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Available Mults and Qs

The Available Mults and Qs window for single-mode contests is similar to this example (beginning with release 9.12.5).

This window consists of three parts, the header, the band buttons and at the bottom the multiplier list box.

1. The Header

The header shows the number of Available Multipliers and QSO's. (Example 4 Mults 12 Qs), and also reports on some of the right-click menu items that may affect what happens when you click on a spot. See below for specifics.

You will note that this window does not appear to have the entry focus except when you have right-clicked to access the context menu to change the window's settings. This is as designed, because keyboard/mouse click focus should normally be on the Entry Window. Nonetheless, mouse clicks on band buttons and individual spots will be acted upon, as outlined below.

2. The Band Buttons

The top part of this window indicates the number of multipliers (left column) and potential contacts (right column) available on each band. The two numbers in the right column reflect the number of workable (non-dupe) QSOs available, and the total number - the latter is useful to determine relative band opening quality in a contest, like Sweepstakes, where late in the contest you may have worked most of the active stations. For example, the right column might display "2/47", indicating a wide-open band but with only two stations you have not already worked.

Red numbers indicate the band with the largest number of contacts (QSOs) available. The WARC bands only appear when DX (the default general logging contest) is the active contest. A VHF version will appear when a VHF contest is selected.

For a contest such as FD that allows HF and VHF, the lack of band buttons for VHF+ means (i) there will be no available spot totals displayed for the VHF+ bands; and (ii) there is no single click to QSY to VHF. You must either type in a frequency or QSY the radio manually to get to a VHF+ band. Even though the HF button set is shown, VHF spots that are workable in a particular contest will still appear in the lower pane of the available window (and on the band map); like other spots, those VHF+ spots are clickable to QSY (assuming radio support).

Each of the band buttons changes color when a callsign is entered in the callsign field. The color (green, red, blue or none) denotes whether that station is needed on that band as a double multiplier (green), a single multiplier (red), a valid non-duplicate QSO or not needed (none). The intention is to let you know whether you need that current station's multiplier on other bands, so that you can move him if you wish.

The active band's button text is shown in bold.

3. Spot List Box

The list box (the lower section of the window) shows spots received via Packet or Telnet. There are 4 columns: Call, Frequency, Bearing (Dir), and Time (TS) in the format "mm-dd hhmm". Clicking on the selected column title will sort the column, clicking again will reverse the sort order. An indicator of split spots (a "±") appears next to frequency. Spots coming from a local Skimmer are shown with a (!) to the right of the bearing, and those from a non-local Skimmer with (#).A sunrise/sunset indicator (a "¤") is shown to the right of the bearing for spots where applicable, as an aid to determining which spots may either be "perishable" or particularly suited to a gray-line QSO.

The color codes described are applied to each call listed; however, duplicate QSOs are not displayed.

4. Band button Assignments

• Left click on band button - Set the left radio or VFO-A to the first spot on the band specified.
• Right click on band button - Set the right radio or VFO-B to the first spot on the band specified.
  • Note: When both Entry windows are open on the same band (in SO2V), then clicking on a call will bring this call to the window without transmit focus. Select the correct radio/VFO by right or left clicking the band button. You should not be able to select the same band on both radios in SO2R, unless you deliberately do it on the radios' front panels. For obvious reasons, this is not a good idea,

5. Band button background colors

• Blue: Available QSO
• Red: Single Multiplier. Example: CQWW - QSO is either zone or country multiplier (one multiplier)
• Green: Double or better Multiplier. Example: CQWW - QSO is a zone and a country multiplier (two multipliers)
• Gray: Dupe

6. Mouse Assignments

• Left mouse key clicking on a callsign in the list box
  • SO1V
    • Single Left click - Always send the spot to VFO-A.
    • Shift + Single Left click - No action.
  • SO2V + set for "Basic VFO Selection" (set in the Right-Click menu explained below)
    • The selection Basic VFO Selection" or "Advanced VFO Selection" can be set/seen in the right click menu.
    • When set for "Advanced VFO Selection" the window title tells you the setting of this option.
      • Single Left click - Send the spot to VFO-A.
      • Shift + Single Left click - Send the spot to VFO-B.
  • SO2V + set for "Advanced SO2V VFO Selection" (set in the Right-Click menu explained below)
    • Single Left click
      • If both VFO's are not on the spot band, send the spot to the Active VFO. The spot VFO Entry Window and Bandmap wil be made active.
      • If either VFO is on the spot band, use the VFO which is on the spot band checking the active VFO first. The spot VFO Entry Window and Bandmap wil be made active.
    • Shift + Single Left click - reverse the VFO selection determined above.
  • SO2R + set for "SO2R Focus Follows Spot" (set in the Right-Click menu explained below)
    • The radio that the spot is sent to will be made active if "SO2R Focus Follows Spot" is checked. If the option is un-checked, the window focus will not change.
    • Single Left click
      • If both radios are not on the spot band, send the spot to the inactive radio.
      • If either radio is on the spot band, send the spot to that radio.
    • Shift + Single Left click - Reverse the VFO selection determined above if the selection will not place both radios on the same band.
  • Double click - Go to the frequency with the active VFO. The callsign on which you have clicked is placed in the callsign field in the Entry window overwriting anything that was in there!
• Left mouse button clicking on column title
  • Toggle the sort order of the spot list between ascending and descending based on the column selected (Call, Frequency, Bearing (Dir), Time (TS).

7. Right-Click menu

The following screen-shot shows the right-click menu effective with version 10.8.0

If you right click in the Available Window these menu items will appear. Not all menu items are always selectable.

• Delete Spot - Delete selected spot from the list of spots. This option is only selectable when you right-click on a call-sign in the lower list box.

• Advanced SO2V VFO Selection (radio dependent) - Determines the SO2V single left click behavior on a spot in the bandmap. See the details above. The option is grayed out when SO2V isn't selected and the window title tells you the setting of this option. Added because not all radios will work with the Advanced setting.

• Enable right click QSY on spot - When checked a right click on a spot will cause the inactive radio or VFO to be programmed without changing the Entry window focus. If a split spot is selected in SO2V mode, the TX frequency will not be programmed because it will change a potential RUN frequency. When this occurs, a message is printed at the bottom of the Entry window. Right clicking on a spot in SO2R mode that would place both radios on the same band is ignored. This option needs to be unchecked to allow spots to be deleted or the rotor to be turned from the Available window. This option is grayed out, not available in SO1V mode.
• SO2R Focus Follows Spot - Determines the SO2R single left click behavior on a spot in the bandmap. See the details above. The option is grayed out when SO2R isn't selected and the window title tells you the setting of this option.
• Turn Rotor - Turn rotator to bearing for selected callsign

The remaining options operate at all times. Note that none of the following options affect the contents of the bandmap(s). Only the list of calls in the Available window will change.

• Show Q's_Mults - toggle between showing all spots or just multipliers
• 1 - Show Focus Radio/VFO - Show only spots on the band of the VFO or Radio which has entry focus.
• 2 - Show Non-Focus Radio/VFO - Show only spots on the band of the the VFO or Radio which does not have entry focus.
• 3 - Show Both Radios/VFOs - Show spots on the bands of both VFOs or Radios.
• 4 - Show All Bands - Show spots on all bands.
• 160 - Show only 160 meter spots.
• 80 - Show only 80 meter spots.
• 40 - Show 40 meter spots.
• 20 - Show only 20 meter spots.
• 15 - Show only 15 meter spots.
• 10 - Show only 10 meter spots.

Beginning with version 10.8.0, this menu permits setting of spot filters by mode. The options are:

• All Modes
• CW Mode
• SSB Mode
• RTTY Mode
• PSK Mode
• Contest Mode Category

Only one of these options can be selected at a time. The first three are self-explanatory. Since many spots The program distinguishes between RTTY and PSK spots based on the Comments field in the spot - BPSK, PSK31, or any other word containing "PSK". If "Contest Mode Category" is selected, the program will only display spots in the Available window that conform to the Contest Mode Category selected in the Select Log Type dialog (also called the Contest Setup dialog).

Filtering notes

There are three levels of spot filtering available. The first of these is at the DX cluster node, using whatever filtering capabilities are built into the node. Because N1MM Logger stops processing telnet messages when CW is being sent, users who are connected to a very high volume node, such as the Reverse Beacon Network's Telnet node, may find it advantageous to block some of the less useful spots (for US users, you might not want spots from VK, for example).

The second level of spot filtering is accessible from the right-click menu of the Packet/Telnet window, and decides which spots received from the cluster node should be forwarded to the Bandmap and the Available window. If too many spots are forwarded, depending on how fast your computer is, you may encounter brief delays in execution of commands (such as sending of CW messages) while the program catches up, so it is probably a good idea to use some filtering at one or both of these levels.

The third level of filtering is in the Available window, and it only governs which spots are shown in the window's lower pane. For example, if you decide only to list CW spots, the bandmaps will continue to display all spots, and the top pane of the Available window will continue to display overall spot numbers for each band, but the lower pane's list of spots will contain only CW spots. You can quickly switch back and forth between showing all spots, just those on the current band, only CW or SSB or digital spots, or any other band/mode combination.

• Help - Shows this section of the manual from the web site. Internet required

Hovering with the mouse over a spot in the list will show a tooltip with more info about the spot (frequency, spotter, time, comments)

8. Multi-mode contests

Beginning with version 10.7.2, this window will display one column of band buttons for each mode in multi-mode contests. Operation is otherwise similar to that in single-mode contests. If the contest's rules specify that multipliers only count once per band, the colors of both modes' buttons for that band will change in unison; if multipliers count once per band and mode, then the band button colors will show the status, as described below, on each band/mode combination.