Mark et.al.,
One of things that I do, being a dweeb and all that stuff, for all my
contacts is that keep my log in ASCII format.
Here is the scenario. I am using UNIX as the operating system on a
workstation, not a laptop or PC clone. I thus can use all the neat
commands from UNIX to get the information that I want.
Each line of data (which can extend quite a bit past 80 characters) has:
DATE:START:END:STATION:HIS:MY:FREQ:CW:PWR:COMMENTS:WPM:QSL:DIST:COMMENTS
DATE I put in format of 970330 for March 30. I can easily sort this way.
START:END are obviously the start and ending times in UTC
STATION is his/her call
HIS is his/her RST
MY is my RST
FREQ is frequency worked
CW is CW
PWR is power level
COMMENTS is his/her name and QTH only (see next COMMENTS)
WPM is code speed
QSL is blank until I send a card, then I put S/ and upon receipt
of card I change this to S/R
DIST is great circle distance from either CALLS2DIST program
on LeHigh.EDU server or from C program and using Atlas for DX.
COMMENTS is additional info on rigs, antennas, conditions, etc.
OK, after all this data is entered and kept up to date, then
periodically I run 'tbl' and 'psroff (a form of ditroff)' to
generate printed output for hard copy. I don't output the
second set of comments so at 9 point type the log comes out
nicely on 8.5x11 paper and paginated etc. Using the programs
is the reason why the fields are separated by ":" and it
allows me to not have to type in spaces and eat up space on
a line or in the file.
Now lets say I'm sitting at the desk in front of the rig and
I call CQ and say KQ0I comes back to me. While you are coming
back I reach over to the keyboard and type
wrk kq0i (note all lower case letters)
I will immediately get back
KQ0I MARK R MILBURN . Class: E 7/26/88
117 SE PHILIP Born: MM/DD/YY
DES MOINES, IA 50315 Prev: A WA0NMA
which means two things. I have the data from the QRZ CDROM database
and it shows that I have not worked you before. If I get someone like
KU7Y calling me (he was my first NV on 30M and I haven't gotten rid
of him yet) I get back output that looks like
960710:0206:0211:KU7Y:579:229:10.123:CW:0.95:Ron - Reno,NV:20:S/R:1375
KU7Y MONTE R STARK . Class: E 8/14/96
3320 NYE DR Born: MM/DD/YY
NEW WASHOE CITY, NV 89704
which means that I worked him July 10, 1996 and he was very very
tight on the RST report on 30M, but hey I was glad to get him. :-)
I blanked out the birthdates which will no longer be supplied by
the FCC, so will go away on the CD ROMs.
Thanks Ron. And I did get the QSL and he was 1,375 miles away.
Also note that we did this at 20wpm 'cuz the conditions were not great.
I have worked Ron since at higher speeds, it didn't show up above
'cuz I limited the search to last year.
But wait kids, that's not all. Today only; operators are standing
by. I have another script for the C-Shell that goes and runs through
the entire online log and breaks out the data by bands. So that I get
a log for each band, states worked for each band, and the number of
states confirmed for each band, and the number of QSLs sent and the
number received.
Another script gets all the contacts for each band, sorts the distances,
and produces plots for distances vs. time and a histogram of number of
contacts vs. distance. Later this week I'll put some on the web page.
I used these at Dayton to illustrate the TMPS results that I got.
Now I know that a lot of people are groaning and saying, hey this is
too much work. Not really. Once you decide on what you want to do.
For things like TMPS and WIMPS what I'll do is keep doing the same
thing except that I can run a script and find out how I am doing
by looking at only dates 970401 and later and for specific
bands.
I'm sure that others have commercially available programs around
that do just as good.
Oh, and I've had people do this to me. Ever call someone and they
come back with your name? You know that they are sitting
there in front of a computer. I don't do that unless I have worked you.
And then sometimes I don't even do it then 'cuz I either didn't
use the computer or I forgot to look it up.
So for WIMPS I'll have entries now for 17 and 12 meters. I just
got my first contact with Cam, N6GA, yesterday on 17M using
the GM-17 at 0.95W. So I know the antenna works there. My #1
his #2 as Byron WA8LCZ beat me to the punch. Got Cam to build
one of his modules for the Sierra. How many of us have some
modules unbuilt? A bunch of us do. ;-) So as we start looking
at sunspots increasing start building those modules.
FYI
Chuck Adams K5FO CP-60 adams@sgi.com
http://reality.sgi.com/employees/adams_dallas/
WIMPS: Qs=000 30m=0 17m=0 12m=0 States=00/00/00
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