SpotCollector Online Help Contents
The General tab contains ten panels:
when checked, enables the display of explanatory information when the mouse cursor lingers over a textbox, button, checkbox, display pane, or setting.
when checked, displays received numeric zeros with a slash in Packet Cluster, IRC, and DX Cluster windows
not checking this box indicates spot database entries will be considered confirmed
when checked, an incoming spot whose notes are empty will update the appropriate Spot Database Entry by updating the Entry's Source item with the spotting station's callsign; the Entry's Notes and CumulativeNotes items will not updated.
when set, diagnostic information is recorded in the file errorlog.txt within SpotCollector's folder
Spots you originate are attributed to this callsign
Spots you originate are associated with this geographic origin:
North American East coast
North American Midwest
North American West coast
South America, Europe
Africa
Asia
Oceania
Operator Latitude and Longitude are used to determine your grid square, and to compute the distance to the station originating a DX spot for Band filtering. Each is specified in D M' S" Z format, where
D specifies the number of degrees (a number between 0 and 90 in latitudes; a number between 0 and 180 in longitudes)
M specifies the number of minutes (a number between 0 and 59)
S specifies the number of seconds (a number between 0 and 59)
Z specifies a direction (N or S in latitudes, E or W in longitudes)
when checked, a DX Gridsquare specified in an Override will be considered valid for purposes of VUCC realtime award alerting
when checked, a DX Gridsquare extracted from an incoming spots notes or from information appended to an incoming spot by the spot source will be considered valid for purposes of VUCC realtime award alerting
If Commander is running, the user-defined command sequence named in this panel's textbox is executed when any QSY directive sent from SpotCollector to Commander -- such as when you double-click on a Spot Database Entry; this capability could be used to enable an automatic antenna tuner, select a specific antenna, or set a clarifier offset. Execution of the named sequence can optionally be delayed by a specified number of milliseconds, up to a maximum of 10,000; such a delay is useful when the sequence contains an IFMODE test, allowing the transceiver time to execute the QSY directive and report its new mode before the IFMODE is executed.
If you
double-click a Spot Database Entry whose frequency and mode information will be
sent to a specified Digital Mode Application (as described above), then
SpotCollector will neither direct Commander
to QSY nor direct Commander to execute the specified user-defined command
sequence; you can configure
WinWarbler to specify a user-defined command sequence to be conveyed to Commander
in this scenario.
Display Prediction on double-click
when checked, double-clicking a Spot Database Entry will direct PropView (if running) to compute and display a propagation forecast based on PropView's current parameters and settings (this box will be disabled unless both PropView and DXView are running)
Enable SNR & Probability Prediction
when checked,
PropView
1.8.7 or later
can be directed to generate Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Probability
predictions for Spot Database Entries whose frequencies are in the range
of 2 MHz to 30 MHz; SpotCollector will update these
prediction hourly for the remainder of the current UTC month.
In
order to generate a propagation forecast for an Entry, the Entry's
DXGrid field
must be populated:
enabling the Capture location info from notes option will direct SpotCollector to determine each Entry's station's DXGrid by inspecting spot notes
enabling the Lookup missing location info option will direct SpotCollector to determine each Entry's station's DXGrid by DXCC or USAP database lookup if it has not been determined from spot notes or provided by the cluster software.
For needed stations
when checked with Enable SNR & Probability Prediction checked and PropView running, PropView will be directed to generate a signal-to-noise-ratio and probability prediction for each newly-reported needed DX station
Default Required SNR
required signal-to-noise ratio used when PropView doesn't recognize the mode of the Spot Database Entry for which an SNR & Probability prediction is being generated
When you select a DX station (e.g. by double-clicking
on a Spot Database entry), this panel's settings determine whether DXKeeper displays all
previous QSOs with that station's base callsign, or all previous QSOs
with that station's DXCC entity.
This panel's settings determine whether Distances,
Origin
Distances and Band Filter Maximum Origin Distances are stored and
displayed in miles or kilometers.
This panel lets you specify the Digital Mode Application to which SpotCollector will send frequency and mode information when you double-click a Spot Database Entry or right-click a Spot Database Entry and select the QSY menu item, subject to settings in the Actions with Digital Mode Application panel described below. By default, the Digital Mode Application textbox is set to WinWarbler; if the Digital Mode Application textbox is empty, SpotCollector sets it to WinWarbler . If you specify a Digital Mode Application like MultiPSK and click the Connect button, then when you select a Spot Database Entry, SpotCollector will send the frequency and mode information to that Digital Mode Application from then on.
Note that with SpotCollector connected to WSJT-X , double-clicking a Spot Database Entry whose mode is that of the connected WSJT-X will not convey information to the specified Digital Mode Application.
With SpotCollector connected to WSJT-X this panel's settings specify the transceiver mode to which Commander will set the transceiver when you double-click a Spot Database Entry whose mode is that of the connected WSJT-X, or right-click a Spot Database Entry whose mode is that of the connected WSJT-X and then select the QSY menu item. This setting should be identical to that of the Mode panel on the Radio tab of WSJT-X's Settings window.
The Service, Auto-restore, and Auto-minimize columns of checkboxes in this panel determine SpotCollector's actions if the specified Digital Mode Application is connected and a Spot Database Entry is activated by double clicking or by right-clicking and selecting the QSY menu item.
The Service checkboxes determine whether activation of a Spot Database Entry is conveyed to the Digital Mode Application as a function of the Entry's mode. The Digital Service box cannot be unchecked, because Digital mode Spot Database Entries are always conveyed to the Digital Mode Application if its connected. The CW, SSB, AM, and FM Service checkboxes determine whether activation of Spot Database Entries of these modes are also conveyed to the Digital Mode Application.
The Auto-restore checkboxes determine on a mode-by-mode basis whether after conveying activation of a Spot Database Entry to the Digital Mode Application, the Digital Mode Application's Main window is restored to the screen if it was minimized.
The Auto-minimize checkboxes determine on a mode-by-mode basis whether after activating a Spot Database Entry whose mode's Service checkbox is disabled, SpotCollector minimizes the Digital Mode Application's Main window if it is on-screen. The Digital Auto-minimize box cannot be checked because the Digital Service box cannot be unchecked, as explained above.
If the
specified Digital
Mode Application isn't connected but Commander
is running, then the settings in this panel's sub-panels determine to what mode
the transceiver will be set when a Spot
Database Entry is activated by
double-clicking or by right-clicking and
selecting the QSY menu item.
When a CW Spot Database Entry is activated with Commander running, set the transceiver to the specified mode:
CW
"normal" CW
CW-R
"reversed" CW
When a RTTY Spot Database Entry is activated with Commander running, set the transceiver to the specified mode:
RTTY
"normal" RTTY
RTTY-R
"reversed" RTTY
USB
upper sideband
LSB
lower sideband
When a Spot Database Entry is activated with Commander running and the entry's mode is other than USB, LSB, AM, FM, CW, or RTTY, then set the transceiver to the specified mode:
RTTY
"normal" RTTYRTTY-R
"reversed" RTTYUSB
upper sidebandLSB
lower sideband
File pathname textbox
pathname to a Sub-band definition file used by SpotCollector to identify a spot's band and default mode from its frequency or QSX frequency
each line of the file defines a sub-band, sequentially specifying a lower-frequency limit, an upper-frequency limit, the default mode name, and the band name, e.g. the following four entries used to define 15m sub-bands:
21000.1,21070,CW,15M
21070,21110,RTTY,15M
21110,21200,CW,15M
21200,21450,USB,15M
sub-band frequency ranges must be non-overlapping
in frequencies, use the period character as a decimal separator
sub-band entries must be sorted in order of increasing frequency
valid mode names are any mode defined in ADIF
valid band names are 2190M, 630M, 560M, 160M, 80M, 60M, 40M, 30M, 20M, 17M, 15M, 12M, 10M, 6M, 4M, 2M, 1.25M, 70CM, 33CM, 23CM, and 12CM
empty lines are not permitted
Select button
displays a file selector dialog that allows you to select and activate a Sub-band definition file
if this setting is blank, SpotCollector displays online help using your PC's default HTML browser -- typically Internet Explorer or Netscape; if you'd prefer to display online help with a specific HTML browser, place its full pathname here.
Select button
displays a file selector dialog that allows you to choose a Browser pathname
Help button: displays the information you are now reading
Display License button: displays SpotCollector's License
Display Errorlog button: displays the contents of the file errorlog.txt within SpotCollector's folder