Release 5.5 (40157) 2026-06-12
The 5.5 Release version will be supported with important bug fixes and changes specifically needed for WRTC 2026 until that event concludes. Betas of 6.0 will appear here. No existing functionally will be removed. Some visible changes will appear, but initially 6.0 will be focused on internal changes that deal with technical debt accumulated over two decades, to improve stability, performance, and maintainability.
See History for previous build notes.
New: Audio recording functionality has been substantially revised, with more robust support for recording entire contests automatically, and some new user interface features. See the Audio Recording chapter in the Guide.
New: SkookumNet underpinnings have been replaced, yielding a much more comprehensive and reliable approach for synchronizing information among multiple computers running SkookumLogger on your LAN. The previous approach, using the Merge function is now accomplished with a minimum of user attention after a computer joins SkookumNet, and automatically survives scenarios like a computer leaving the network and rejoining the network after other computers have changed their logs. Synchronization still includes new, edited, and deleted QSOs, but now keeps deleted QSOs in the log with a way to show or hide them in the Log menu. When users manage to create a conflict (see the SkookumNet chapter in the Guide for an example), SkookumNet has a new conflict resolution interface.
New: The text decoder now attempts to detect and highlight call signs in received text. A single-click on a highlighted call transfers the call to the Call field for the active QSO entry box. Testing with the K4 CW decoder showed that the call pattern detector found "legal" but unrealistic calls due to garbage characters surrounding a real call, so the detector won't highlight what it finds unless the call appears in SCP. This is an experiment, untested on FSK or PSK where it likely will perform better and may not need the SCP constraint.
Change: SkookumLogger now supports either zero or one open log document. For new users who haven't created any logs, an on-boarding dialog guides them through first-time setup, including asking for a call sign. The call is validated, and set as the default for the user's call, the user's contest call, and the DX Cluster login call.
Change: The format of the log file has changed. The new log document has a different icon and extension sl-sqlite instead of sl-binary. SkookumLogger 6 can open old logs created since 2018-07-15, silently converting them to the new format without changing the old log. SkookumLogger versions before 6 cannot open logs created by version 6.
Change: The File > Save menu item has been removed. SkookumLogger automatically saves when needed.
Fix: Changing the log file format has allowed careful attention to latent threading issues in prior versions of SkookumLogger. These issues were potentially causes crashes.
Fix: With better use of threading, performance has been improved when starting SkookumLogger and when changing the current log.