Ham Radio 2000/Ham Radio 2000.iso/ham2000/misc/dxcom231/readme1.txt

Text File | 1994-02-05 | 20KB | 355 lines

                                RELEASE 2.31

If you have just downloaded DX-COMM Plus - Read this paragraph first!!
Please note that the manual was originally written for Release 1.0 of
the program.  The "ADDENDUM" (README2.TXT) refers to corrections to the
Manual (DXMANUAL.TXT file) for Release 1.0.  This supplement serves as
a further update to the manual to reflect the changes made to DX-COMM
Plus in Release 2.31.  Therefore, as you read the manual, please refer
first to the ADDENDUM and then this supplement for additional changes.

RELEASE 2.3 MODIFICATIONS AND NEW COMMANDS
1)     Page 9 - INTRODUCTION - note that Release 2.31 has extra files
       FILENAME.DAT, DXCOMM.PIF, DXCOM.DAT, and BRT71EFR.EXE file,
       DXMANUAL.TXT which is the main manual for the program, and
       three separate "Readme" files which contain the Addendum to
       the Manual, this Supplement, and information about the
       DXCOMM.PIF file.  Copy these to your hard disk along with
       the other files on DISK 1 & 2.

2)     Page 10 - Installation and Program Configuration: note that the
       Database Display Screen highlights in red letters with a green
       background the active database file in use.  DX-COMM Plus
       Release 2.31 has the capability of creating up to 32 databases
       of well over 5000 records each.  More will be described under
       Item 10 below.

3)     Page 13 - "SE" command: Upon selecting "SE" in the Database
       Display Screen you will note in the lower right hand screen
       what is described as "Sort Path =".  In Release 1.0 DX-COMM PLUS
       needed approximately 520k of memory after DOS was loaded to run
       and sort up to 3000 records.  In this version the file INDX.DAT has
       been modified to require approximately 1/10 of what was required
       earlier.  If there is sufficient free memory available a dynamic
       array is created to hold a sort string and the sorting takes place
       just like it did previously in the first release.  However, if there
       is insufficient memory available, the sort string is written to
       the disk/path directory that the user specified by the "Sort Path ="
       configuration step.  During such a situation DX-COMM PLUS informs
       the user as such that the program is writing the sort string to
       disk and is resorting it from the disk by displaying a white on
       black spinning wheel during the resorting process.

       To speed the operation of the sorting from a disk I would strongly
       recommend creating a ramdisk instead of writing the string to the
       hard disk.  However, either way will work, except I would expect
       the latter to be somewhat slower.  To make a ramdisk on a computer
       with at least 2mb of memory, place the following as your last
       statement in your CONFIG.SYS file:  "DEVICE = RAMDRIVE.SYS 360 /e".
       Make sure you place your DOS RAMDRIVE.SYS file in the root directory
       of your hard disk.

4)     Page 16 - Retrieve Command in Database Display Screen:  When you
       press "R" as a uppercase "R" the program automatically searches the
       database to find the exact frequency shown on the display for the UTC
       hour selected.  If you press "r" as a lowercase "r" then the database
       is searched for a frequency to match the first 5 digits of the
       frequency display.  This feature may be useful if you are not tuned in
       to the exact frequency of the station to which you are listening.

5)     Page 18 - Up/Down Arrow Keys: By pressing the up/down arrow keys in
       the Database Display Screen, these keys serve the same function as
       "]" and "[". Previously they incremented/decremented the records
       on the screen but did not move the red highlight bar.

6)     Pages 35-36 - Edit Command:  When editing a record you may now
       change the start/end UTC hours beyond that of 1 hour to auto-
       matically create new records with identical fields for other
       hours.  For example, suppose you had BBC LONDON on 7.34500 MHz
       for the hour 2300 - 0000 hour UTC and you noted that BBC was really
       starting to broadcast at 2100 hour on that frequency all the way
       thru to 0000 hour. You may change the Start UTC hour to 2100
       hour and when completing the edit, two new records will be created.

       Also you may now simply Edit a record in the Database Display
       Screen by simply placing the red highlight cursor over the record
       you wish to edit and press "e" as a lowercase "e".  If you press "E"
       as an UpperCase "E" then you will be requested to enter the
       INDEX number of the record you wish to edit.

7)     Page 36 - Record Tagging: You may now tag up to 100 records in the
       Database Display Screen.

8)     Page 40 - Drake Memory Channels (updates "M" feature described on
       page 40 of manual): Now, in addition to simply using "M" to up
       load the highlighted record into a Drake memory channel, one can
       now tag multiple records (up to 100) for uploading sequentially
       into the Drake memory.  After tagging the desired records, and
       having set the starting channel you wish to make your first
       upload into, press the "M" key.  Upon doing so you will be queried
       if you wish a printout by Channel, Station, Frequency as the
       records are loaded into the Drake.  If you wish a printout, set
       your printer's paper feed to the top of the page and press "Y".
       Otherwise simply press <ENTER>. Upon doing so each record
       tagged will be uploaded to the Drake, and the Drake's channel
       memory will be sequentially indexed one channel at a time.

9)     Pages 44-46 ACR feature: If you previously tagged records for
       the ACR feature, and you selected the ACR feature a datafile
       called ACRTAG.DAT is created. You may retrieve this file for
       future use (provided you haven't modified your database since
       the time ACRTAG.DAT was created) by simply pressing the "%" key
       while in the Database Display Screen.   Upon doing so, then
       press ^R to preview the records selected for ACR programming.

10)    Page 46 - ALERT and LAST RECORD UPLOADED features: When the user
       uploads a record to the Drake R8 the last line in the record
       display of the Database Display Screen will show the following:

       LAST UPLOAD: R.Station      FREQUENCY:  xx.xxxxxxx      VFO = A/B

       When the user switches to a new VFO for the first time, this
       line will now go blank until either a new record is uploaded
       to the Drake's VFO or the prior VFO is reselected.  The information
       displayed is on the same line where the "ALERT" record is normally
       displayed when activated.  To now allow for both this new feature
       and the ALERT feature to occupy the same line the user can switch
       between the display of the "Last Upload" and the ALERT display by
       pressing "W" while operating within the Database Display Screen.

11)    Page 47 - Printing of Records:  DX-COMM's capabilities have been
       expanded to now allow the user to print selected portions of the
       database or the entire database. Upon selecting "P" from the
       Database Menu Screen, the program querries the user with the
       following prompt:

       "Enter (SB), (SA), (SI), (SP), (UB), (UA),or (UI) or (P)rinter Setup:"

       Respond to this command as identified by page 47 in the manual.
       If you select anything other than "P" you will now see a set of
       commands appear that are identical to the "FIND" commands described
       on page 38 of the manual.  To print out for example all records
       associated with 0100 hour, the user enters the following:

       "Enter Search Identier(s)?"                    UTC followed by <ENTER>
       "Enter string to search (<xxx> sounds like):?"<01> followed by <ENTER>

12)    Page 49 - CTRL -Z feature:  In Release 1.0 when CTRL - Z (^Z) was
       pressed DX-COMM Plus would swap the active database to the TRS
       database.   In Release 2.31 once you press CTRL-Z you are now taken
       to a menu where the databases available to use are displayed.
       The database that was shipped with DX-COMM Plus Release 2.31 is
       referred to as "MAIN" and is identified as the database in use.
       If you type TRS followed by <ENTER> the program will automatically
       shift to the TRS SWL database .  If you type DX followed by
       <ENTER> the program will shift to the the TRS "DX" Shows database.
       Upon doing so, you may now go to the DATABASE MENU SCREEN as
       described on page 49 to import Tom Sundstrom's databases.

       If you wish to create a new database instead of switching to
       "TRS" you could type up to 4 letters to designate a new database.
       For example suppose the new database was to contain all Spanish
       language broadcasts - simply type SPAN.  Upon typing the fourth
       letter the program will beep to inform you that the maximum number
       of characters has been entered for a file designation.  An  <ENTER>
       keystroke in this case is not needed.  However, if something less
       than four characters had been typed an <ENTER> would have been
       required.  The program will ask the user whether the file name
       typed is a new database.    You should note that when you create
       a new database, if the prior database that you were operating
       from was DX-COMM's database, then the future display format
       for records in this Database will be the same as DX-COMM's.
       If, however, the prior database in use was the TRS SWL database,
       the format for the new database will be that of the TRS format.
       The differences in the two formats are the former requires
       longitude and latitude information whereas the TRS format
       specifies an alphanumeric TARGET field.  See page 50 of
       the manual which highlights the differences in the two formats.
       Similarly, there is a difference in the format of the "DX"
       database format.  The top of the Database Display Screen
       will display LANGUAGE in place of FREQUENCY and NOTEs/REMARKs in
       place of MUF-LUF.

       If you enter anything other than "Y" the program assumes you
       mistyped the filename and returns back to asking you to type
       in the database name.  You could then press the <ESC> key to have
       the program return you back to the Database Display Screen or
       you could type in the correct database name such in the TRS
       example previously described.

       If you had entered "Y" when the program asked whether this was
       a new database file, the program will now identify this file
       name as in use.  The program then asks you which database you
       intend to use.  You have two options: (1) Since this is a new
       database has no records, you can either create new records
       once within the Database Display Screen by using the Add Record
       feature, or (2) by going back to another existing database, you
       could copy records from that existing database to the new database
       by using the CTRL [ feature described in item 11 below.   Assuming
       it is option (1) above that you intend to use, simply press the
       <ESC> key.  This will return you back to the Database Display
       Screen but no records will be displayed.  You may now add to this
       database using the Add record command.

13)    Page 49 - Import command for TRS SWBC Database:  DX-COMM Plus
       now allows the user to import both Tom Sundstrom's SWL database as
       well as his DX SHOWs database.

       To import the TRS SWL database start by performing step 12 above by
       switching to the "TRS" database.  Previously, DX-COMM Plus required
       the TRS SWBC dbf file to be named SWSKED.DBF in order to perform
       the importing of the records.  With Tom Sundstrom's Release 3.0
       for his database, this SWSKED.DBF file was replaced with a file
       named SW_UPD.DBF.  DX-COMM Plus now imports this SW_UPD.DBF directly.
       To import the file, the user must quit the Database Display Screen
       and enter into the Database Menu Screen.  After doing so, simply
       press "I" to import.  The program will now display the statement
       "Import the TRS Database (Y/n)?".  By responding "Y" the program
       will now display "(S)WL or (D)x database?"  To import the SWL
       database press "S".  After importing the database, sort the
       records.  After sorting one can then return to Database Display
       Screen.

       To import the TRS DX Shows database start by perfoming step 12 above
       by switchng to the "DX" database.  DX-COMM Plus imports the database
       file named DX_UPD.DBF.  To import the file, the user must quit
       the Database Display Screen and proceed to the Database Menu Screen.
       After doing so, simply press "I" to import. The program will now
       display the statement "Import the TRS Database (Y/n)?".  By
       responding "Y" the program will display "(S)WL or (D)x database?"
       To import the DX database press "D".  After importing the database,
       sort the records.  After sorting one can then return to the
       Database Display screen.

14)    Page 51 - CTRL- [  feature:  In Release 1.0 of DX-COMM Plus, when
       records were tagged, one could use the ^ [  feature to copy those
       tagged records to  the inactive database.  For example, if one
       already had Tom Sundstrom's database active (in use), by tagging
       records in this database, and then pressing ^[ one would have
       automatically copied these records to DX-COMM Plus's database.

       In Release 2.31, when one presses ^[ the user is queried as to which
       inactive database to copy the tagged records.  For example, if one
       were using Tom Sundstrom's TRS database as the active database, and
       one tagged the Spanish speaking records from that database and
       using the prior example in Item 10 above where a file called SPAN
       had already created, by pressing ^[ one would then type SPAN to
       copy the tagged records to the  "SPAN" database.

       Upon returning to the SPAN database, you will note that no records
       are displayed even though the records have been copied to this
       database.  This is because an index for the database has not yet
       been created.  To create the index, go to the Database Menu Screen
       and sort the database, and then return to the Database Display
       Screen. The records should now be properly displayed.

15)    Page 60 - Database Menu Commands "*" and "&": Previously, to
       convert the records in the database to either Antenna 1 or 2 one
       would simply press "*" or "&" in the Database Menu Screen.  This
       feature has been now modified to allow the user the capability of
       altering portions of the database to one antenna or the other.

       When the user press "*" or "&" the user is prompted first by
       the question of whether the user desires to convert the database
       to a specific antenna, and then upon a positive response of "Y"
       for yes, the user is querried as to whether the entire database
       is to be converted or a range of records.  To convert the
       entire database one simply press "A" for All.  For a range of
       records one should enter the starting frequency and the end
       frequency for the range of records to be converted for a particular
       antenna (e.g. By typing  6.1-12.5 followed by <ENTER> specified
       the range 6.1 Mhz to 12.5 Mhz.).

16)    Page 70 - Alternative Terminal Hand Shaking Modes: DX-COMM Plus
       Release 2.31 now provides the user with the capability of selecting
       Modes 1-24.  The first 9 are as described in the manual.  Modes
       10 through 15 repeat modes 4 through 9 with the exception that an
       additional timing delay is inserted before and after each character
       sent to the Drake.  Modes 16 thorough 24 are identical to modes
       1 through 8 with the exeception that the program tests the CTS
       signal on the RS232 port in a different manner.  Some users with
       486 DX computers running at 66Mhz have found mode 18 to
       be optimum for their operation.

17)    "TAB" key (This is a new feature not described in the manual):
       By pressing the "TAB" key in the Database Display Screen the
       user will cause the "Enter Command:" line to be replaced by
       "Drake Command:".  The user may then type any commands found
       in the Drake Command Screen (refer to pages 20-22 in manual)
       directly in the Database Display Screen followed by <ENTER>
       to control the Drake R8.  For example to enter the frequency
       9.50000 MHz simply type F09.50000 followed by <ENTER>.
       The advantage of this feature over proceeding to the Command
       Screen is speed and convenience.

       Upon completion of entering all desired commands, simply press
       <ENTER> to return back to the "Enter Command:" line.

18)    "<" key (This is a new feature not described in the manual):
       This key allows the user to automatically toggle between antenna
       1 or antenna 2.

19)    ">" key (This is a new feature not described in the manual):  This
       key increments the RF preamp feature, attenuator, or "OFF" features
       in a carousel manner.

20)    "\" key (This is a new feature not described in the manual):  This
       key automatically increments in a carousel manner the bandwidth
       settings.

21)    "Ctrl -]" keys (This is a new feature not described in the manual):
       These keys allow the user replace the top of the screen with a large
       display of frequency.  This feature may be retoggled off by pressing
       the ^] keys again.

USING THE DATABASE FILES FROM PRIOR DX-
COMM VERSIONS (This section updates Appendix A of the manual)

If you have added records to the database of an older version of DX-COMM
Plus and you wish to use to continue using that database, then do the
following:

1)     Replace the older version's executable "EXE" files with the new ones
       in Release 2.31.

2)     Erase your older version's database files INDX.DAT and COM.DAT and
       TRSCOM.DAT on your hard disk. Copy the files COM.DAT, TRSCOM.DAT and
       FILENAME.DAT from the Release 2.31 disk to your DX-COMM Plus
       directory/sub-directory on your hard disk.  If you also have been
       using Tom Sundstrom's database and you want to use an already
       previously imported copy of that database, rename TRS.DAT as
       TRSSWDB.DAT, and erase TRSINDX.DAT.

3)     Perform the Setup/Configuration steps identified in Item 3 above -
       type DX.EXE at the DOS prompt.  NOTE: When the program is started
       no records will be displayed since you erased the file INDX.DAT.
       Upon completion of the setup/configuration in Item 3 above,
       resort the database to create a new INDX.DAT file.


FIXES & OTHER CHANGES:
1)     In the first copies of Release 1.0 the printing command would not
       allow the user to print to the printer in more the 80 columns.
       In later copies of Release 1.0 this was been corrected.  In
       Release 2.31, when typing a configuration string for the printer, you
       may now backspace to correct errors.

2)     The ACR feature improperly operated for records in the hours "0000"
       hour to "0059" hour.  This has since been corrected.

3)     The CW frequency offset feature in Release 1.0 incorrectly added the
       offset instead of subtracted it.







EBS:
2/5/94