DX Monitor

Setup

  1. Unzip the all the files in dxmon0x.zip to a new directory (c:\DXMON for example).
  2. Create a shortcut to the DXMON.EXE program from your desktop.
  3. Run DXMON.EXE using the shortcut or Start|Run, etc.
If this is a new installation of DX Monitor, you will have to fill in a few setup items. Other options are available on separate pages of the setup:


Operation


Connect to the internet if you are not already connected. You must be connected when you first request information by pressing one of the buttons. After the first connection has been established, you may connect and disconnect from the network at will. It is not necessary to quit DX Monitor.

I hope the buttons are self explanatory. Press 25, 250, or 1000 to manually retrieve recent DX activity. Press Ann to view the last 25 announcements. Press WWV to view the last 25 WWV numbers.

Recent WWV numbers are displayed on the toolbar. The arrows indicate the trend. Move the cursor over the numbers to see the date and time they were posted. Click on WWV and then press New for a current update. If you are in Auto mode, the WWV information is updated once an hour.

To announce a spot, click on the Spot button. Fill in the form, and press announce. If no DX call and frequency is entered, the comment will be sent as an Announce. Please do not "test" spotting without entering a real DX station that you can hear . Please use your own call to make announcements.

If you click on a callsign, the country, beam heading, distance, and sunrise and sunset times will be displayed in the bottom panel. If you have a map visible, the location of the DX will be spotted on the map. If the Callbook is installed, the US state will be displayed and the beam heading will be more accurate for US stations.

Main Window


If you double click on a call, and the Callbook CD is active, the Callbook data will be displayed in a popup window. If the CD has been removed and reinserted, or is inserted after DX Monitor is started, press F10 (setup) to enable Callbook operation. You can press F11 at any time to bring up the Callbook window and enter calls manually. Even if there is no CDRom present, the beam heading and sunrise/sunset times will be displayed and you can plot the station location on the maps.


Schedule Alerts

At the right of the toolbar, the current date and time are displayed. Click on this clock to bring up the sked window. Enter the date and time of any new skeds, along with a comment, such as the call and frequency. DX Monitor will sound an alarm and display the sked when the time comes. The particular wav file that is played can be changed at any time. You will find lots of them in c:\windows\media, especially if you have 95 Plus. Other good ones are in the MS Office sound directory.

DX Alerts

Press F5, or select Set DX alarms from the Tools menu to specify the prefixes or stations you are looking for. When they are spotted, a message box will appear showing the frequency. This is also true if the DX makes a spot announcement. Calls from this list will show up in red on the announcement list so you will be sure to see them. If you wish a custom WAV file for each prefix, place the filename after the prefix. DX Monitor is still in beta testing. There have been numerous requests for band or mode specific alarms. These features will be added soon. Therefore, I don't recommend you spend much time creating alarms now. The format will change and you will have to enter them all again. It is best to use it for stations you know are on the air that you are watching for.

Filters

As a result of an overwhelming number of requests, frequency filtering has been added to version 0.7 of DX Monitor. Press F7 or select Filters from the Options menu. Enter the ranges you wish to observe. Check the box to Enable Filters. Stations spotted outside these ranges will be totally ignored by the program.

Sorting

The display may be sorted by any column. The easy way is to click on the title at the head of the column. Each click will reverse the order of the sort. You can also select the sort you wish from the Sort menu. When new spots are loaded, the sort order reverts to descending order by time.

Searching

Press ctl-F or select from the Search menu. You can search for any text in the list of spots. Press F3 to continue searching for a second spot.

Delete Row (Shift-Del) can also be used to delete a line if garbage data finds its way into the display.

Editing

Press ctl-E or select Enable Edit from the Options menu to enable editing of the display. This can be used to correct a callsign if you are saving them for later analysis. It can also be used to enter a prefix if you wish to access the beam heading, distance or sunrise/sunset information manually. Press ctl-E again to turn editing off.


Map Generation

Azimuthal Plot of Recent Spots


Press F8 or select Azimuthal Projection from the Maps menu to display a Great Circle Map centered on your location. The location and plot parameters based on "recent spots" and "local spots" are based on the setup information. Press F10 to change these settings.

The stations plotted will also be filtered by frequency according to the last plot you performed manually, as shown in the Plot | Spots... menu. The color of the map tack can also be set in that dialog.

The first time you display an Azimuthal Projection map, either via the menu or by pressing the Automatic Map hot button, a new map will be generated. This will take a few moments. The new map will be saved as a BMP file in your DX Monitor directory. The map is generated from the Mercator file, WORLD.BMP. You can modify the colors or change boundaries on that map using any graphics software. My thanks to Gledrius, LY2CG, for breaking up the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia on the latest map.

File Menu

Generate New Map
Maps may be generated using the colors of the Mercator projection map WORLD.BMP. Or you can generate a map with the single land color of your choice, as shown above.

Show Octant Lines?
Octant lines indicating the 8 principal beam headings may be added to the map.

Generated maps may be saved or loaded using the Open... and Save As... menu items.

Save as Desktop Wallpaper will save the current map to your desktop. See the Options menu for automatic options.

Plot Menu

Clear (ctl-C) will restore the original clean map as generated.

Terminator (ctl-T) will add the current terminator (Gray Line), showing the location of sunrise and sunset around the world. Previously plotted data will be erased by this step. Pressing the arrow keys will show the terminator for one hour later or earlier. This is handy for checking for good propagation times to certain areas.

Plot Log File allows you to plot lists of callsigns from any text based log file with fixed columns. The first few lines of the file will be displayed under a column indicator so that you can indicate the correct column to use. The color of the map tack may be selected. Plots of files may be saved to disk.

Plot Spots allows you to plot DX spots from the main window. You can select recent spots based on the F10 setup information, or select a number of spots to plot.

Spots may be filtered on the basis of frequency. Plotted spots may be restricted to those spotted locally. The color of the spots may be selected. These settings will affect the automatic plotting of incoming spots.

Options Menu

Selecting Refresh Automatically will update the Terminator every 5 minutes and plot new spots as they arrive. Spots are filtered according to the Plot | Spots selections. This item is automatically checked when the Map button on the toolbar is selected.

Selecting Automatic Wallpaper causes each update of the map to be saved to the desktop as background wallpaper. When you exit DX Monitor, your original Wallpaper will return. You can change the wallpaper settings for your system with the Control Panel Display options. You should choose center, not tiled, not stretched to full screen. If you want to save DX Monitors output as permanent wallpaper, select DX Monitor Wallpaper from the list.



Log plotted on Mercator Projection
CT contest log


Press F9 or select Mercator Projection from the Maps menu to display a Mercator Projection Map. The File and Plot menus are generally the same as those described above for the Azimuthal Projection map.


Automatic Operation

Press the Auto button to begin automatic operation. The button will change from green to red. When it is red, pressing it will stop automatic operation. When DX Monitor is accessing the net, this button will change to STOP. Pressing it then will cancel the current operation and stop future automatic retrievals.

Every 5 minutes (or the time period you have entered), DX Monitor will access the latest DX announcements. If all 25 new spots retrieved are new, the program will retrieve the most recent 250. If these are new and you have a "retain" setting greater than 250, the program will retrieve the most recent 1000 spots.

When you first start DX Monitor, all you need do is press the Auto button to fully update the DX list. Remember to connect to the net first. It is possible for DX Monitor to automatically start in Auto Mode by using the command line argument Auto when running DX Monitor. Right-click on the DX Monitor shortcut you have created on your desktop. Select Properties. Select Shortcut. Add AUTO to the Target entry. (e.g. c:\dxmon\dxmon.exe   AUTO). If you are using DUNCE to run DX Monitor automatically after a dialup connection, place quotes around the filename: "c:\dxmon\dxmon.exe" AUTO. After DX Monitor loads, you have 5 seconds to press ESC if you wish to abort automatic operation.

In automatic mode DX Monitor will update the WWV numbers and Announcements once each hour. At this time, there is no facility for making announcements via the internet.

When you are in automatic mode, you can disconnect from the net at any time. When a retrieval fails, the status bar will indicate [Network unavailable]. Every couple of minutes DX Monitor will continue to retry. When you dial in again, the program will update the display as needed and announce any DX station that you have listed in your alarm list. Even when DX Monitor is minimized, it will continue to operate and watch for your needed stations. You can read your email or surf the web while DX Monitor does the "work" for you.

Automatic Map Plotting

The map speed button on the toolbar (between the Auto and Stop buttons) will display the Azimuthal Projection map with the Terminator line and the current DX spots. This map will automatically update as new spots come in. The terminator will be adjusted every 5 minutes. If the Automatic Wallpaper option is checked in the Options Menu of the map, the map will be displayed on the desktop as it is updated. The program may be minimized and operates in the background.

Importing

It is possible to import pages saved using Netscape or Internet Explorer. Select Import... from the File menu. You can only import the OH2BUA page with this command. Other pages may crash the program.

CTY.DAT

In order to determine the location of DX spots, DX Monitor uses the CTY.DAT file created by K1EA Software for the excellent CT contest logging program. This file is updated regularly by Jim Reisert, AD1C, to include new countries and special prefixes. The latest version can be obtained from http://www.ve7tcp.ampr.org/ftp/software/ct/cty.dat. Some time soon, I will add a feature to DX Monitor that will allow it to automatically check the date of the latest CTY.DAT file and retrieve it if it has been updated.

CTY.DAT does not show locations more accurately than by country. In the case of larger countries that have geographically accurate prefixes (VE, VK, PY, UA) it would be nice to have a subfile that could be used for more accurate beam headings, sunrise times, and map plotting. Any volunteers want to help create this file?

Time Corrections

The spot time is sent by the DX cluster from which the spot originated. Some clusters have their clocks set incorrectly. If a spot is received for a time which is in the future, the time is "corrected" to the current time and the © symbol is displayed beside it.


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