[WT-support] TBDC observations, ideas and comments

[Ben DL6RAI]

Dear Win-Test authors & users:

During this weekend's Top Band Distance Challenge (Stew Perry) I 
operated about 50% in S&P mode, while calling CQ during the other 
50%. So the band map was my friend (as usual). Also, what was a 
nice addition, was F5IN's STEW-PERRY.DTB which contained pre-guessed 
information from some of the stations.

Here are some ideas/observations from the contest. Sufffice it to 
say, that no problems were observed with the current version of the 
software and it was nice to keep track of the score and verify the
locators on the map. Actually, I called SN2N's attention when I
told him, the QTH he passed out was in Sweden (JO68). Later he 
corrected it to JO94. 

So again, no surprises and a very solid show of Win-Test again.

Idea #1
=======
Several times stations operated very close to each other, especially
when the two stations did not hear each other. So for example there 
was a loud UR5XXX on 1821.0 and W3YYY on 1821.2 and both did not hear 
each other. When trying to enter W3YYY on 1821.2 into the band map, 
the UR5XXX entry disappeared, the reason being that Win-Test believes
that the frequency was in fact taken over by W3YYY - when it actually 
was not. Is there a chance to implement a featuere which lets you
configure the minimum distance in kHz before the new entry overwrites
the old entry?

Idea #2
=======
Sometimes it happened that I could copy a DX station pretty well but 
just not break the pile-up. So I made a note of his GRID locator
on a piece of paper. Later, when I worked the station, sometimes
there was QRM and had I not copied the GIRD before, I would have 
had to ask for a fill. Why, actually, can't Win-Test keep track of
this information when I enter the call into the bandmap? So that
when I finally log the contact, the information is already "guessed".

Cosmetics #3
============
The DUPE message says:

* DUPE with #301 at 07:10z today (000) *

Shouldn't it actually say:

* DUPE with #301 at 07:10z today (FN32) *
                                 ^^^^^^<- rcvd exchange

Question #4
===========
Is the structure of the .DTB files public? Looking at the files, 
it seems pretty straightforward: 

Record Length: 26 bytes

    Byte 0..13: Callsign, NULL terminated
    Byte 14..25: pre-guessed Exchange, NULL terminated

No specific order of the callsigns. 

If that is the whole story, then is there a tool available to create 
one's own DTB file from e.g. different Cabrillo files? 



So much for Stew Perry. Happy Holiday Season to all of you!

73 Ben, DL6RAI
-- 
DL6RAI