If you operate from more than one QTH and
want to print QSL cards or labels that correctly describe the location from which you were operating at the time
want to generate progress reports for awards that consider only QSOs made from some of the locations from which you operated
want DXView to be updated with the latitude and longitude of a newly-selected default QTH
want to specify which of those locations are valid for ARRL VHF/UHF Century Club (VUCC) and ARRL Worked All States (WAS) awards
want to ensure that QSOs submitted to LoTW reference the correct Station Location
then you'll need to describe each of your QTHs and assign each a unique identifier, referred to as a myQTH ID.
When you log a QSO, specifying the correct unique myQTH ID enables DXKeeper's QSL information substitution commands to take on the correct value when you print a QSL card or label.
DXKeeper assumes that all QSOs in a log file are valid for the same ARRL
DXCC, RSGB
Islands On the Air (IOTA), CQ
DX Marathon, CQ
Worked All Zones (WAZ),
and CQ
Worked All Prefixes (WPX) awards.
Thus if you have operated from multiple DXCC entities, you should use a separate
log file for the QSOs made from each entity.
Descriptions of your QTHs are captured and maintained using the my
QTHs tab of DXKeeper's Main window; you can define up to 4096 my
QTHs. To describe a QTH, click the New button,
and enter appropriate text in the Name, Street, City, Primary Administrative
Subdivision (Pri sub), Secondary Administrative Subdivision (Sec sub), PostCode, Country,
Email, Rig, Ant, CQ, ITU, IOTA, Grid square, Latitude, and Longitude textboxes.
Always specify the QTH's location with a Grid Square, or with a Latitude and a Longitude using the format selected in the Lat/Lon panel; specifying a Grid will automatically compute the Latitude and Longitude, and specifying a Latitude and Longitude will automatically compute the Grid.
You need only enter additional information if you want it printed on QSL cards or labels (using the substitution commands), but to avoid extra work if you later change your mind, its best to capture all of the information.
The textbox labeled ID is special -- you must enter a set of characters that uniquely identify this QTH and that do not include the single apostrophe ' . When you log a QSO, the myQTH ID item is used to capture the unique identifier of the QTH from which you are making the QSO. If you never operate from two cities with the same name (like San Jose, California and San Jose, Costa Rica), then you can use the city name as a unique identifier. You could also use the name of the street from which you operate, or the name of the village, or just assign each QTH a unique letter (A for Addis Ababa, B for Bata Sani, C for Chelyabinsk, etc). After filling in all of the textboxes, click the Save button.
To define a new QTH and populate it with information from an existing QTH, click on the entry for the existing QTH, and depress the CTRL key while clicking the New button; the new QTH's ID item will be empty, but all of the other information will be populated from the existing QTH you selected. This is useful when you're defining multiple QTHs for the same geographic location, but with different radios or antennas.
The LotW selector lets you choose from among the Station Locations you've defined in TQSL.
When you submit a batch of QSOs to LotW from the QSL Queue using the Upload to LOTW function, DXKeeper ensures each QSO referencing a QTH that specifies an LotW Station Location matches the Station Location specified in the TQSL panel on the QSL Configuration window's LoTW tab; any QSO that references a QTH that specifies an LotW Station Location that doesn't match, will not be submitted to LoTW.
When you submit a single QSO to LoTW, if the QSO references a QTH that specifies an LotW Station Location, that Station Location and the Station Callsign it specifies will be used to submit the QSO to LotW. If the specified Station Location specifies a Station Callsign of [NONE], then the QTH's Station Location and the QSO's Station Callsign item will be used to submit the QSO to LotW. If a single QSO submitted to LotW doesn't reference a QTH, or references a QTH that doesn't specify an LotW Station Location, then the Station Location and Station Callsign specified in the TQSL panel on the QSL Configuration window's LoTW tab will be used to submit the QSO to LotW. Single QSOs can be submitted to LotW by one of these three means:
right-clicking an entry in the Log Page Display and selecting the Upload to LoTW command
logging a QSO via the Capture window with the Upload each QSO logged via the Capture window to LotW option enabled
directing an external application to log a QSO to DXKeeper and submit it to LoTW
The Ant textbox supports a specific format for describing an antenna configuration for each of several bands, permitting the <bandant> substitution command (and the <myqthbandant> substitution command in WinWarbler) to automatically extract the description of the antenna for the current band:
[antX:
description]
where X
is the band, and description
is the description of the antenna for that band. This example describes antennas
for the 160m, 80m, and 40m bands:
[ant160m:1/4 wave inverted
L][ant80m:1/4 wave vertical][ant40m:F12 240/420 at 80 feet]
The IOTA, VUCC, and WAS, checkboxes indicate whether QSOs made from a QTH should be considered for IOTA, VUCC and WAS award progress, respectively; this governs IOTA Realtime Award Tracking, IOTA Progress Reporting and Submission, VUCC Realtime Award Tracking, VUCC Progress Reporting and Submission, WAS Realtime Award Tracking, and WAS Progress Reporting. If the log specifies fewer than two QTHs, all of its QSOs will be considered for VUCC and WAS whether they specify a QTH or not, and whether that QTH's VUCC and WAS boxes are checked or not.
As you define QTHs, they appear in a grid display in the lower part of the Main window's my QTHs tab; vertically resizing the Main window with this tab selected will increase or decrease the number of QTHs visible in the grid. You can define up to 4096 QTHs; each must have a unique identifier. To modify a QTH definition, select its entry in grid display, make whatever changes are required, and click the Save button.
To delete a QTH definition, select its entry in the grid display and click the Delete button. Note that you cannot delete a QTH definition if one or more QSOs still contain its myQTH ID; should you attempt to do so, DXKeeper will inform you of its refusal, and will filter the Log Page Display to show all QSOs still containing a myQTH ID for the QTH definition you are attempting to delete. If desired, you can use the Modify QSOs function to change these myQTH IDs in a single operation. Successfully deleting a QTH definition leaves the Log Page Display showing all QSOs in in the log.
If you have many QTH definitions and wish to quickly select a particular QTH definition, open the Find myQTH ID selector, scroll down to the desired QTH definition, and click it; the selected QTH definition will appear.
The Set myQTH ID button in the Update QSOs in Log Page Display panel will set the myQTH ID item of each QSO in the Log Page Display to that of the QTH currently select in the my QTHs tab's grid display. If you've got a log full of QSOs made from different QTHs and wish to properly associate each with the correct QTH, this function avoids the need to step through each QSO individually to set its myQTH ID item:
When you log a QSO via the Main or Capture windows, you can record the myQTH ID for the QTH from which you are operating. If you are making many QSOs from the same QTH, you can define a default myQTH ID that will be used to initialize each new QSO. You can optionally make the default myQTH ID be the combination of a root myQTH ID and the name of the primary radio currently selected in Commander. You can configure DXKeeper to update DXView with the latitude and longitude of a newly-selected default myQTH.
To filter the Log Page Display to show only QSOs made from the currently-selected QTH, click the my QTHs tab's Filter button.
To generate and display a report showing the number and percentage of QSOs made from each QTH, click the my QTHs tab's Report button.
If you've defined one or more QTHs, invoking the Broke filter on the Log QSOs tab will reveal any QSOs whose myQTH ID item has not been set.
When you print QSL cards or labels, DXKeeper will confirm multiple QSOs with the same station on a single card or label if the myQTH fields for City, Primary Administrative Subdivision, Secondary Administrative Subdivision,, Country, and PostCode all match; upper/lower case and white space are ignored in this comparison. You can, however, force each QSO to be confirmed on a separate card or label by unchecking the Confirm multiple QSOs per QSL box.
When a QSO containing a myQTH ID item is exported in ADIF, the myQTH ID is exported with the tag APP_DXKEEPER_MY_QTHID. If the Export tab's Export QTH definitions box is checked, DXKeeper will also export the contents of the QTH definition selected by the myQTH ID using the ADIF 2.0 tags MY_CITY, MY_CNTY, MY_COUNTRY, MY_CQ_ZONE, MY_GRIDSQUARE, MY_IOTA, MY_ITU_ZONE, MY_LAT, MY_LON, MY_POSTAL_CODE, MY_STATE, MY_STREET, MY_NAME, MY_RIG, and MY_EMAIL.
When an imported ADIF record contains an APP_DXKEEPER_MY_QTHID tag, the imported myQTH ID is placed in the imported QSO's myQTH ID item; single apostrophes contained in the imported myQTH ID are removed, and this action is noted in the import log. If the log contains no QTH definition with the imported myQTH ID, then a new QTH definition is created, and assigned the imported myQTH ID. If the imported ADIF record contains any of the following ADIF 2.0, their associated data is used to populated the newly-created QTH definition: MY_CITY, MY_CNTY, MY_COUNTRY, MY_CQZONE, MY_GRIDSQUARE, MY_IOTA, MY_ITUZONE, MY_LAT, MY_LON, MY_POSTAL_CODE, MY_STATE, MY_STREET, MY_NAME, MY_RIG, and MY_EMAIL.
Taken together, the above export and import capabilities mean that if a log containing multiple QTH definitions and QSOs that reference them (via myQTH IDs) is exported in ADIF with the Export QTH definitions box checked, the resulting ADIF file can later be imported into an empty log with the result that all QTH definitions from the original log will be re-created, and the imported QSOs will appropriately reference these QTH definitions.