[Tlf-devel] Tlf with ARRL 160m, some thoughts

[Nate Bargmann]

This is the first I have used Tlf since Tom released the 1.2 series.
Congratulations, Tom, this is the best experience I have had with Tlf.
Well done.

I am adjusting my habits to the TR--Enter Sends Message (ESM) in N1MM
parlance--key sequencing and it works well.  I just have to remember to
switch between CQ and S&P modes.  Once I do that, the operation is very
slick.  As the exchange in ARRL 160m is quite simple, so long as the
exchange field is empty, pressing <Enter> sends my call rather than
reaching up to press F6.  I like!  Operation is just as smooth in CQ
mode.

I've operated about four hours or so between last night and this morning
and put 115 Qs in the log, mostly S&P, although I did manage a short run
this morning.  Band isn't great and my 100W from a short wire struggles
to be heard it seems.  Granted, a lot of ops may be dealing with local
noise while I have a very quiet location.

Now a few things I'll put on my TODO list.

Editing keys.  Once characters are in the call field the left arrow
enters edit mode.  I'd like the <Home> key to do the same while jumping
the cursor to the first character in the field.  Often a person only
copies the suffix of the call and being able to jump to the front of the
string with one key press rather than several is probably expected
behavior.

As with <Home> above, the <End> key should exit edit mode and position
the cursor after the last character.  This will likely be a synonym of
<Enter> in this case and is an intuitive key press for many users.

Sort out the cases where some cty.dat entities are ARRL sections or
entities.  For the most part this would affect ARRL 160, ARRL FD, and
ARRL SS where all US territories are counted as an ARRL section.  For
other events such as ARRL DX they are entities rather than sections, as
I recall, so there may need to be an addition rules file keyword and
some logic added.

I do have a rules file for ARRL 160m USA in my repository and it is in a
pending pull request to Tom.  Also in that pull request is a fix for the
MULT_LIST rules parameter where the file will be loaded from the
installed files if it doesn't exist in the local working directory.
This will avoid having to copy a file such as arrlsections into the
working directory each time when a distributed mults file is used.

For keying the CW I am using the updated winkeydaemon.pl from Wilbert,
PE7T, with my HamGadgets MK-1.  I did patch it to enable the debug
command line switch.  It too has been working flawlessly.  I can create
and push the code to a repository on GitHub if anyone is interested.

Control of my K3 with Hamlib has worked flawlessly as well.

73, Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

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