WinWarbler Logging

WinWarbler Online Help Contents

 

WinWarbler can log QSOs as ADIF records in a text file, referred to as the Minilog. WinWarbler can also log QSOs in real time to DXKeeper, a full-functioned logging program that records and manages QSOs, tracks progress towards DXing objectives, prints QSL cards and QSL labels, and synchronizes with both eQSL.cc and the ARRL's Logbook of the World (LotW).

At the top of its Main window, WinWarbler's QSO Info panel provides textboxes and selectors in which to collect the information to be logged. Some of this information can be directly captured from decoded data by double-clicking on received words in a PSK receive pane or RTTY receive pane. Double-clicking a received callsign, for example, will place that callsign in the QSO Info panel's Call textbox, and initialize many items:

Manually keying a callsign into the Call textbox and then striking the Enter or Tab keys will also perform the above actions. 

To direct DXKeeper to produce a filtered display showing previous QSOs with the station whose callsign is shown in the Call textbox and perform a callbook lookup on this station, click the ? button to the right of the Call textbox's caption. This will update the Call textbox's caption to indicate the number of previous QSOs with this callsign, and display details of the most recent QSO with this station in the expanded QSO info panel. If WinWarbler's Contest Mode is enabled and the current QSO duplicates the callsign, band, and mode of a previous QSO displayed by DXKeeper, WinWarbler will display a Dup! indicator to the left of the QSO info panel's Call textbox rather than the number of previous QSOs.

To indicate that a QSO has started, click the QSO info panel's Begin button; the start time will appear in the panel caption. If set QSO start when RST received is enabled, entering a received signal report in the rst R textbox will automatically start the QSO, whether this is done manually, by double-clicking on a received signal report, or because Contest Mode or initialize RST items to 59/599 are enabled. Executing a macro containing the <RSTsent> or <TX_serial_number> command will also start a QSO.

To indicate that a QSO has ended, click the QSL info panel's End button; the end time will appear in the panel caption.

Clicking the Log button also ends the QSO, and checks the information contained in QSO info panel's textboxes and selectors. Errors or omissions are flagged by flashing the offending item's caption  in red font; the flag invalid callsigns and require DXCC options are considered when identifying errors and omissions. If no errors or omissions are found, the information to be logged is recorded in the minilog and sent to DXKeeper, if running. If Contest Mode is disabled and the don't log contest, TX#, or RX# if contest mode setting is disabled, values for Contest, TX#, and RX# are not recorded with the QSO. Depressing the CTRL key while clicking the Log button directs DXKeeper to immediately uploaded the information to eQSL.cc . To prepare for the next QSO, WinWarbler then clears all QSO info items except Freq and, if Contest Mode is enabled, TX#. You can clear the QSO info items without logging a QSO by clicking the X button in the QSO info panel's upper right corner.

Callsigns not containing at least one letter and one number are considered invalid unless flag invalid callsigns is disabled.

The QSO info panel can be toggled between two states: an expanded state, in which all items are visible, and a contracted state, in which only a subset of the items are visible. When contracted, you can expand the QSO info panel by clicking the  button in the panel's upper right corner; when expanded, you can contract the QSO info panel by clicking the button in the panel's upper right corner. When you expand or contract the QSO info panel, WinWarbler's Main window expands or contracts to match.

When operating PSK31 or PSK63, WinWarbler provides three receive panes, each capable of decoding an independent PSK signal; when operating RTTY, it can provide two receive panes, each capable of decoding an independent RTTY signal. WinWarbler independently records QSO information for each receive pane. The QSO info panel shows the information associated with the currently active receive pane, and the active receive pane is identified by number in the QSO info panel's caption. Making another receive pane active causes the QSO info panel to display information for the QSO being decoded in the newly-activated receive pane. This allows you to accumulate information captured from multiple signals, separately retaining each signal's information until a QSO is completed and logged.

To allow operation without removing one's hands from the keyboard, WinWarbler provides keyboard shortcuts for navigating among QSL info items and the Transmit Pane, and for invoking functions like starting or logging a QSO.

Macros can be invoked from QSO info text boxes and selectors by striking the appropriate Function key. Macro substitution commands are available for many QSO info items.

If SpotCollector is running, clicking the QSO info panel's Spot button will generate an outgoing spot for the station designated by the call textbox on the current receive frequency. By default, the spot notes will indicate the QSO's mode; depressing the CTRL key while clicking the Spot button will prompt you to specify the spot notes. If you want SpotCollector to generate a local spot rather than one sent to all packetclusters, depress the ALT key or the SHIFT key while clicking the Spot button.

If DXKeeper is running, changes to items in WinWarbler's QSO info panel are immediately reflected in DXKeeper's Capture window; this allows you to begin logging a QSO in WinWarbler and complete it in DXKeeper's Capture window, should you desire to do so. However, changes to items in DXKeeper's Capture window are not reflected in WinWarbler's QSO info panel. If Contest Mode is enabled, logging a QSO via DXKeeper's Capture window will increment the Capture window's TX# textbox, but will not increment WinWarbler's TX# textbox; thus when switching from "logging from DXKeeper" to "logging from WinWarbler" in the middle of a contest, you must manually update WinWarbler's TX# textbox at the time you switch.

 

The Minilog

The Minilog is a text file whose simple name is the operator's callsign (with any forward slashes or back slashes replaced by hyphens) and whose suffix is .adi; the Minilog resides in the folder into which you installed WinWarbler. If VU4DX has installed WinWarbler in the folder 

c:\program files\DXLab\WinWarbler 

then the pathname of VU4DX's Minilog would be

c:\program files\DXLab\WinWarbler\VU4DX.adi

Every time you log a QSO, an ADIF record is appended to the Minilog's contents, whether or not DXKeeper is running. You can load the information contained in a Minilog into any logging application capable of importing standard ADIF. After importing the Minilog's contents into a logging application, you may wish to clear the contents of the Minilog; you can do so by clicking the Clear Minilog button on the Config window's General tab.

If you will be importing the Minilog into the logging program DXbase, select export for DXbase in the Log panel on the General tab of the Configuration dialog; this ensures that frequencies are represented in a format acceptable to DXbase.

 

Capturing Information from Decoded Data

To facilitate logging, WinWarbler provides several mechanisms for copying information from decoded data into textboxes in the QSL info panel.

Summary of QSL info destinations when double-clicking a decoded word in a receive pane

contains letters contains numbers valid
grid
ALT depressed CTRL depressed contest mode text destination QSL info textbox
no yes no no disabled received rst R
no yes no no disabled transmitted rst S
no yes no no enabled RX#
yes no no no name
yes yes no no call
no yes no QTH, State, Province
yes yes no Grid
no yes Via
yes yes disabled Notes
yes yes enabled RX#

If, when you click the Log button, one or more QSO info textboxes contain invalid information, their labels will blink in red font until you correct their contents and again click the Log button; callsigns not containing at least one letter and one number are considered invalid unless the flag invalid callsigns box is unchecked. Log entries are appended to a file that WinWarbler creates in its application folder; this file's simple name is your callsign, and its file extension is .ADI -- e.g. AA6YQ.ADI. You can import the log entries in this file into your ADIF-compatible logging program; this can be done while WinWarbler is running. After successfully importing these entries, click WinWarbler's ClrLog button  to delete all log entries from WinWarbler's log file.

 

Information Logged

The following table lists all information logged with a QSO, macro substitution commands and  ADIF tags for each. The QSL info panel column indicates whether the item is always visible in the QSL info panel, only visible when the QSL info panel is expanded, or never visible:

Item Contents Notes QSL info panel Macro Substitution Command ADIF tag
Band band associated with QSO frequency   no   Band
Call callsign 1,2 yes <callsign> CALL
CQ CQ zone   if expanded   CQZ
Contest contest name   yes <contest_id> CONTEST_ID
Continent continent designator    no   CONT
Country code numeric DXCC entity identifier  9 no   DXCCID
County US county 3 if expanded   CNTY
DXCC DXCC entity prefix 4 yes   DXCCPREFIX
End time QSO end time    no   TIME_OFF
Freq QSO frequency  5 yes   FREQ
Grid Maidenhead grid square 10 yes <grid> GRIDSQUARE
IOTA IOTA tag   if expanded   IOTA
ITU ITU zone   if expanded   NAME
Mode PSK31, PSK63, RTTY, CW, SSB, AM, or FM 8 no   MODE
Name operator name   yes <name> NAME
Notes miscellaneous comments 6 yes   COMMENT
Operator operator callsign   no <mycall> OPERATOR
Province Canadian province (abbreviation) 7 if expanded   VE_PROV
QSL check to indicate that a QSL card should be sent   yes   QSL_SENT
QSL msg message to be printed on an outgoing QSL card 6 yes   QSLMSG
QTH location   yes <QTH> QTH
rst S outgoing signal report   yes <RSTsent> RST_SENT
rst R received signal report   yes <RSTreceived> RST_RCVD
RX# received contest exchange   yes <rx_serial_number> SRX
Start date QSO start date   no   QSO_DATE
Start time QSO start time   no   TIME_ON
State US state 3 if expanded   STATE
TX# transmitted contest exchange   yes <tx_serial_number> STX
TX Pwr transmitter power   yes <transmit_power> TX_POWER
Via QSL Manager's callsign   yes <via> QSL_VIA

Notes:

  1. striking the Enter or Tab keys after keying in a callsign is equivalent to clicking the ? button - the Lookup operation is invoked

  2. if the callsign begins with an exclamation point or ends with an /am or /mm suffix, WinWarbler will not check it for validity and DXKeeper will ignore it from an awards tracking perspective

  3. the US State and Country items will only appear if the DXCC selector is set to K, KH6, or KL7

  4. letting the mouse cursor hover over the contents of the DXCC selector will display an explanatory popup bearing the full name of the selected DXCC entity

  5. WinWarbler logs the QSO frequency -- the transceiver frequency in CW, Phone, and FSK RTTY modes, the transceiver frequency plus an audio offset in PSK and AFSK RTTY modes 

  6. the Notes and QSL msg items share space; to toggle between them, click the ~ button to the right of the currently-visible item

  7. the Canadian Province item will only appear if the DXCC selector is set to VE

  8. the Mode is primarily determined by the Main window's Mode panel; if Phone is selected, the Mode is determined by the Phone Xcvr Mode setting

  9. the proper Country Code is automatically set whenever a DXCC entity prefix is selected

  10. striking the Enter or Tab keys after keying in a grid square directs DXView, if running, to display the location of that grid square

 

Keyboard Shortcuts

To allow operation without removing one's hands from the keyboard, WinWarbler provides keyboard shortcuts for navigating among the QSO Info items and the Transmit Pane, and for initiating actions. Keyboard shortcuts can be used whenever the mouse cursor resides in a QSO Info item or the Transmit pane.

Destination CTRL shortcut ALT shortcut
Call textbox C C
CQ textbox   X
Contest textbox   T
County textbox   O
DXCC selector   D
Freq selector X F
Grid textbox G G
IOTA textbox   I
ITU textbox   Y
Name textbox N N
Notes textbox D E
Province selector   P
QSL Msg textbox F H
QTH textbox Q Q
rst S textbox S S
rst R textbox R R
RX# textbox Z Z
State selector   A
Transmit Pane T /
TX# textbox   W
TX Pwr textbox   K
Via textbox   V

 

Action CTRL shortcut ALT shortcut
Clear QSO Info panel W  
Log QSO L J, L
Start QSO   B
Toggle QSL checkbox   U