4.x Release Notes

4.9 2024-08-06

New

• SkookumLogger now tries harder to guess and pre-fill exchange fields as a call sign is entered. Information sources other than logged QSOs and your Exchange database are consulted, such as oblasts in the Countries file and IARU societies in a list of society codes for DXCC codes. Pre-fills now include "DX", "--", and the DXCC country code for the call, depending on contest rules. As before, SkookumLogger does not block you from logging a QSO with an empty exchange field, but does flag the QSO as Suspect.
• The "Do not use the Exchange database" Logging setting prevents using your exchange database as an information source for exchange pre-fill, for contests that prohibit use of call history files.
• The ESM (Enter Sends Message) feature introduced in SkookumLogger 4.8 has been modified to use stateless logic similar to that in the DxLog logger. The Guide describes the logic and how to use it.
• KPA1500 Serial, like KPA1500 TCP, now supports pre-setting the amplifier antenna tuner per-antenna and per-band. This feature is requires beta KPA1500 firmware and is currently disabled; contact me for details.
• The title of the Activity window for a radio now includes the name of the radio, unless less both radios are on the same band. Don't do that.

Changed

• Updated for rules changes for the Salmon Run QSO party.

Fixed

• Zone multipliers edits in IARU HF Championship were logged correctly but the prefilled value was use in scoring, as shown in the Zone Checksheet and possibly in the Notes log column. Thanks W6FB.
• Cleaned up handling of zone entries to pre-fill with leading zeros suppressed and ignore leading zeros when user logs them.
• Prevent crash when using the voice keyer in 1T2R Pounce mode. Thanks JH5GHM.
• The Run Partials pane overlay for Partner Mode was hidden behind the pane. Thanks GØDVJ.
• SkookumLogger was getting into a confused state requiring a restart if the Reenable button was chosen in the Alert that appeared when radio polling timed out while the serial connection was still functioning. That button is gone. To quickly recover from a radio polling timeout, click the radio's status button in the Log window's status bar. Thanks JH5GHM.
• The Z(one) multiplier column in the Log table was hidden for contests like IARU HF Championship where zone is entered in the Info field instead of a dedicated Zone entry field.

4.8 2024-07-08

New

• Added RIT Off radio menu item. Thanks W2RU.
• Added support for a new feature in KPA1500 3.03 firmware version 3.03. The feature adds per-bin ATU memories for up to 32 antennas. When SkookumLogger changes a transmit antenna, it now proactively tells the amplifier to change which memory to use; no need for keying the radio or for searching for best match. The feature is configured using two new key-value pairs in AntennaConfiguration.json.

Panadapter changes (for Elecraft K4)

• User-facing labels now correspond to K4 terminology, until support for another radio dictates otherwise.
• Main receiver pan window toolbar items now display and control the pan; with settings window reduced to managing only span presets.
• The smoothing slider behavior is now logarithmic, and each pan has smoothing independent of the other three pans.
• Each Radio menu now has a Panadapters menu with leaf submenu items for controlling Main Receiver and Sub Receiver pan windows.
• Activity overlays now show all activities for the radio's band, ignoring Activity table filters.
• Unmodified click in pan away from an activity now sets radio to transceive at the clicked frequency without changing Log focus.
• Control-click in pan away from an activity now sets the radio to transceive at the clicked frequency and changes Log focus to Run (Steal Frequency).

Other changes

• Major updates to the Guide address the Panadapters and Keyboard Maestro chapters, and add a new User Articles section with a description of W2RU's experiences with a Logitech keyboard.
• When entering a call, SkookumLogger now begins applying the needed status color and font after the third character. Previously, for contests like the IARU HF Championship, guessing needed status was delayed until you moved keyboard focus out of the call field. Thanks JH5GHM.
• SkookumLogger now blocks activity table updates when the window is the key window, which prevents table content from changing whilst trying to select a row.
• The stroke width for the compass rose and terminator overlays on the Great Circle Map has been quadrupled, for users with monitors that display thin lines poorly. Thanks W2RU.
• Annual update to IARU societies list: Added OH0 (same as OH), Sudan (SARU), S7 (SARA); disambiguated RCH-HH and RCH-HR, RCP-OA and RCP-ZA, SARA-OM and SARA-S7. Thanks W6FB.
• The Magic Message Version selector in Messages settings now includes a Off choice. This choice avoids a corner case yielding undesirable pre-fill behavior when Magic Message is enabled. Thanks JH5GHM.

Fixed

• The Practice noise generator user interface for amplitude was specifying dB instead of % of maximum. Didn't seem to bother anyone except me.
• The Mode filters in Activity windows had no effect for quite some time. Didn't seem to bother anyone except me.
• A spurious "Second character after message N token isn't a digit" was appearing in the Status Messages window when using Magic Message Version 1. Thanks GØDVJ.
• Callers and noise were not muted when transmitting in Practice mode.

4.7 2024-06-12

New

• All-new generalized support for panadapters, for radios that provide spectral data streams. This foundation handles two radios, each with up to two receivers, each receiver with a main pan and a mini-pan. Currently tested with Elecraft K4 using its ethernet connection. Previous Panadapter support using video capture still supported.
• User interface for managing voice keyer phonetics for digits. Thanks JH5GHM.
• Voice Keyer support for ICOM 7610. Thanks JA1BJI and JH5GHM.

Changed

• KPA1500 power display range is now 0 to 2000 W with 250 W tick marks.
• When replacing a log's contest rules, do not change the log's Start Date.
• When the SuperCheckPartials or the Countries database doesn't exist in the support folder or the database is older than the database included inside SkookumLogger, copy the included database to the support folder. Each release of SkookumLogger contains the latest versions of those databases at the release data.
• Magic Message V2 Run logic resends the call and exchange if the call has changed after the call and exchange were already sent and the call field has keyboard focus. Thanks W6FB.
• The message-n token now handles n between 0 and 16 (was limited to 0 to 9).
• The default titles and content for the three query messages, Call?, Again? and Number?, are now consistent for CW and voice messages.
• The Magic Message Protocol Version chooser is now a popup menu.
• When processing spots received from DXCluster, discard spots containing "Beacon" in the info field.

Fixed

• Attempting to set an unset Rover checkbox in the Log table by clicking on it immediately changed it back to unset.
• CTWES was missing in the NEQP Counties list.
• A rare crash was caused by divide-by-zero when processing K4 stream data.
• Delaware QSO Party Outside was missing in the list of QSO parties with compatible exchanges.
• Kentucky QSO Party Inside was marking QSOs with other KY stations as Suspect. Thanks WE5P.

4.6 2024-04-26

New

• Voice Keyer for sending SSB messages. See updated Guide, Advanced Operating > Messages > Synthesized Voice Messages.
• Getting Started window that appears when a user runs SkookumLogger and hasn't changed the My call field in New Log settings, Cabrillo tab to something other than "K1CX".
• Control-click in Panadapter window sets transmit frequency without changing receive frequency, for split pileup.

Changed

• Handle the situation where a radio may or may not have a DVR. Before, SkookumLogger assumed all radios of the same type either did or did not have a DVR.
• Modified K4 Mini-Pan appearance and behavior; see updated Guide, Advanced Operating > Panadapters > K4 Mini-Pans.
• K4 TCP Gain menu items increase or decrease Main or Sub receiver gain in 3 dB steps using a combination of attenuation and DSP gain, to simulate analog radio RF gain control.

Fixed

• K4 Mini-Pan windows were drawing the receive bandwidth rectangle at an incorrect horizontal position for large bandwidths.
• SkookumLogger was incorrectly displaying "Invalid call" for certain valid callsigns, such as TX7W.
• Clearing the RIT/XIT offset for K3 radios was also silently turning off RIT and XIT states.

4.5 2024-03-13

New

• Vermont QSO Party Outside. Thanks N9SE.
• New England QSO Party exchange format has changed from county-state to state-county, all Connecticut county names have changed, and a new Connecticut county has been added. Thanks K1KI.

Changed

• Moved "TS2000Tcp" to new Flex group in Radios group.
• CW text encoding now prefers an enabled hardware keyer; was always using radio encoder when the Text Encode/Decode window was open.
• Removed UK countries from list of European Union countries as defined for UBA contest. Thanks CT1DRB.

Fixed

• Crash when attempting to connect to Flex bridge app with a TCP address that does not respond. Thanks K3UK.
• WinterFieldDay QSOs weren't per band. Thanks KB6NTW.
• Scoring was wrong for RSGB 2m FM Activity Contest.
• RSGB AFS Data QSOs weren't per digital mode. Thanks G0DVJ.
• EuropeanUnionDXContestInEuropeanUnion was assigning 3 points instead of 10 points for QSOs with European Union stations. Thanks CT1DRB.
• New bug in 4.4 was causing missing report in sent exchanges.

4.4 2024-01-10

New

• When changing XK-24 backlights, do nothing when the keyIndex is negative. Minor optimization.
• Display special key values as key equivalents for MagicMessage BeginQso and EndQso menu items.
• Added Speak Status and Speak Status Changes to the Log menu. The first menu item speaks the QSO status string for the QSO entry box with keyboard focus, using the system default voice. The second menu item is a toggle, when checked the status string is automatically played when it changes. Thanks AI7SK.
• Added guessRunPounceFlagAndStationName to Cabrillo import for KC1XX M/M log.
• Added experimental K4MiniPanB by duplicating K4MiniPanA and revising RadioElecraftK4Tcp. More to do, including refactoring classes, and dealing with "doesn't work" cases such as SUB must be on before opening window the first time.
• Added option-click to Panadapter cursor for setting subreceiver frequency.
• Added message tokens &1 ... &5 for sending elements of sent exhange in CW and Data messages
• Set the shortcuts for user1...user5 message menu items to option-F3...option-F7.
• Set the default message definitions for user1...user5 to &1...&5.
• Added tooltip to & token to explain the &n variants.

Changed

• DX Cluster: set skimmerquality extension when updating spot filter, and do not log rejected spots.
• Flip shortcuts for bumping K4 attenuation so that shift-control-up-arrow increases gain.
• Log+Report: use save a panel completion handler to get url for saving and opening a report html files. Was saving to app support folder which led to a permission issue on Ventura.
• Removed Unstack QSO from Messages menu. AI6W.
• Updated Guide with edits by AI6W.
• Fuzzy matching updates to improve which of many matches are displayed. JH5GHM.

Fixed

• Rework handling of DoNotDelayLogging preference in didEndTransmittingMessage and unqueMessage. Was failing to log QSO on MagicPounceEnd message.
• Crash (ActivityController): Synchronize access to ivars that can be accessed from more than one thread at a time. Thanks W6FB.
• Protect against corrupted OperatingMode and Magic Message Version preferences at startup (during applicationDidFinishLaunching).
• ARRL 10 was decutifying sent info for all entrants instead of just DX entrants. Thanks W6FB.
• Deleted a hack intended to reduce calls to checkPartials when logging a QSO, which broke QSO unstacking. Thanks 9M6NA.
• Replace / in AudioRecorder paths with _. Thanks W6FB.
• Removed GMHGuzzyMacther.shared instance; replaced with GHMFuzzyMatcher.new. Prevents race when used by more than one thread concurrently to check partials. Issue discovered by Thread Sanitizer.
• Increase MAX_AVERAGE in K4MiniPanPacket to match max tag in window's context menu. Else index out of bounds warning discovered by Undefined Behavior diagnostic.
• Consecutive defend messages could be buffered to the same radio. Thanks JH5GMH.
• Fix in YcccSo2RMiniKeyer: a message which interrupts ongoing message is not sent properly (only first character is sent). It worked for Practice mode, but not for SO2R Neo at least. Thanks JH5GHM.

4.3 2023-11-14

New

• The Status buttons for DX, Net, R1 and R2 open their windows when command-clicked, without changing status.
• An italic version of the macOS monospace system font is now used for worked-before and zero-point call adornment.

Changed

• Partial Call Matching
  • The time needed to perform partial call matching has increased noticeably as the size of the Super Check Partial (SCP) database has grown to nearly 100,000 different calls. The effect is that each time you type a character in a call entry field, the character appears immediately, while the content of the partials pane updates a fraction of a second later. Changes to the Fuzzy similarity matching algorithm have made it about three times faster than before.
  • The delay was also affecting the call field background highlighting, which has been almost entirely eliminated by reordering the steps in the algorithm.
• Audio Recording
  • Resume event recording at startup if it was enabled when last quit and the current time is within the log's contest period.
  • Handle user edits in Time Tracker that affect whether or not event recording can be enabled.
  • When recording a QSO, the recoding indicator begins animating when the QSO is logged and stops animating after Trailing seconds.
  • SkookumLogger now posts an alert when you try to enable audio recording and it discovers you haven't authorized access to the "microphone".
• QSO Parties
  • Changed the start date template for Illinois QSO Party from "Third Sunday in October" to "Sunday in Third full weekend in October". Thanks N5EP.
  • Added PA counties for Pennsylvania QSO Party Outside and removed support for Pennsylvania QSO Party Inside.
  • Clarified SQ explanations for Inside QSO parties.
• Magic Message
  • The Magic Message Protocol Version is now determined only by the choice in Messages setting.
  • The title and shortcut for the Magic Message menu item in the Messages menu now indicate the active protocol which keyboard key is recognized by the protocol.
• The informational text in the Change Rules Chooser has additional detail about the limitations on the rules for the source and destination contests.
• Special key definition fields now accept any punctuation or symbol character except those reserved for QSO entry fields: & * , . / ? ° - _

Fixed

• Quitting SkookumLogger while event audio recording was active sometimes corrupted the the recording file.
• Sending an empty PounceEnd message when logging a QSO in 2T2R failed to log the QSO.
• Entering a call that was not a dupe and was not a multiplier and was zero-point (as can happen in CQ WW) was displaying status as needed instead of zero-point. Thanks AI7SK.
• AZ, FL, GA, ID and Prairies Inside QSO Parties were incorrectly treating counties as multipliers.
• Repaired obtuse issues for California QSO Party Inside, including a bug in limiting the maximum multiplier count to less than size of the available multiplier pool, and a requirement to log correct county code, not CA.
• Typing an unrecognized character, like '(', into a QSO entry field was causing a crash when a special key definition was malformed. Thanks JH5GHM and AI6W.

4.2 2023-10-02

New

• Yaesu FT-710 and Tx500 radios.
• Allow § (option-6) as a Special Key.
• Version 2 of Magic Message uses the return key as trigger, enabled when return is assigned as the Special Key for Magic Message. See the Guide.
• Audio Event recordings now include a .cue file.
• Click on the Audio Recording status indicator opens the window.
• QSO Status Information displays in the Log Window are selectable so that they can be defined as Voice Over hotspots. Thanks AI7SK.

Changed

• Added device ID to Audio Source names. Thanks W6FB.
• Time Tracker "not in contest period" status is cleared when in the contest period.

Fixed

• Magic Message was logging twice when the MagicMessagePounceFinish message was not empty.
• Audio recordings for QSOs were sometimes corrupted.
• QSOs weren't per-mode in the RSGB 80m Autumn Data contests.
• Crash when changing logs when Audio Recording was enabled and the window hadn't been opened.

4.1 2023-09-03

New

• SkookumLogger now has a presence on groups.io.
• Added Memorial OK1WC (MWC) Contest, in the Other I-O group.
• Built-in Audio Recording, with three kinds of recorders for capturing contest QSOs, capturing an entire contest, and capturing arbitrary snippets. See the revised Audio Recording chapter in the Guide.
• Added a bottom bar to the Log window, with status indicators for important items like radios and SkookumNet, and an animated recording indicator.
• Added list of default shortcuts to Guide.

Changed

• Concealed UI and code related to WRTC 2022 QSO Broadcast.
• Clarified documentation in the Guide regarding SQ and X-QSO. Thanks W6FB.
• Revised the Guide discussion of WinKeyer and emulations, and updated the Log Window Components discussion in the Log Window chapter to cover the new bottom bar.

Fixed

• Sending QTCs was causing sporadic crashes. Thanks KA1IS.
• Multipliers weren't per-band in Hawaii QSO Party Outside. Thanks W2RU.
• KPA1500 Wake-on-LAN wasn't waking the amplifier.
• Practice mode search and pounce with Phantom radio was changing RIT offset. Thanks AI6W.

4.0 2023-08-01

• SkookumLogger now requires macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or newer.
• SkookumLogger now has a groups.io mail reflector.

New

• All documentation has been merged into the updated SkookumLogger Guide.
• Kentucky QSO Party In Kentucky. The Other multiplier type is KY-county-per-call-per-mode qsos. KY is not counted as a state multiplier.
• "Log > Append to Last QSO Notes" transfers keyboard focus to the Notes cell in the log table row for the most recent QSO. Keyboard focus returns to the log when you finish editing.

Changed

• Font & Color settings now use the System monospaced font.
• The size of QSO Entry field text has increased from 14 to 16 points.
• The Grid Information window Target Grid field now tracks the Target Point coordinates, and the reverse geocode lookup happens automatically.
• Editing a special character now takes effect immediately, no need to tap tab or return. The special character entry fields now ignore characters other than ` [ ] \ ; ' : " < and >
• Changing a log's rules to an incompatible new rules set now generates a warning in the Status Messages window.
• California QSO Party Inside rules now use standard Canadian provinces and territories, and limit the maximum number of multipliers to 58.
• The Rate Breakdown Report now creates separate tables for each operator.
• The window for interfacing with a radio's decoding and encoding capabilities is now named Text Decode/Encode.
• Text encoding now supports sending CW messages when the Text Decode/Encode window is open. Call type-ahead is not available in this case.
• Users are now responsible for turning on a radio's decoder when they want to use it for decoding CW, FSK, or PSK.

Fixed

• Some special characters could not be reassigned. Thanks W2RU.
• The "His Call + Acknowledge + Log QSO" message was failing to send HisCall. Thanks W2RU.
• All Asian DX Cabrillo output was missing ages. Thanks VE3MM.
• Opening the Panadapter window with no available video capture device was causing a crash.
• Changing a log's contest rules wasn't changing the visible log table columns when necessary. Thanks AI6W.
• Cabrillo export for the UBA DX Contest was filling the received info field for ON stations with "--" instead of UBA sections.
• North American QSO Party wasn't limiting country multipliers to countries in North America. Thanks AI6W.
• North American QSO Party wasn't properly guessing pre-fill for DX QSOs -- DXCC for stations in NA, 'DX' otherwise.
• Holding a menu open was stalling CW sending with the YCCC SO2R Box keyer. Thanks AI6W.
• County pre-fill wasn't disabled for rovers in Outside QSO Parties.