I've used DXbase since the DOS version, starting in December 1994, except for one year, about 1999, when I used DX4WIN. I've always liked DXbase because it seemed to be the most full featured program.
I got frustrated after I replaced my PRO3 with an FT-2000D and needed a log program hat polled my radio so my SteppIR could follow the radio (the SteppIR eavesdrops with a Y-cable). The contest loggers poll the radio so they can have band maps, and I needed the same feature in my daily logger. I did the Triple Play WAS thing at the end of January and those guys were uploading to LOTW several times per night!! I asked them what logging programs they used, and I learned how easily other programs did it. I am loyal to a fault (married to my first wife for 20 years!), but I looked objectively at other programs, which I think is healthy curiosity. I asked others in my DX clubs (Northern IL and Central AZ) what they used, and I joined the reflectors of the most popular programs. Logger32 was the most popular one in NIDXA. It seems to be a very nice program. One former DXbase user, a friend of many years, said he'd switched some time ago to the DXLab suite of programs. I downloaded and tried several and made up a list of likes and dislikes. I really like DXbase's DX Info and Summary windows, for instance, and wanted to keep that functionality. I've been using DXLab programs for about two months and am very impressed. It's an awful lot to learn, but some people whom I recommended DXbase to in the past thought it was too much to learn. The DXLab documentation is a .pdf file for each module, as well as context-sensitive help. DXbase's contest-sensitive help is excellent, I think, and it sets a high standard. The countries and other databases are updated with a couple of mouse clicks, as are the different modules' programs; you can check for updates with a mouse click. Modules can be used separately or together. MMTTY and PSK are fully integrated. A new 87A program (http://www.qslnet.de/hb9zs) communicates with the rig control module, reading the radio frequency and automatically changing the frequency of the amplifier. The support is incredible. I don't know the situation of Dave, AA6YQ, the author, but he appears to work on the program full time (really) and is on the reflector all the time with answers and new releases. A downside is that there is so much information and so many modules a second monitor is very desirable or maybe a necessity. The monitor I bought for my FT-2000D's DMU is usually used for DXLab. It doesn't work with the GO LIST database, which I subscribe to and use with DXbase. I asked a question about a 1-2 second delay in executing CW macros from one of the two entry windows (no delay on the other) and AA6YQ, the author, spent lots of time analyzing my log debugging files to confirm the problem; he's working on the solution (to a 1 second problem!). If a new version of DXbase came out I'd enthusiastically check it out and would be happy to beta test it. I fully appreciate that it's hard or impossible to compete with someone who seems to have the luxury of being able to devote full time to a competing product and then gives it away for free. I never believed that any of the logging software authors ever made enough money to make it worthwhile financially. It's incredibly nice for someone like AA6YQ or N1MM and his helpers to write these programs. I appreciate all that Jack has done with DXbase and the fifteen years I've used it. He set a very high standard early in the game, even back in the DOS days. In my book, he's up there with AK1A, the inventor of DX PacketCluster, K1EA, WF1B, and other visionaries who gave so much to our obsession. Jim N7US -----Original Message----- I've been using DX Base since 2002 and I think I've pretty well mastered it, inside-out and backwards. Joe's add-ons and reports make a great intermediate step but it's getting to be time to either bring in some badly needed changes or for us die-hards and power-users to start looking elsewhere. LoTW is only one very small component; Joe's AutoLOTW helper application does a decent job in that department, as does AXETTY and all the custom reports and labels. I think it's more fundamental than that. We all know what's right with it; I won't sit here and praise all the great things DX Base does (and does well) because, frankly most of us wouldn't be here if it were otherwise. Yes, it's a damned good application. But it's an application stuck in an earlier age of software and desperately in need of a re-write and some new, creative functionality. We're at a familiar crossroads in terms of software development, such as we saw when DOS and Win3.1 gave way to Windows 95, and later when Win98/ME gave way to XP and Win2K. Old apps that refuse to let go of the old ways eventually wither on the vine and pass from view. For as much as people dislike Vista and love XP, the reality is Windows 7 is coming out this September, and, unlike Vista, it promises to be a major success based on the comments in the various tech blogs and user groups (and from this user's ongoing beta/RC trial). The problems many users are facing while trying to operate DX Base under Vista will not go away. It's also likely that even more DX Base users will abandon the software when faced with having to replace their old, dying XP boxen with new, powerful and inexpensive Win7-based computers. I've investigated other powerful loggers (and even went as far as buying CommCat--which is actually a very decent application), but there's NOTHING in the DX logger marketplace, free or paid, that has DX Base's power and lack of clutter. Make it fully Vista/Win7 compliant, add a band-map, full cluster e-mail alerting, fix the second monitor drop-down box bug, allow unlimited Operator calls, the ability to have multiple logs open at once (for QSL managers and DXpeditions), add 5B WAZ tracking/reporting and integrate some of Joe's helper apps and that would make a great start. I could also come up with a couple of dozen other suggestions, too, if asked. By now, I think most of us know that Jack's full time job is taking up huge amounts of time, and in this economy, heaven only knows how good a thing that is. By the same token, many loyal hams who've invested money and lots of their own time to mastering a great program want to know if it's time to either hang on or move on, and if it's hang on, for how long. We've all been in airport or train station waiting rooms...how comfortable is it when you have no clue if the airplane you're waiting to board is even in the same time zone or if the train isn't stuck in a siding somewhere waiting for 50 freights to clear. That's how it feels to be a loyal user of this app. I'd rather be told by the stationmaster that the train's been cancelled or by the airline that due to weather in England the flight won't operate today, and make alternate arrangements. And if it's going to just be another short wait and we'll be underway, great! I'll gladly stick around. Speaking for myself, I seriously don't want to learn all the intracacies of new logger if I don't have to. ----------------------------------- Regards, Peter, W2IRT ______________________________________________________________ Dxbase mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/dxbase Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
