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Re: Importing a Large DX4Win Log
Rick Heinrich
Dave,
I will offer observations - I do not have the benefit of testing or validation of those observations only the implications. My starting point was DX4Win V8. All of my records were 100% consistent with LoTW records. Paper QSLs had been submitted to approved card checkers and submitted to ARRL for inclusion in the DXCC/Honor Roll records. There were known LoTW issues, that had been raised with ARRL but were never really understood. For example I had confirmations for KL7 which showed in the DXCC listing but not in the WAS listing. I had to resubmit the cards for credit. No reason was given for why the records did not align. So, I wish I had the benefit of doing a dry run of transferring the DX4WIn log to DXKeeper several times to understand the subtleties. I also should have paid more attention to the recommendations on MyQTH records. While I had all the TQSL certificates, the naming convention and how they were consumed in DXK were significant. I did painstakingly separate the DX4Win ADIF file into all the callsign based subsets. There were 5 callsigns in 7 locations - with no overlaps in dates. I broke the DX4WIn log into those 7 segments. KEY ITEM #1 - and I can't overemphasize this - and I got a lot of consistent guidance on this issue - BACKUP YOUR LOG AT EACH STEP. Yeah, I thought I could take several steps before backing up - WRONG!!! I would up going back to the origianl backup and loading the elements several times. KEY POINT #2 - and I guess I missed this. I should have done QSO/QSL sync at each of the 7 segments. I waited until all the log aligned and then did a total LoTW alignment. This resulted in doing the LoTW sync several times which resulted in duplicate verifications which halted any sync. KEY POINT #3 - RUN A COMPARE REPORT! If I had done that I would have noted the discrepancies and what was identified and what was not included! By not doing this my edits were likely done to the wrong QSO! KEY POINT #4 - I should have done a DXCC Compare at each step - I would have seen the inconsistencies/discrepancies earlier. At this point I had never run the Compare Report so I did not know what was included in that report. Another mistake! I struggled through integrating the log and finally got the QSO totals to match! And that was the starting point for trying to get DXK and LoTW to align. In an early note from you it was offered that "DX4WIN takes liberties with the ADIF specification; see https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxkeeper/Help/Import.htm#ADIF%20Style. I did not appreciate this comment until late in the process. What I was chasing was an alignment of the log to LoTW records to ensure the award counts were aligned. The main reason was I wanted to use other tools within the DXLabs structure that relied on that alignment. Specifically missing entities and zones. In some ways I could live with using LoTW as the "gospel" but I saw no reason why the log and LoTW should not align. My first approach was to create a LoTW and DXK entity by callsign listing in Excel and do a line by line "V" check. When there was no V in the DXK record my approach was to edit the specific QSO record and "force" a V into the DXK record. Remember I assumed that the DX4Win integration had all the records correct because it originally aligned with LoTW. I had 38 line items consisting of inconsistencies in the entity being Verified. At this point I ran my first Compare Report (QSL Tab - DXCC - Compare). Instead of my Excel listing of 38 discrepancies the Compare Report identified 75! Some of the line items identified had multiple discrepancies. And for reference, the Compare Report is not created by callsign, but is reported by entity and prefix. I used my Excel comparison and did the 38 edits and did another Compare report to confirm that I fixed all the issues only to learn I now had 300 discrepancies!!! So I walked away - frustrated again - mostly at my stubbornness, and took a break to clear my head. When I came back I stared at the Compare report. First I undid the 38 changes I made from the Excel comparison. This got me back to the 75 in the original Compare Report. So again, I received guidance to look at "why the discrepancies were identified." This is where I believe the export of DX4Win caused the final set of alignment issues. Here was the observed set of issues. 1) The overall DXCC totals were different - both in the current entities and in the deleted entity credits. DXK was short several credits - but were different in the current and current + deleted listings. 2) DXK showed "random" insertions of Worked, Confirmed, QSL, Blank, and Verified (e.g. W, C, blank, Y, and V) for many of the items identified in the Progress Summary compared to LoTW. So I took the Compare report and worked it line by line. KEY POINT #5 - Do one thing at at a time. I got caught up when I had discrepancies for a single QSO that was part of a multi-QSO contest related entry. I edited the indicated QSO and then updated all the other QSOs for that call and date. BAD IDEA - I created more discrepancies by doing this. I did not realize it until I did another Compare Report after completing the list of reported errors only to learn I now had a list of 225 discrepancies. So now I had to go back and undo all those updates!!! But did I learn my lesson - NO - I did it again. When all I had to do was click on the "VFY" button I thought (bad thing... no original thoughts allowed) it was just completing an action. Again I did a compare after only two of these and then did a Compare report and found that what the report indicated was that my Log showed V and the ARRL LoTW column showed a - (blank) entry. So again I went back and undid all those VFY updates. Now I had learned that lesson. After multiple edits I got back to the original set of discrepancies. I attacked each one. Some showed a Log = W and ARRL LoTW = V. Here is my detailed approach to each one of these "evaluations": 1) I used the Filter and only entered the PREFIX of the discrepancy and selected DXCC. This populated a log segment of all the QSOs with those prefixes. 2) I sorted those log elements by band by double clicking on the Band column. 3) The Discrepancy was either a W, Y, C for the entity that may have included Band, CW, Phone, Mixed. 4) In cases where there were many calls I used the LoTW "My QSO" window and looked at the potential QSOs that aligned with the identified discrepancy. I could usually identify a single QSO that met all the criteria. 5) I selected that call in DXK log subset based on the prefix selected in the filter and did an edit to JUST UPDATE A V and save the QSO. 6) Then I did another Compare Report to see if I had resolved that QSO. What I noticed was that in that original Compare report multiple items were associated with a single prefix. When I made one fix, multiple discrepancies were resolved. 7) Now the Compare Report was decrementing not increasing!!! I did each of the discrepancies in the report, one-by-one and then did another compare report. In the end all of the LoTW and DXK summaries aligned!!!!!!! KEY POINT #6 - The use of the LoTW M QSOs was CRITICAL. In a couple of cases I had to "research" to find the call of a deleted country to adjudicate the discrepancy. Going through this with a large log with multiple QSOs with stations from contests just made this painful - but necessary - if I wanted to reference resource (LotW records) to correlate to DXK. I got there. And oh yeah... I BACKED UP THE LOG after all was resolved!!!!! I now feel I have a working knowledge of about 5% of the DXLab Suite! The good news is that Commander and DXK seem to do what I want. Now to start to figure out filters in Spot Collector... Again, thanks to everyone's help and hopefully this may help others learn the detail of the features of DXK/DXLabs. Rick N0YY |
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Re: change station call in log
Mike Kasrich
Sorry for the traffic I did find it. Have a good day all. On 7/14/2022 8:51 AM, Mike Kasrich
wrote:
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Re: change station call in log
Mike Kasrich
No I guess I didn't find it. I found change the qsos displayed
but I want to changed everything not K9IZ to K9IZ. The search
continues. On 7/14/2022 8:41 AM, Mike Kasrich
wrote:
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change station call in log
Mike Kasrich
I think I found what I need to change things. -------- Forwarded Message --------
I guess I don't quite understand how to change operator/station calls. I thought that if you opened the database and then changed the information in defaults , then every time you opened the database the appropriate default would show for that log. Doesn't look that works......I am sure this is operator error. As a result I need to to a globally change the station call for one of my logs so qsos will be properly credited in LoTW. Does anyone have the page off hand where that procedure is? I know I've done this before but seem to be having trouble locating the page. Thanks Mike/aj9c |
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change station call in log
Mike Kasrich
I guess I don't quite understand how to change operator/station calls. I thought that if you opened the database and then changed the information in defaults , then every time you opened the database the appropriate default would show for that log. Doesn't look that works......I am sure this is operator error.
As a result I need to to a globally change the station call for one of my logs so qsos will be properly credited in LoTW. Does anyone have the page off hand where that procedure is? I know I've done this before but seem to be having trouble locating the page. Thanks Mike/aj9c |
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Re: Spot collector WAS
Dave AA6YQ
+ AA6YQ comments below
Got it now, just needs a bit of experimentation to get it how I want it.+ All of that is required to comply with the WAS award rules.
+ Slightly, but every little bit helps. 73, |
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Re: Importing a Large DX4Win Log
Dave AA6YQ
+ AA6YQ comments below
Based on guidance from Dave I looked at each discrepancy. Dave offered that I would note "likely understand the source of all of them,..." Well... I'm not convinced that two of the discrepancies were consistent. So painstakingly I went line by line and using the Discrepancy record, the log, the LoTW QSO selector and sorts by DXCC without a specific call, I finally got to assess each one and make the necessary changes + So that we can better help the next op attempting a DX4WIN=>DXKeeper transition, what are some examples of the sources of the discrepancies? 73, |
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Re: Importing a Large DX4Win Log
Rick Heinrich
SUCCESS!!!!! finally...
Based on guidance from Dave I looked at each discrepancy. Dave offered that I would note "likely understand the source of all of them,..." Well... I'm not convinced that two of the discrepancies were consistent. So painstakingly I went line by line and using the Discrepancy record, the log, the LoTW QSO selector and sorts by DXCC without a specific call, I finally got to assess each one and make the necessary changes. Along the way I learned that I could not make two changes at once. I learned that I had to run a new discrepancy report after each edit to make sure I did not introduce a "new" discrepancy. But all that said, I learned a lot - mostly subtleties where the issue was semantics with word choices and understanding what was really meant in an instruction. No fault of the Wikis or the help offered, just my own stubbornness with anticipated results as opposed to what really happened. Thanks to everyone that offered insight and guidance. Please understand I was not trying to be difficult, but in several cases I did exactly what was offered and came up with a different result, only to do it again and get the "right" result. The community is OUTSTANDING!!!! Thanks to all. Rick N0YY |
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Re: Spot collector WAS
w6de
I can’t answer your direct question “if I delete/remove all the fields in the SC display that I don't need (or display) will it help/improve the SC response.”
Here is a DXLab wiki article about optimizing SpotCollector performance: https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/OptimizeSCPerformance
73, Dave, w6de
From: DXLab@groups.io <DXLab@groups.io> On Behalf Of
Tony Dixon G4CJC via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2022 10:29 To: DXLab@groups.io Subject: Re: [DXLab] Spot collector WAS
Thanks Dave, |
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Re: DX Marathon issue
Dave AA6YQ
+ AA6YQ comments below
Thanks for your response Joe. That seems to have been the problem there was no entry in the propagation field in the propagation pane. Due to screen space that is a pane that I never have up. I noticed that other log entries had F2 in that field so I entered that and the QSO was counted and entered in the Marathon report. + That is the result of a defect inadvertently introduced in DXKeeper 16.5.7 that fails to initialize a new (via the Capture window or Main window's "Log QSOs" tab) QSO's Propagation Mode item if "Default Propagation Mode by Band" is not enabled on the Configuration window's Defaults tab. + I have sent you a new version of DXKeeper that corrects this defect. + Until this new version is publicly released, uses can work around it by enabling "Default Propagation Mode by band" on the Configuration window's Defaults tab, and setting all three band selectors to the desired default Propagation Mode. + To view QSOs with missing Propagation Mode items as a result of the regression, filter the Log Page Display with the SQL expression (QSO_BEGIN>#2022-05-21#) and (LEN(PROP_MODE)=0) If all the Propagation Mode items of all of these QSOs should be set to the same value -- e.g. F2 -- then 1. backup your log (Configuration window, Log tab, Backup button)
2. in the "Modify QSOs" panel at the bottom of the "Advanced Sorts, Filters, and Modifiers" window,
2.a. set the "Item name" selector to PROP_MODE
2.b. set the "Item new value" selector to the correct propagation mode (e.g. F2)
A. backup your log (Configuration window, Log tab, Backup button) B. filter the Log Page Display with (QSO_BEGIN>#2022-05-21#) and (LEN(PROP_MODE)=0) and (Band = '6M') C. use the "Modify QSOs" panel to set all QSOs in the Log Page Display to ES
D. filter the Log Page Display with (QSO_BEGIN>#2022-05-21#) and (LEN(PROP_MODE)=0) and (Band <> '6M')
E. use the "Modify QSOs" panel to set all QSOs in the Log Page Display to F2
73,
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Re: dxlab kenwood ts-440s
Dave AA6YQ
+ AA6YQ comments below
I do not have specs on the cable, I picked it up off Amazon. + Connectivity requirements for the TS-440S are documented here: https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/ConnectingKenwood Here are the Dxlab Commander settings. + This group does not convey images.Commander settings for the TS-440S are documented here:
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Re: Pathfinder hangs / strangeness
Dave AA6YQ
+ AA6YQ comments below
I'll perform this test later today and report back the results, but it isn't just Pathfinder. When I Sync LoTW QSLs in DXKeeper, DXView cycles through some callsigns as well. + With Pathfinder and DXView running, please do the following: 1. on the General tab of DXKeeper's Configuration window, check the "Log debugging info" box |
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Re: DX Marathon issue
Julio Peralta
Thanks for your response Joe. That seems to have been the problem there was no entry in the propagation field in the propagation pane. Due to screen space that is a pane that I never have up. I noticed that other log entries had F2 in that field so I entered that and the QSO was counted and entered in the Marathon report.
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You know I've been participating in the Marathon for the last 4 or 5 years and I don't think that has ever happened before. I wonder if I've ever missed counting another QSO in past years because of this. What would have caused DXK not to have F2 entered in that field? Better yet what causes DXK to enter F2 in that field? Julio -----Original Message-----
From: DXLab@groups.io [mailto:DXLab@groups.io] On Behalf Of Joe Subich, W4TV Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2022 7:38 PM To: DXLab@groups.io Subject: Re: [DXLab] DX Marathon issue > What could be the problem? Have you checked the propagation mode and power level to make sure they are appropriate for your entry category? 73, ... Joe, W4TV On 2022-07-12 4:47 PM, Julio Peralta via groups.io wrote: Today I worked 5R8BM, Madagascar, however it doesn’t show up in my |
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Re: dxlab kenwood ts-440s
Dennis KE4ARD <ke4ard@...>
I do not have specs on the cable, I picked it up off Amazon.
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Here are the Dxlab Commander settings. Thank You Dennis On Jul 12, 2022, at 9:34 PM, Joe Subich, W4TV <lists@...> wrote: |
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Re: Pathfinder hangs / strangeness
Jon KM8V
I'll perform this test later today and report back the results, but it isn't just Pathfinder. When I Sync LoTW QSLs in DXKeeper, DXView cycles through some callsigns as well.
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On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 08:29 PM, Dave AA6YQ wrote: + AA6YQ comment sbelow |
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Re: Spot collector WAS
Thanks Dave,
Got it now, just needs a bit of experimentation to get it how I want it. I was just overwhelmed by the quantity of possibilities and the detail that you have built into the software. Just one more thing, if I delete/remove all the fields in the SC display that I don't need (or display) will it help/improve the SC response. (It's very good anyway). Thanks again Tony G4CJC |
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Re: Spot Collector / Modes
Dave AA6YQ
# more AA6YQ comments below
# Start here: https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/CollectingSpots |
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Re: Spot Collector / Modes
Earl Needham
On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 9:53 PM Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...> wrote: @ Clicking the All button in the "SpotCollector Mode Filter" window checks all of the mode boxes in that window. So -- does that mean that Spot Collector looks for every mode, or just lets everything through without checking? Thanks, Earl |
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Re: Spot Collector / Modes
Dave AA6YQ
@ more AA6YQ comments below
@ Clicking the All button in the "SpotCollector Mode Filter" window checks all of the mode boxes in that window. 73, Dave, AA6YQ |
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Re: Spot Collector / Modes
Earl Needham
On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 7:45 PM Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...> wrote: <snip> The Mode button at the bottom Spot Collector. Tnx, Earl |
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