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El Día de los Bichos Muertos
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Headline: A release of bug fixes, most of them reported by you. JTCAT stops logging contacts that never finished, Halt TX stops a transmission everywhere at once, and the band follows your radio when you turn the dial to another band's FT8 frequency. Log windows now show the bands and modes you have already worked with a call, and the maps can label every DXCC prefix.
FT8 / JTCAT
- No more logs for contacts that never finished. Clicking another station no longer logs the one you were working unless they had confirmed. A station that answers your CQ with a report instead of a grid is logged when they send RR73, RRR or 73, not as soon as you send your report.
- Halt TX stops the transmission on every screen. Halt in the FT8 window, the PSK31 and JTTY Stop buttons, and Halt on your phone now end the transmission at once, instead of letting the current 13 seconds play out.
- The band follows your radio. Turn the radio's dial to another band's FT8, FT4 or FT2 frequency and the FT8 window moves with it, instead of refusing to transmit with "wrong band" while it kept decoding. Any other frequency is still refused, and that message now names both bands and has a Follow the radio button.
- The G badge clears once you log the grid. New grid, new call and new DXCC badges now clear on decodes already shown, and a grid you just worked no longer shows as new on later decodes.
- A QSO started from an RR73 or report logs the station's grid, taken from the CQ they sent earlier.
- A six-minute transmit limit for FT8, FT4 and FT2. If nothing you do and no QSO progress happens for six minutes, transmitting stops. Thanks KO4L.
- DXpeditions in the band menu. A DXpedition on the air that has announced its FT8 or FT4 frequency appears at the end of the FT8 window's band menu. Pick it and POTACAT switches to its mode, tunes its frequency, and tells you when they run Fox/Hound (turn on Hound in the options) or SuperFox (which POTACAT's Hound mode does not decode). The list fills in as the announcements are read.
- The map popup's callsign opens QRZ.com.
- The signal-floor boxes save. "Hunt: don't call below" and "By band" in the FT8 window's options did not save in that window; they do now.
- GridTracker keeps its map and roster. The status POTACAT sends GridTracker no longer drops the frequency to zero for a moment, which blanked and recentred its map, and now names the station you are working, so its roster keeps the QSO you started.
Logging
- The country is where the station is operating. A contact with 6W/IK2HKT was logged as Italy, with the home station's grid, because QRZ was asked about IK2HKT. The country now comes from the call as worked (6W/IK2HKT is Senegal, W1AW/KH6 is Hawaii), and QRZ supplies only the name.
- See what you have already worked with a call. The Log QSO window, the log pop-out and ECHOCAT Web's log forms show a small grid under the callsign: rows CW, Phone and Digital, a column per band, W for worked and C for confirmed. Thanks AE5JE.
- The Log QSO form follows your radio. A form opened from a spot waits until the radio reaches the spot, then follows the dial; a frequency you type wins.
Radios
- Yaesu FT-710 CAT, from an owner. Filter width, AGC (OFF and AUTO), the speech processor, NB level, 5 W minimum power, and RTTY, PSK and DATA-FM modes now behave on the FT-710. Contributed and tested on the radio by W3MDT.
- Kenwood TS-590S/SG and TS-890S filter width now uses the commands Kenwood's guides name for SSB, AM, DATA and CW, and the TS-890S reads its S-meter the way its guide says.
- Elecraft K3, K3S, KX2 and KX3 go into DATA A for FT8 and WSPR instead of staying in USB.
- Icom split and VFO B. POTACAT reads an Icom's split state and VFO B frequency. Thanks WC5T.
- Icom IC-7100 and IC-705 Wideband FM. A VFO preset saved in WFM now tunes in WFM, and the VFO window's mode list offers WFM on those radios.
- Xiegu G90 with a Digirig no longer transmits the moment POTACAT connects. The G90 is no longer polled while it transmits, which was crashing Hamlib during FT8, and POTACAT now bundles Hamlib 4.7.2.
- Yaesu CW text turns break-in on for the message, and a radio left transmitting is put back to receive.
- TX power through Hamlib is set on Hamlib's own scale, so the WSPR beacon no longer changes your radio's power.
- An external tuner gets its power back. After an RF-sense tune, POTACAT restores your power and waits for the radio to confirm it, and tries again if it does not.
- A renumbered COM port can be picked. A saved port that has gone stays in the list marked "not found", and picking another port from the list now sticks.
- A CW key port changed in Settings opens, instead of reverting. Thanks LA8JKA.
- An FTX-1 can tune NOAA weather and marine channels. A radio POTACAT knows only by its bands now gets general-coverage receive.
Your license
- POTACAT refuses a transmission outside your license class, using the License Class in Settings > Operator. Listening is never refused, and a Guest Pass now judges what is actually sent, so a Technician's FT8 on 28.074 MHz is allowed.
Flex
- Tuner Memories. More > Tuner Memories fills your Flex's own antenna tuner memories for every band and mode you use, so later band changes recall a match. Flex Direct only. Bands where no match is found are marked in the rig editor.
Maps and spots
- DXCC prefix labels. Tick Prefixes in a map's legend, or press F9, to label every DXCC entity with its main prefix. Zoom in to see them all.
- FT8, FT4 and FT2 are separate mode filters again, so you can show FT4 without FT8. ECHOCAT Web gains FT2.
- The spot table no longer goes blank when a POTA fetch fails: the last POTA spots stay on screen until it answers.
- Park lists outside the US work. POTA's ISO program codes are used, and a park reference from another country loads that country's parks.
VFO window, Directory and voice macros
- Paste a frequency into the VFO window: "14.074", "14,074", "14074 kHz" and "14.074.000" all work. Enter tunes.
- Directory > HF Nets: the Remove button no longer gets cut off.
- Voice macros record properly. Stop no longer starts a new recording that overwrote the one you made, recordings longer than about 15 seconds now save, and a level meter shows whether the mic is picking you up. Long macros recorded in ECHOCAT Web now reach the desktop.
Winlink and band scope
- A Winlink error no longer closes POTACAT. An error inside a session ends the session with the reason on screen.
- Internet mail works on Windows, Linux and Mac; ARDOP and packet over the radio work on Windows and Linux.
- Reopening a band scope from your phone right after closing it no longer leaves it dark, on an Icom or an FT-710. Thanks KI4NHS.
Linux
potacatstarts from a terminal after installing the .deb.
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