be heard when the logging program is sending morse code. If you can hear a sidetone from your radio, you can prevent the program from sounding the morse code as it is being sent by setting the tone to 0.
• The program normally makes various audible beeps or noises when it detects input errors, duplicate entries, or new multipliers. If you find these noises annoying or prefer the program to be silent, you can turn off the noises by setting this option to disabled. This is independant of tones used during CW message playback.
• The labels displayed for each function key used to send a CW message and the messages themselves can be changed from this program. The labels and messages are stored in the configuration file.
• For additional information on editing the CW messages, see the 'Edit mode keys' section below.

The logging program

When you start this program it will ask for the contest year. After the contest year you might be asked for the multiplier code for the location in which you are operating. This multiplier code is the one you will be issuing as part of the exchange with other stations. The program will not ask you if you are in or out of Ontario as it is able to determine that from your call sign.

You will not be asked for a multiplier code if the program is able to determine it from your call sign. Once you have entered your multiplier, you will not be asked for it again unless you are a mobile or rover station.

The main screen of this program is composed of eight different sections. Going clockwise from the top left are the band and mode totals, score summary, multiplier summary, multipliers needed and worked, contact rates, CW messages, and logging screen. In the middle is a display of the date and time which is updated once per minute. If the date and time does not match the UTC date and time, see the notes in the section Setting the clock.

Mode Totals

• Your current band and mode of operation are indicated by the position of the line with the orange bar.
• Displays number of contacts made on each band (including duplicates).
• All valid bands from 160m (1.8MHz) through .23m (1296MHz) are listed except for .33m (902MHz) and the WARC bands.
• The program supports the modes CW, PH (SSB), and FM. You can only switch to FM mode if the current band is a VHF or UHF band. 10m FM is possible but is not valid for the OQP.
• Pressing the ALT key plus the M key (aka. Alt-M) changes mode.
• The Page Up key (PgUp) moves the orange bar up to a higher meter band (lower frequency). If the orange bar is already at the first (top) band in the list it will wrap to the last (bottom) band.
• The Page Down key (PgDn) moves the orange bar up to a lower meter band (higher frequency). If the orange bar is already at the last (bottom) band in the list it will wrap to the first (top) band.
• When you change either the band or mode of operation, the contents of the Mults Summary and Multipliers boxes are updated (see below).

Score Summary

• QSO's is total number of QSO's stored in the log file including any duplicates you may have forced it to accept.
• Pts is the total points earned for the contacts that have been entered.
• Total points Provides a rough running calculation of your score. The program attempts to keep an accurate track of your score even when an entry is deleted.

Mults Summary

• DXCC mults provides two bits of information. On the left-side of the '/' character is the number of DXCC multipliers you have worked for the currently selected band. On the right-hand side of the '/' is the total number of DXCC multipliers you have worked.
• Total mults is a count of all multipliers worked regardless of band or mode and includes the number of DXCC entities worked.

Multipliers

This box shows all of the valid multipliers (except for the DXCC ones) which you can work in the contest. If you are not in Ontario, or you are an SWL, only Ontario mulipliers will be listed. If you are in Ontario, the box will also list Canadian provinces, and US states.

• Ontario counties are shown in light blue, Canadian provinces in yellow, and US states in white. Any multiplier that you have worked is shown in gray.
• The program validates multipliers entered based on the call sign. The multiplier code must be either a valid Ontario county, Canadian province or territory, U.S. State, or DXCC entity code.
• Any multiplier not recognized as an Ontario county, Canadian province or territory, or U.S. state is assumed to be a DXCC entity.

Rates

• 'Last 10' is the QSO rate per hour based on the times of the last 10 QSO's entered.
• 'Since last' is the elapsed time in hours, minutes, and seconds since the last QSO was added to the log file.
• 'Band rate' is average number of QSO's per hour for current band/mode.
• 'On Bd/Md' is the length of time spent on the current band/mode based on time/date of first contact logged after changing either band or mode.
• 'Overall' is average number of QSO's per hour worked during the contest.
• 'On time' is the length of time working the contest based on the time/date when the program was started.

CW Messages

• The functions keys F1 through F8 inclusive allow you to send one of eight different pre-programmed messages in morse code (CW). The content of the eight messages can be changed by using the configuration program.
• Use Alt-K to access the CW keyboard mode. You can type up to 65 characters to be transmitted. The ESC key will clear the input line and stop sending a message.
• Use Alt-S to change CW speed. Valid speeds are from 5 to 50 wpm inclusive.
• The dash/dot timing is set for a ratio of 3 to 1.
• Use the ESC key to abort sending of a message.
• This program sends morse code using both the DTR and RTS pins on the serial port specified within the configuration program. Either pin can be used with an external circuit to key the radio.

Logging Window

• The number of the next QSO is shown in yellow.
• The four input fields are the call of the other station, the RST you are sending (how well you are receiving the other station), the RST the other station gives you, and a muliplier based on the location of the other station. NOTE: The RCV field (RST from the other station) is skipped over when being used by an SWL.
• The program currently sets all signal reports to 59/599 by default but you can change this as needed.
• The ESC key will clear all input fields in case you need to start over.
• Use the TAB key to move to the next input field (to the right) or Shift-TAB to move to the previous field (to the left).
• The RETURN or ENTER key will move between fields ONLY IF the contact information is not complete (ie. one of the three input fields is still empty).
• The F9 key will show a list of up to 16 station calls at a time that contain the characters entered in the CALL field. This may help you when you are trying to work a weak station and aren't sure of its call but you may have worked them before.
• Call signs for mobile/rover stations should be entered with /m or /r at the end of the call or else the program could be misled into thinking you are working a new station when it may be a duplicate.
• After entering a call, the program checks if the contact is a duplicate except for mobile/rover stations. For contacts with mobile/rover stations, the duplicate checking is delayed until after the multiplier has been entered as they may have changed counties since the last time you worked the station.
• If a duplicate contact is entered, you will hear the letter D in morse code and the contact number, date, time, mode, and RST of the previous contact will be display in white below the input fields along with the word DUPE.
• If the program indicates the contact is a duplicate you can use the F10 key to force the program to accept the entry. The points field in the log file will be set to 0 to indicate a duplicate contact.
• The line starting 160 and ending .23 are the bands the program handles. If you enter a call of a station you have worked before, the letters C, P, or F will appear under the band indicators to let you know on which bands and with which modes were your previous contacts with this station.
• The last line shows the details of the previous contact entered in to the log.

NOTE:
The Alt-P key combination turns on/off printing of contacts as they are accepted and written to disk. The words 'Printing on' will appear below the date/time display near the center of the screen when printing is activated.

One word of warning regarding printing. Before turning on the printing of QSOs as they are logged, you MUST have a printer attached and online. If you don't the program will probably hang the first time it tries to print a contact as this program does not yet check the status of the printer. It does not output any special printer formatting commands so this should work with just about any printer. Every 60 lines it issues a form feed. If you use the program with a laser printer you may have to manually issue a formfeed to eject the last page from the printer when you are done for the day.

View/Edit screen

The view/edit screen allows the user to browse the QSO information for all of the contacts in their current log file. It also allows the user to search or make changes to that QSO information. If changes are made to the QSO information (by using the AltD, AltE, or AltR features), the log file will be re-read when the user exits the view/edit screen. Re-reading the log ensures that the logging program is using the most up-to-date information for dupe checking as well as in showing the user their score summary, and which multipliers have been worked.

Delete/undelete
The AltD key allows the user to "delete" a QSO from the log or to recover a QSO that was previosly deleted. This features does not remove any contact information from a log file. Rather, it sets the points field to 0. Any contacts with a points value of 0 will be ignored when the log file is read. Pressing AltD on a contact with a points value of 0 will set the points field to 1. The proper points value will be determined when the log file is re-read upon exiting the view/edit screen.

• The AltE key
• The AltG key
• The AltS key
• The AltR key

The post processing program

The first thing you need to do in order to use this program is to specify the contest year (menu item A). Most users will then skip directly to generating all summary sheets (menu item C). Menu item F creates a master summary sheet (for mobile/rover stations only) in addition to summary sheets for each log file which exists in the users data directory.

Selecting a log file (menu item B) only affects the operation of the log export function and most of the print functions.

---

B) Select the log file(s) to process
(ie. changing the multiplier)
D) Print log sheet(s)
E) Print summary sheet(s)
F) Print master summary sheet
G) Export log(s) to ADIF format
This was added as of the 0.9.15 version.

---

The log fix program

The log fix program was added as of the 0.9.9 release of the programs. Most users will never need to use this program. Its main purpose is to attempt to recover QSO information from a damaged log file. It can also be used to update log file(s) created by older versions of the OQP logging software or ensure that manually edited log files conform to the proper format. When updating an old log file, any multiplier codes which have changed since the file was created will be changed to the new multiplier code (where possible).

To use this program, you tell the program the name of a log file to be read. For example, type 'logfix 2007\yrk.log' on the command line (without the quotes) to fix or update the York county log file from the 2007 contest year.

A new log file will be created in your CURRENT directory called 'fixed.log'. This file will contain all the valid data the program was able to read from the original log file you specified on the command line (ie. after the name of the program itself as shown above).

The logfix program will state the number of records read from the named log file and the number of valid records that were written to the fixed.log file. If the two numbers don't match, there was probably some damage to the original log file.

Once you have the fixed.log file, you should copy the original file somewhere safe. Once the original file is safe, you can replace the original log file in the data directory it with the fixed.log file. Based on the example above, you could do this with the command 'copy fixed.log 2002\yrk.log'.

Input field edit mode features

The following keys can be used when entering data in any of the programs. Some of the keys (ie. up and down arrows) may only be valid while editing CW messages in the configuration program or in the view/edit screen of the main logging program.