[MacLoggerContest] MacLoggerDX Contest panel

[Rich Seifert]

At 10:03 AM -0500 11/1/09, Don Agro wrote:

>We have had a few requests for changes to the Contest Panel and 

>would like to invite you to share your experiences/frustrations with 

>the Contest Panel and Contest Helper in actual contests.

>

>David Ferrington (M0XDF) has generously volunteered to moderate this 

>discussion and to pass on the results so that they can be 

>implemented in the next release of MacLoggerDX V5.

>

>David is an avid contester has been a Ham since 2003 and passed his 

>Advanced in the U.K. in 2006.

>

>Any suggestions/complaints regarding the Contest panel of the 

>Contest Helper are welcome.

>


I am also an avid contester, and for the most part have sort of 
"given up" on using MLDX except in the most "casual" of contest 
operations. That said, I appreciate Don and David re-opening the 
discussion forum on this topic.

As has been said here before, I don't think anyone is proposing that 
MLDX be expanded to become a "full featured" contest logger, as that 
would really be a digression from its core of users (and the core of 
its technology). The range of contest exchanges, Cabrillo formats, 
context checking, etc. is simply enormous and constantly changing.

I plan to take some time to *think* about what could reasonably done 
within the framework of MLDX to improve its "casual" contest 
capabilities, and will post again when I have organized my thoughts. 
A few things come immediately to mind, however:

-Force all text to uppercase, both in the callsign entry and TXSTRING fields.

-Do "dupe" checking "on the fly", i.e., don't require hitting TAB or 
<CR> before giving an indication that a station has been worked 
before. Yes, this may give some intermediate "false dupes" when, for 
example, you have already worked KE1B and now are working KE1BYL, but 
that's OK because the operator knows that he is still entering data.

-In the same vein, give a BIG BOLD indication of a dupe, not just a 
listing of a call in ordinary text in the Contest Helper table. (By 
the way, this suggestion and the previous one reflect the way Chen 
does it in cocoaModem.)

-Make the contest keyer (both CW and voice) run off of the Function 
Keys or some similar, one-touch operation. Yes, I know that I can 
define a Function Key to perform any menu operation under OS X, but 
that would require I change the key definition every time I change 
the keyer contents (since the "menu item" then changes). Also, using 
OS X-style function keys today requires an extra <CR> to actually 
trigger the keyer to send.

I will post again when I have had time to think about this more. 
Thanks for opening the discussion.
-- 

--
Rich Seifert                    Networks and Communications Consulting
rich at richseifert.com            21885 Bear Creek Way
(408) 395-5700                  Los Gatos, CA 95033
(408) 228-0803 FAX