Features
The help file/user manual
(CQXClient.pdf) available on the Documents
page contains a very detailed description of each of the
features in the program and how to use them so it would be redundant to
repeat a lot of that description here. However, as a preview of what's
in the user manual, some of the features described on the Overview page will be
illustrated with some screen shots and a brief description. The
description follows a typical sequence involving the following steps:
Trip Planning
CQ/X provides a dialog for doing a preliminary trip
plan as a simple sequence of counties using an outline map of the
state(s) showing each county. The following screen shot shows the main
part of the dialog including a portion of the map window.
The user starts by choosing a first county and then adds counties to
create a sequential list of counties in the order in which they will be
activated. The counties listed in the next county selection drop down
are only those counties that are adjacent to the most recent county
added to the list.
The map serves as a reference but since it is only an outline there is,
of course, no guarantee that roads actually exist
that will allow the user to carry out the plan in a convenient
way. So, after coming up with a preliminary plan, the next step is to
see if it will work and for that it is convenient to use a mapping
program like Streets and Trips (S&T). County lines are shown in
S&T but it is useful to highlight them and for this
the button labeled Prepare Polygon Sequence allows the user to prepare
a series of files containing the shape of each of the selected
counties. This is the same data that is used in the automatic county
detection logic. This sequence of files can then be imported into
S&T for viewing and determining an actual road-by-road plan for
the trip and, if desired, marking the lat/lon of each of the county
line crossings.
The above dialog can also be useful for those users that, for
whatever reason, do not plan to use a GPS and the automatic
county detection feature for changing counties. For these users the
sequence of counties selected in the above dialog is exported to a list
which is used to manage the messages and logging function as
the trip progresses. In this case the user selects a starting county
and then as the trip progresses a user-assigned function key
is pressed to advance through the list of counties. Another function
key can be assigned the task of moving backward through the counties. Top
Preparing County
Line Crossing Data
If a GPS is going to be used and it is desired to have an estimate of
the distance and time to the next county then it is necessary to
provide a list of county line crossings to CQ/X. This is done using a
mapping program to prepare a small text file as shown below.
Top
Importing
and Validating County Line Crossing Data
Once the file of county line crossings has been prepared it can be
imported into CQ/X for validation using a menu item. CQ/X
checks the file for reasonable lat/lon for the given
state/region, checks to make sure the counties appear in the
right sequence, and checks for proper spelling of the county names. An
example of the resulting dialog is shown below
In this example the file has failed validation by having the wrong
from-to relationship for the Montague-Cooke county line
crossing and by having an unreasonable (Tibetan) longitude for the
Grayson-Cooke county line crossing. Buttons are provided on the dialog
to resolve these common errors. Once satisfied with the crossing
information pressing Apply will load the data for use by CQ/X. The
primary use of this data is in the calculation of an estimate of the
distance to next county and the time to the next county. If this data
is not available certain of the related display items in the GPS panel
shown below will indicate N/A. Automatic county detection will continue
to work since it is based only on current position and the polygon
models of the counties. Top
GPS Information
Display on the Status Panel and in the QSO
Entry Area
Data received from the GPS as well as the results of calculations is
shown on the GPS Status Panel that is contained in a tabbed display
area on the left side of the main user interface screen. Here is a
screen shot of that panel with a brief description of the most
important items:
At the very top of the panel is an
indication of whether the GPS is OFF, ON(Local) which means
the client is receiving data via a direct connection to the GPS, or
ON(Remote) which means the client is receiving GPS data from the server
module over a network with the server module providing the direct
connection to a single GPS.
This status is followed in the upper section by GPS outputs
including number of satellites in view, time as provided
by the satellite, latitude and longitude, and speed. Although
heading is available as one of the GPS outputs the value shown on the
GPS status panel is calculated from the two most recent positions
reported by the GPS and the Grid Square is calculated from the latitude
and longitude provided by the GPS.
On the GPS setup menu the user can specify an alert range in
miles and two update rates (periods) a nominal value and an alert
value. When the distance to the next county is greater than the alert
range the update period is set to the nominal value and when the
distance becomes less than the alert range the update period is set to
the alert value. This tends to reduce the effect of the speed of the
moving vehicle on accuracy of the county changeover.
The user can define any number of way points using a sub menu
item from the GPS menu and during operation the combo box on the GPS
status panel can be used to select the way point to monitor. The
distance to the way point is shown just beneath the combo box.
During the planning phase prior to the QSO party the user
develops a route plan and, using a mapping program, converts that route
into an ordered sequence of county line crossings. Although this
information is not necessary for automatic county detection it
is useful in calculating an estimate of the (radial) distance and time
to the next county. The resulting distance is shown in the next section
of the panel. The small circle next to the distance has three possible
color values (green, yellow, and red) based on how well the number of
QSOs in the current county is doing against a specified goal and the
color of the circle indicates a recommendation to either continue at
the current or higher speed, reduce speed, or stop. Details of how the
color values are determined may be found in the help file.
Total accumulated time in each county is maintained by the
program and the value for the current county is shown in the next
section. Also shown in this section is the estimated time to next
provided that the closing speed toward the next county line crossing
exceeds a certain user-configurable value. The current value of the
closing speed is shown just below the time values. Just beneath this
section is a panel showing the name of the next county line crossing in
the format From County-To County - Hwy. When the distance to this
crossing exceeds the alert range the panel is green and then turns red
when the distance becomes less than the alert range.
Just beneath the next county line crossing panel is a panel
indicating the action the Automatic County Detection logic
will take when it detects a new county. The action can have
three possible values:
- OFF which indicates that no action will be taken,
- MANual which indicates that the only action that will be
taken is to pop up a reminder message to the user that a change has
occurred but leaving the user with the responsibility for actually
changing the county (a function key can be assigned this task)
- AUTOmatic which indicates that the program will
automatically change the county and all associated messages, etc when
it detects a new county.
At the bottom of the GPS Status panel is a grid showing the results of
the automatic county detection with the current county (the IN county)
being always shown at the top of the list followed by other counties
whose circumscribing circles contain the current position but failed
the wrapping number analysis described on the Technical
page. The ratios in the grid indicate the distance from the current
point to the center of the county's circumscribing circle as a fraction
of the total radius of the circle and the arrows indicate
whether
this ratio is increasing or decreasing on the last two updates. Of
course as the ratio associated with a county reaches 1.0 the county
will fall off the list.
In order to tab the area taken up by the GPS Status panel to show other
information such as the current score and progress against
QSO goals for the county, the essential information from the GPS Status
panel is also shown near the QSO Entry area as shown on the next screen
shot.
The
entries in the left hand bracket are the name of the current
county and the accumulated time in the current county. The three
entries in the right hand bracket are the distance to next county, the
estimated time to the next county and the abbreviated name of the next
county. Top
Making QSOs
You've done your planning, built and validated the county line crossing
file, and the countdown box is showing 00:00:00:00
(days:hours:minutes:seconds) until the start of your favorite QSO
party. Your driver's awake at the wheel, you've hit the road and you've
reached the starting point. It's
time to make some QSOs -- how's that done?
- Send CQ by either pressing a function key you assigned to
that task or by holding the Shift key down and pressing the space bar.
Your CQ message goes out with the proper county filled in by the
automatic county detection logic
- A station comes back. You enter his call in the QSO entry
box and either press a function key you assigned to sending the
exchange message or you press the Enter key. Your exchange message goes
out.
- The station sends his exchange message and you type in the
information but you missed part of the exchange. You press Enter and a
request for the missing part goes out.
- The station sends his missing info and his call indicating
that you have busted his call so you continue typing missing
info and the call
into the QSO Entry box and either press Enter or a function key that
you have assigned to the task of sending your thank you message and
logging the QSO. Your thank you message goes out
together with the corrected call, the contact is logged, and you
solicit your next QSO.
This screen shot shows what this looks like.
In this case the operator started out logging a contact with K5NG in
GRAY but later determined that he was actually working K5NZ in GRIM.
The screen shot was taken just prior to logging.
It's twenty minutes later and you're racking up the Qs, you notice in
the GPS panel that the next county is coming up in half a mile but you
give out another CQ from your current county and a station comes back.
You type in his call but he asks for a repeat and you send your
exchange again -- this time using the function key you assigned to that
purpose. He gets the exchange and sends his and you type the info in
but you notice that the new county line just passed. You press enter
and note from the log display that the contact was logged in the county
it started in and the county you sent to the station. Then you hear
going out in CW "NEW MGMY NEW MGMY" letting everyone know that you just
entered a new county, MGMY. You glance at the message array and see
that all the messages involving the current and next county are
reflecting the new county values. The pileup begins anew -- yes!
It's another twenty minutes down the road, conditions are great and you
continue to rack up the Qs. You're working K4BAI and are about
to send your thank you message to log the contact but you know from the
GPS data immediately below the QSO Entry box that the next
county line is in two minutes. Instead of sending the thank you message
and logging the contact immediately you press Ctrl+N and the message
goes out "WALL IN 2 MINS". You hear an "RR" from K4BAI
and press the Enter key to log the contact and send the thank
you message. Two minutes later you work K4BAI again as one of your
first Qs in WALL, the new county.
You're just into the new county now and have just worked K4BAI, the
pileup is intense and you get a response from N4PN and you also
copy K8MR calling. You type N4PN into the entry box and press
the Enter key. While your exchange is going out you type in K8MR into
the entry box and press the Enter key while holding down the Alt key.
You then enter the exchange from N4PN and press enter. A brief TU goes
out and a user-defined CQN "NOW" exchange message
goes out with K8MR as the
call and K8MR returns to the QSO Entry box. You enter
and log K8MR in the normal way. Top
Finalizing the
Log
It's the next day in this two session QSO party, the session clock is
showing 00:00:00 and you've
just finished making the last of your 1925 contacts. What a
party it has been with 10, 15, 20, and 40 all open and stations
actually on 10 and 15 -- [Ed: dreaming here]. It's time to finalize the
log and send off a report to 3830. Using the Finalize logs item under
the File menu you call up a dialog for preparing statistics,
entering soapbox comments, and viewing a few lines of the Cabrillo log.
After completing your soapbox comments you save the log to a
location of your choice and send off an email to the party sponsor.
Then you connect to 3830 using an item under the File menu and enter
your results and commentary and submit.
You're done with that one. Time to start thinking about where you'll go
next and to start the planning process again. Top
Making a GPS-Enabled
QSL
It's a week later and you find a request to fill out an MRC from KO1U
in your mailbox. You bring up the log, verify the contacts and check
them off on the MRC and sign it. Then you notice that Mark took the time to
work you more than 20 times during the party. So you decide to enclose 4-5 unique QSLs in the return
envelope to KO1U, made possible because before starting the
contest you remembered to set up to log the latitude and longitude of
each contact . You go into the QP Tools menu and select Prepare QSL
Log Files which activates the following dialog on which you've selected
KO1U
You follow the steps indicated above and Save the results to a file of
your choosing. The header at the top of the file is setup to enable
importing the data into Streets and Trips (S&T) for a nice
appearance in the
S&T balloons. You open up S&T and import the resulting
file. Then you fiddle with some options in S&T (hmm, let's see, do
I want red cars, green cars, or blue cars this time) to get the
appearance you want. Then you set a screen capture size (605x365
works well
in my environment) in your favorite screen capture utility. You play
with the S&T zoom level to get a pleasing display and maybe
change the balloon orientations to fit better on your screen capture.
When satisfied you capture the 1-4 QSOs on a single card and save
the resulting as a jpg file for
printing on blank stock -- e.g. 3x5 index cards or blank QSL stock if
you've got some. You repeat the screen capture and printing process for
the remainder of the KO1U QSOs. Some examples are shown on the QSL
Gallery page. Top
Copyright: C.W. Sanders, NO5W
Last Updated: 11-September-2007