This will be the last release until after CQ WW CW, except for necessary bug fixes.
When Radio Type is K3, the Radio menu has four commands that set center frequency and span for an Elecraft P3. See the new Controlling a P3 topic in the Operating section of SkookumLogger Help. Thanks W2RU.
The 2T2R Configuration has a new option, “Grab spots to transmit/not-transmit radio.” See the Using Activity Tables topic in the Operating section of SkookumLogger Help. Thanks JH5GHM.
The subrx pseudo-activity is now hidden when a K3 is in diversity mode.
Attempting to create a new RSGB 80m Sprint log crashed SkookumLogger. Thanks GØTPH.
All preference panes now have help buttons that open SkookumLogger Help showing the appropriate topics. The intent is to determine whether or not this cuts down on the number of user questions regarding serial connection issues.
SkookumLogger now has support for three additional radios: Omni 6 (thanks N9SE), FT-450 (thanks GØDVJ and 2EØWMG), and TS-990 (thanks JH5GHM and VU2CPL). Note that the TS-990 module supports radio DVK playback, but does not support starting and stopping DVK message recording.
The K3 radio module has been made slightly more efficient by modifying the commands used to monitor the state of the radio.
When the call in the Me preference pane is W2RU, the angle read from a Green Heron rotator controller is subtracted from 360° before displaying rotator heading on the Great Circle Map, and the corresponding adjustment is applied when sending a heading command to the controller.
SkookumLogger was unconditionally sending 5NN in CW messages containing the # token even when the sent report QSO entry field had a different report, unless the sent report field had lost focus before starting the message send. Thanks GØDVJ.
SkookumLogger had September as the month for the RSGB 2m Marconi contest. The correct month is November. Thanks GØDVJ.
You can now set transmit frequency for split operation by typing an asterick followed by a number into a Call field. See the Setting Radio Frequency topic in the Operating section of SkookumLogger Help.
The Great Circle Map window now requires OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) or newer. Thanks K4ZRJ and VK2NP who reported a crash opening the window on Mavericks that doesn’t happen on Yosemite or El Capitan.
Terminology has been clarified in some alert windows. Thanks K7GQ and W2RU.
SkookumLogger was failing to restore keyboard focus to the most-recently focused QSO entry field after grabbing a spot in the 2T2R configuration. Thanks WA1Z and JH5GHM.
A rare crash occured when switching between logs using the Open Recents command.
Another obscure crash occured when switching between SkookumLogger and another application. Thanks WA1Z.
SkookumLogger was “sending” an extraneous character to the WinKeyer when chaining messages. The character was being ignored by the WinKeyer so it had no apparent effect, but it broke chaining when using a WinKeyer emulator by K3NG.
Mouse clicks inside the Great Circle Map window can set rotator bearing and choose among receive antennas. See About the Great Circle Map topic in the Overviews section of SkookumLogger Help for links to relevant help pages.
SkookumLogger now supports the ICOM IC-7850 transceiver. Thanks VK2NP.
The speed for the Yaesu FT-2000 has changed to 38400 and the internal processing of data received from the radio has been made more robust. Thanks GØDVJ.
The Submit Log Via Apple Mail and Submit Log for SCP commands were sending emails without the Cabrillo log attachment on OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). Thanks W2RU.
The Maximum On Time value in the Statistics report was being rounded to the nearest hour. Thanks GØDVJ.
Messages menu item titles for Morse messages 1 through 16 were not tracking the labels set in the Morse Messages Editor.
OS X 1.11.x (El Capitan) has a new security feature that requires applications which download files from external sites to use a secure protocol when performing the downloads. Alternatively, the application developer can specify exceptions to the requirement for specific file downloads. This version of SkookumLogger uses secure (https) downloads for updating itself (Check for Updates…) and for the Countries database (thanks AD1C). The SCP and RSGB Clubs database downloads do not use https.
The polling rate for Green Heron rotator controllers has been changed from 5 Hz to 2 Hz.
The CQP logic for identifying stations “in California” has been changed to test both the call area and the content of the county field. The station is declare not in CA only if both tests fail. Thanks W2RU.
The Change Selected Rows UTC Editability command in the Log menu has been changed to a toggle command: Make UTC Editable and Make UTC Not Editable. The default is not editable. When toggled to editable, the UTC cells in all rows of the current log table can be edited. The change makes creating an SkookumLogger log from a paper log slightly less onerous. Do not use this feature together with SkookumNet.
In the 1T2R configuration, the focus QSO entry commands were failing to make the log window active.
Version 1.10.11 broke the polling loop for the Yaesu FT-2000. Thanks GØDVJ.
The URL for the W9PA DX Cluster was out of date. The default provided by SkookumLogger has been corrected. You may need to edit your copy of the list (Internet preferences, Edit List) if you have made any edits yourself. The new URL is dxc.w9pa.net.7373.
An Apple security feature new in El Capitan broke the Check For Updates function. If you updated to El Capitan before updating to this version or later of SkookumLogger, you will need to download SkookumLogger from the K1GQ web site.
Antenna Configuration had mixed-up choices for antenna patterns. In some cases no pattern at all was displayed. Also, the Band named “All” has been removed. Thanks W2RU.
Added support for Yaesu FT-991. Thanks 2EØLDZ and GØDVJ.
Added support for ICOM IC-7100. Thanks JH5GHM.
Amplifier drive powers are now remembered per radio, per mode, per band, and per amplifier operate state. The default drive levels are 25 Watts when the radio’s amplifier is in Operate mode and 100 Watt in Standby mode. There are a total of 120 drive power settings. Previous settings are lost; you should define new settings for combinations of radio, mode, and band that you care about. Thanks JH5GHM.
The previous scheme for determining DVR CQ message repeat interval has been replaced by the new SSB Beacon CQ Delay setting in Messages preferences. SSB Beacon CQing works for Elecraft K3, Kenwood radios that have DVRs (thanks JH5GHM), Yaesu FT-2000 (thanks GØDVJ) and FTdx-3000 (thanks JH5GHM). The benefit of the new scheme is that there is no need to redefine the beacon interval when you change message 1 by recording a new message or by switching the transmit radio.
The band change command was dysfunctional for the TS-790. Thanks KB9KLD.
SkookumLogger was not preserving panel visibility states across restarts.
Added support for Kenwood TS-790 and ICOM 756. Thanks KB9KLD.
Support for the Tennessee QSO party was dysfunctional.
The shortcut key for Next QTC (when sending QTCs in the WAEDC contest) was triggering the Repeat QTC function. Fixed by changing the shortcut key for Repeat QTC from shift-F8 to option-F8. Thanks JH1GHM.
SkookumLogger now supports the Worked All Germany contest for entrants outside Germany. Thanks WA1Z.
Event dates for the UKIECC CW DX Contest have been updated. Thanks GØDVJ.
The new support for Ohio QSO Party mistakenly had serial number as one of the exchange fields.
The LHN multiplier code in the Hawaiian QSO Party was mispelled LNH.
Creating a new contest log ignored Cabrillo preferences for Mode and Band. Now those choices are changed only if they are inconsistent with the contest rules. Thanks W2RU.
K4ZRJ reports that SkookumLogger hangs for a while then crashes when he opens the Great Circle map window. This happens for him on OS X 10.9.5 but not on OS X 10.10. I cannot reproduce this problem; please let me know if you can.
GØDVJ reports that SkookumLogger hangs for a while then crashes when he double-clicks a log file to start SkookumLogger. I’ve tried to fix this, but am not sure I’ve succeeded. The “Close windows when quitting an app” choice in the General System Preferences tab appears to be involved; I have it checked because SkookumLogger explicitly manages the visibility state of its windows across restarts.
Help now has a list of default keyboard shortcuts in the Reference section. Some shortcut conflicts were discovered, resulting in a few changes. Thanks JH5GHM.
The statistics text file now has crude pagination to prevent splitting some tables across pages when printing. Thanks W2RU.
The statistics report now includes QTC count for the WAE contest. Thanks JH5GHM.
SkookumLogger now supports the Ohio QSO Party for participants inside and outside Ohio. Thanks K8WXA.
Updated event dates for UKIECC 80m CW. Thanks GØDVJ.
The UI interface and messages for sending and receiving QTCs in the WAE contest have many small changes. See Help for details, and please provide feedback about anything you find uncomfortable. Thanks WA1Z and JH5GHM.
Grabbing spots in 2T2R failed to display the spot’s call in the QSO Entry box. Thanks WA1Z.
Changing Maximum On Time in Time Tracker was immediately changed back to the contest duration. Thanks WA1Z.
QTC sort order for QSOs spanning 00Z was flipped. Thanks WA1Z.
QTC count was actually QSO count in the Score window, although the score was correct. Thanks DL7ALM.
An unpredictable delay in starting and stopping K3 DVR messages has been eliminated. Thanks WA1Z.
Opening the log settings sheet after the end of a contest changed the log’s start date, causing the score to become zero. Thanks JH5GHM.
Handle an unlikely-to-occur internal error when sending a QTC series if there is exactly one available QTC to send and it is a QSO with the receiving station.
Improve frequency tracking for FT-857D and FT-897D. Thanks ZL1FLY and GØDVJ.
The Maximum On Time value in Time Tracker now matches your choice in the Time menu of the Cabrillo Category Items group in your Log Settings sheet when the choice isn’t “Not Applicable.” Thanks GØDVJ.
The Mode and Band menus in the Cabrillo Category Items group in Log Settings now show only choices that are applicable for the log’s contest.
SkookumLogger now will find your tqsl application in either Applications or Applications/TrustedQSL.
The power QSO entry field now accepts ‘O’ and ‘-‘, needed to support logging ‘QRO’ and “no power” in the RSGB 80/40 Low Power contest. Thanks GØDVJ.
Cabrillo generation for the RSGB 80/40 Low Power contest was modified to deal with the “no power” case. However, a log export matching the specification was rejected by the sponsor’s log processing robot. Thanks GØDVJ.
The CONTEST Cabrillo tag for the CQ WW VHF contest has been corrected from CQWW-VHF to CQ-VHF. Thanks WA1Z.
Prefill of IOTA references from previous QSOs and from exchange archive was broken.
The new Radio ► Toggle SubRX command turns the subreceiver on and off for radios that support this capability. The command is hidden when not available.
The new View ► Focus Run Transmit and View ► Focus Pounce Transmit commands change transmit focus to specific states, augmenting the View ► Toggle Transmit Focus command. The default shortcut keys for the new commands are home and end, respectively. Default shortcut keys have been added for the View ► Focus Run QSO Entry and View ► Focus Pounce QSO Entry; they are page up and page down respectively. These commands and shortcuts support efficient operation in one-transmitter configurations when using the Apple USB keyboard, which has dedicated home, end, page up, and page down.
The clear button on the Apple USB keyboard now performs the View ► Clear Focused QSO Entry command when a QSO entry field has keyboard focus. The default keyboard shortcut, F11, remains in effect. Shift-clear similarly performs the View ► Clear Unfocused QSO Entry command.
SkookumLogger now disambiguates IARU society multipliers that have the same abbreviation using the country of the QSO’s call.
”CRAC” is now accepted as an alias for the “CRSA” IARU society abbreviation. Similarly, “OVSV” is accepted as an alias for “OEVSV”.
Duplicate status is now tracked for QSOs marked as suspect unless they are incomplete. For example, if SkookumLogger marks a QSO as suspect because it cannot determine the multiplier, it will now show up as a duplicate instead of as needed.
Amplifier management for all suuported amplifiers except the Alpha 87A has been scrubbed and tested. SkookumLogger stores (in your preferences file) four tables of drive powers: standby powers for each radio, and drive powers for each amplifier. You will need to create new tables if you have been using the drive power management feature in previous versions of SkookumLogger. When you change a radio type or an amplifier type, you will need to update the corresponding table.
SkookumLogger now commands an ACOM 2000A amplifier to change band-segments if necessary when the associated radio changes transmit frequency. This feature is incompatible with (but smarter than) the ACOM 2000A CAT feature; disconnect any CAT cable between the RCU and the the transceiver when using SkookumLogger to manage the amplifier.
The zones table in the statistics report was displaying row number instead of zone number in the Zone column.
The date for the July RSGB SSB Club Championship was corrupted by a typo. Thanks GØDVJ.
SkookumLogger was crashing when attempting to create a QTC series in the WAEDC contest.
QTC messages were being sent without spaces between the message components. Thanks WA1Z.
When the US state for a call is known, typically from your exchange archive, SkookumLogger now draws the target point on the great circle map at the coordinates for the state’s capital city, instead of at the center of the call area.
The CQ Counter now increments when the Magic Run Begin message is played. Thanks GØDVJ.
Serial comm no longer uses the select() system call.
K3 polling rate has been increased to improve frequency tracking, and the time-out limit has been reduced with the counter-intuitive side-effect of reducing mysterious disconnects.
Crash in 1.10.3 when starting SkookumLogger on some macs if the Great Circle Map window had been open when SkookumLogger was last run. Thanks W2RU and JH5GHM.
Crash in 1.10.3 when opening existing logs with “unexpected” morse message definitions. Thanks K7GQ.
Crash caused by failing to unregister notification observers before they are deallocated. Unlikely to occur in normal usage.
Contest durations were specified incorrectly for some RSGB Club Championship events. Thanks GØDVJ.
The Morse ► Immediate Morse Mode command now shows small gray gumdrops in the locations of the red transmit gumdrops in each QSO entry box when the command has toggled the mode to on. The gray gumdrops indicators do not appear when using the caps lock key to toggle the mode.
Kenwood Radio support was updated by JH5GHM.
ICOM radio support was updated by WD7K.
Cabrillo export for Special Event Station logs now inserts the sent exchange and the content of the Notes field into each QSO record. Requested by W2RU for preparing his PVRC Reunion log.
There has been considerable additional internal code refactoring and cleanup (skip over these bullets unless you are a software geek).
ARRL Field Day logs use the “Check” QSO entry field for the class component of the received exchange. When prefilling from an exchange database, a real check (two digits) would sometimes appear. SkookumLogger now will not prefill Field Day class with a value that appears to be a check, and will not overwrite a check with a class in your exchange archive.
The new call stacking feature now behaves properly when Correct Mode is on. Thanks JH5GHM.
Rovers were incorrectly marked as dupes in ARRL VHF contests. Thanks WA1Z.
Checksheets were not showing content when first opened.
File ► Submit Log Via Apple Mail was failing silently when the soapbox contained non-ASCII characters.
Opening a log created with an earlier version of SkookumLogger sometimes presented an alert reporting that the log could not be saved due to multiple validation errors. Thanks K7GQ.
The “Arrow keys in Pounce fields step VFO” option was not functional for one-transmitter configurations. Thanks W2RU.
Using up arrow and down arrow to step RIT with a Kenwood TS-950SDX was failing to turn RIT on. Thanks W2RU.
The bug reported below was a consequence of supporting older versions of OS X without the ability to test on those versions. I’d like to hear from SkookumLoggers who would be affected if I were to drop support for OS X older than 10.8 or 10.9.
The new Automatically Chain QSO option in Messages preferences modifies SkookumLogger behavior when using Morse messages with Call Stacking. See the Using Call Stacking topic in the Operating section of SkookumLogger Help. Thanks JH5GHM.
The Radio menu has three new commands that are hidden unless the connected radio supports them. The commands are Toggle RX Out, Narrow RX Filter, and Widen RX Filter. No radio supports these commands yet. Thanks JH5GHM.
When using SkookumLogger with an Elecraft K3 connected through an Elecraft P3, the 1T2R Configuration option “P3 Tracks Subreceiver” causes the P3 center frequency to track the subreceiver frequency instead of VFO A. Thanks W2RU.
The ARI DX Contest is now supported. Thanks K7GQ.
The Morse Keyboard window has been removed. Use the Immediate Morse Mode to send what you type.
The time to complete the Log ► Rebuild Checksheets command has been reduced by about a factor of two.
Merging of clublog.scp into the partials database has been disabled.
When using SkookumLogger on OS X versions before 10.10 (Yosemite) for a contest with an Info field as part of the sent or received exchange, the Log ► Log QSO command did nothing. This bug was introduced when adding support for straddling county lines in QSO parties in SkookumLogger 1.9.11. It was caused by using a system function that is available only in OS X 10.10. Thanks N3NTF.
SkookumLogger was failing to update activity table flags after processing a QSO received via SkookumNet. Thanks GØDVJ.
SkookumLogger now has separate sending speeds for Run and Pounce, like the separate speeds for Radio 1 and Radio 2 in the 2T2R configuration. Morse speed displays have been removed from the Log window and are shown in the Morse Speed window with configuration-appropriate labels.
The Sent Exchange and Messages Editor has been replaced by separate Sent Exchange Editor and Morse Message Editor windows. Changing a sent exchange field value now also changes the Morse Sent Exchange template.
SkookumLogger now supports 16 Morse messages numbered 1 through 16. Six additional messages are associated with the Magic Message command; they are number -6 through -1 for technical reasons. Messages 1 through 8 have default shortcut keys F1 through F8 respectively. The Messages preference pane now has a Help button that opens the relevant help topic. Please let me know if you would find Help buttons like that helpful in other SkookumLogger windows.
The Messages menu has a new chained-messages command: Focus Run + His Call + Exchange. Thanks W2RU.
Pressing return when the Log Settings sheet is open no longer dismisses the sheet. You can now use the return key to start a new line when typing into the Soapbox.
SkookumLogger now supports the UKEI DX Contest for entrants from both sides. This contest doesn’t exist yet, so the dates for the CW and SSB events are place-holders. Thanks GØDVJ.
Menus have been reorganized to improve consistency within SkookumLogger and to improve conformance with Apple Human Interface Guidelines. SkookumLogger now has File Edit and View menus at the left end of the menubar, and Windows and Help as the last two menus, conforming to the guidelines. The Activity menu is gone.
All SkookumLogger windows except the main document window (the log window) and Preferences are now opened via the Windows menu. There are two kinds of windows, “normal” and “utility”. Utility windows have narrow title bars, float in front of normal windows, and correspond to “Show xxx” items in the Windows menu. When a utility window is open, the menu item changes to “Hide xxx”. You can also close a utility window by clicking the close button at the left end of the title bar. Most utility windows do not grab keyboard focus when opened and most are not resizable or minimizable. Utility windows are hidden when SkookumLogger is not the active application.
The titles of open normal windows are appended to the end of the Windows menu. Of those, the window with keyboard focus has a checkmark. A minimized window has a filled diamond marker; choosing a minimized item “unminimizes” the window. When a utility window has keyboard focus, its titlebar is highlighted and there are no checkmarks in the Windows menu.
The first time you open a window with 1.10.1, it may not show up where you had it before. As always, the position, size, and visibility are saved when you quit normally. A small side-effect: if you open, for example, the Rate Tracker utility window, move it, then switch logs, the Rate Tracker will move back to the original position. Once you have designed a layout and quit SkookumLogger, the layout will be preserved. Another small side-effect: there used to be some windows that would not open if certain other windows were open. I believe that lovely misfeature is vanquished.
The View menu has commands that affect the content of a normal window. Nearly all of the View menu items have “focus” as part of their title. Some of the commands are disabled unless the relevant normal window has keyboard focus.
Menu Commands relating to SkookumNet are now hidden unless you have joined the network.
Display of the CQ count has been moved to the Score window, where it updates whenever the score changes.
All of the Help topics have been scrubbed to repair typos and to account for changes.
TS-590 radio support uses a new command to detect the presence of a DVK. Thanks JH5GHM.
The default for the Certificate option in the Export Options in the Cabrillo pane of Export preferences is now off (no).
In generic contests, the Info field is prefilled with “--“ when no guess is available.
In Special Event Station logs, all QSOs are considered rather than only QSOs within the “contest period” defined in Time Tracker.
The 2T2R Pounce submode for Radio 2 was inaccessible. Thanks JH5GHM.
TS-590 and FTdx-3000 CAT sometimes did not work properly when both Radio 1 and Radio 2 types were the same. Thanks JH5GHM.
Autoset Drive Power for Amplifier 2 was not working. Thanks JH5GHM.
The 1T2R option “Arrow keys in Pounce Field step VFO” was not working. Thanks W2RU.
SkookumLogger uses message number 0 to keep track of how many times a message with “CQ” in the label has been sent. The Morse Message column for this message displays the count, and the count is also printed in the Statistics Report. The count includes messages sent indirectly via Beacon CQ. You can edit the count, perhaps to reset it to zero. The count is reset when you reset your log.
Internet Spot Filters now support a second token, <blacklist>. This token expands to a list of the calls in your activities blacklist, for use in filtering those calls at the DX Cluster to reduce spot traffic. See the About DX Cluster topic in the Overview section of SkookumLogger Help.
Support has been added for the Yaesu FTdx-1200, duplicating FTdx-2000 support with speed changed to 38400. Also, the names for FTdx-series radios have been regularized in the Radio Type menu of Serial Preferences. Thanks GØDVJ.
The Generic QSO Party contest type now provides more complete support for typical QSO party rules, for use when SkookumLogger doesn’t explicitly support a particular event. See the new About Generic QSO Party Rules topic in the Overview section of SkookumLogger Help. Use this module, for exmple, to operate NEQP and 7QP and INQP concurrently. You can submit the same Cabrillo file to all three event sponsors. Thanks K9QJS.
The ARRL Field Day contest now includes the Region and Country checksheets, so you can impress visitors with the reach of your radios. The Score window will show tallies for these “multipliers” but the score computation ignores those tallies.
SkookumLogger now supports “call stacking” — a feature for advanced operators designed by GØDVJ. See the Call Stacking topic in the Operating section of SkookumLogger Help.
Do not use the 1T2R radio configuration together with the K3 diversity receive mode. When K3 diversity is on, the subreceiver tracks VFO A instead of VFO B and as a consequence 1T2R will set the Pounce frequency equal to the Run frequency each time VFO A (Run) changes frequency.
For contests with ITU or CQ zone in the exchange, SkookumLogger prefills the zone using the call and the Countries database. If you log a different zone, as may happen when you work someone who sends you a serial number for example, some contest sponsors will penalize you for logging the “wrong” zone. SkookumLogger now tags QSOs with logged zone different from expected zone with the SQ (Suspect QSO) flag, so that you can quickly find them in your log. If you determine that an SQ-tagged QSO should not be altered, turn off the “Export SQ as X-QSO” option in Export preferences before creating your Cabrillo file.
The changes in serial I/O and K3 timeout handling introduced in 1.9.15 have been removed.
ORSSerialPort 1.8.0 with SkookumLogger customizations has been merged into the code base. Thanks AC7CF (ORSSerialPort) and WD7K (customizations for microHAM protocol).
In the ES-Open HF Championship Contest, SkookumLogger was failing to identify calls outside Estonia as zero-pointers. Consequently they showed up as needed in activity windows. Thanks GØDVJ.
In the Yuri Gagarin DX Contest, all QSOs were being marked as suspect, the email address for submitting the log was malformed, and the list of special stations was outdated. Thanks WA1Z.
In several contests, including Manchester Mineira, some QSO parties, and some events with ITU zones in the exchange, exchange information was be stored in your exchange archive incorrectly.
In some case the partials list was not being cleared when the active QSO entry field was empty. Thanks GØDVJ.
Frequency and mode control and display for the Yaesu FT-817 radio was dysfunctional. Thanks MMØTKE and GØDVJ.