Setup the MixW logbook for a contest.

http://ka7u.us

CAT & Logging

ORION II

HEATH KIT

K7OJI & TVRA Club

ARES

         

To start the setup refer to the picture below.  Select the menu "View/Contest mode...".

Once you have this done you will get this window.  There are options already created in this example and I will choose to "Edit" the Stew Perry contest for an example.  If you have not yet setup a contest, only the option "No contest" will be available and you will need to select the "Add new" menu option which is the same basic menu as the "Edit" but not filled in yet. Please note: while we are in this view, you should notice that "Select" is an option. Once you have a contest you want to use you must "Select" it. Currently the red arrow indicates that "No contest" is selected.  You don't have to select a line to edit it, but you do have to highlight one by clicking on it. When the contest is over remember to come back to this menu and select "No contest".

From this menu you get to "Name" your contest, decide what exchange will be sent out, in this case it is DN14 for my grid square, but it could have been anything or a number or an "AutoInc" number. Make certain that you define the start and end date and time for the contest.  You also get to choose which "domain" file to use for the contest.  These can be downloaded from the MixW website if not already in your MixW folder.  The same is true for the Macro files.

The next important step is to adjust the view of your logbook fields. You can see that I've selected "Contest layout" as the option I'm using here. These fields can be further adjusted to make each one larger or smaller by using the mouse at the intersection of the headers.

Now the contest is over and it is time to build the cabrillo file to submit your QSOs to the contest organizers.  Use the glasses for the "Search in logfile" menu as shown below.  You can blank everything or adjust the date fields if needed or the band if needed.  Then check the "Contest" box and select your contest.

Once you have made your choices click on the "Display" choice above and you are presented with this window.  you should be able to select all or if you want use the Ctrl/left mouse click option to deselect any QSOs you don't want to export.  Then select the "to Cabrillo" option at the bottom of the window. .

This window lets you specify information about the cabrillo file format you will export the logbook into.  In the example below, I should have selected OR instead of ORG, but hey this is just an example.  I'm sure you will do it right when you do it! HI!  Select the name of the contest from the pull down list, fill in the blanks appropriately.  Once you click the "OK" button a small window will appear to give a chance to name your file.  The file will be saved with a .cbr extension in your MixW folder and is a plain text file.

This is my Stew-Perry cabrillo log in an "unedited" condition and renamed with a .txt extension so that it will open for you.  If you need to open and edit your cabrillo log file remember that it is a space delimited file. Tabs and other special characters are not used.  You can edit it with a spreadsheet such as Excel if you know how to concatenate spaces and columns to get your results, but if you are not accurate the log will either not get past the receiving log checking robot or get disqualified later down the log check process, so most editing should be done only in a text editor such as Notepad.  When I made this contest I made a mistake and did not put DN14 into the exchange window when I set the contest up.  Instead I left the AutoInc box checked and when you look at my cabrillo file in this example you will see that only the top two exchanges have my DN14 listed.  All the others have an incrementing number going down the list, so I got to fix it before I can turn it in.  I left it this way so that you can see what NOT to do. HI!!