AR86ctrl

Control Software for AR8600/AR8200

Operating Manual

v1.40

February 2004

Klaus Botschan
WHAT'S NEW?..................................................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................................................. 3

REQUIREMENTS............................................................................................................................................................. 4

GETTING STARTED........................................................................................................................................................ 4
Communication with the receiver...............................................................................................................................5
BASIC OPERATION.........................................................................................................................................................5
Menu, Toolbar & Statusbar........................................................................................................................................5
VFO Mode.................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Lists.............................................................................................................................................................................5
Memory Banks............................................................................................................................................................ 6
Memory Files.............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Saving and Loading of Memory Files........................................................................................................................ 8
Memory Bank Resizing............................................................................................................................................... 8
Search Banks.............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Select Scan List........................................................................................................................................................... 9
Pass Frequencies........................................................................................................................................................ 9
Logfiles....................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Shortcuts..................................................................................................................................................................... 9
ADVANCED FEATURES............................................................................................................................................... 10
Scan Groups............................................................................................................................................................. 10
Search Groups.......................................................................................................................................................... 10
Log Settings.............................................................................................................................................................. 11
Opening a log file..................................................................................................................................................... 12
Start logging............................................................................................................................................................. 13
Bandscope.................................................................................................................................................................13
Database support......................................................................................................................................................15
How to create databases...........................................................................................................................................15
Connect to a database in dBASE format.................................................................................................................. 16
Connect to a database in Excel format.....................................................................................................................17
Loading a database into the listview........................................................................................................................ 19
THINGS THAT ARE CURRENTLY NOT SUPPORTED.......................................................................................... 22
Option cards............................................................................................................................................................. 22
Unsupported and partially supported commands.................................................................................................... 22
What's new?

New in v1.40
• added level squelch (LSQ) control slider, one slider works for VFOs and scan-/searchgroups
• scan-/searchgroups settings can now be changed during scanning and searching
• directly edit memory channels when in memory mode
• it is now possible to switch between scope- and listview without loosing scope data

New in v1.31
• basic database support for Excel and dBASE files
• choose up to 9 columns from your existing Excel/dBASE files
• up to three databases configurable, simply loaded by a button click
• column widths can be stored for each of the three databases
• tune from your database
• add active VFO frequency plus comments to your database
• search for text or frequencies in listview

New in v1.26
• set beep volume, welcome message and LCD contrast
• cut, copy & paste functions for memory channels
• memory bank resizing
• store memory contents to disk, using AOR's mem-file format
• reload memory files into memory
• power off button, optionally power off on program exit
• deleting log entries now possible
• improved keyboard support

New in v1.20
• save memory contents to text files in AOR's ".mem" file format
• restore memory contents from ".mem" files, even if the file is from another bank or smaller than
the target bank
• cut or copy and paste a memory channel from a bank and move it to another location in the same
or a different bank, using Ctrl-c, Ctrl-x, Ctrl-v
• memory bank resizing now supported
• tuning with the arrow keys accelerated
• several bug fixes

Introduction

With Ar86ctrl you can control your AR8600 and AR8200 receiver over a serial port. You need a
standard RS-232 cable (AR8600 only) to connect your receiver to your computer. See your AR8600
manual for details. Ar86ctrl will never support the full command set (see end of this document for a
list of unsupported or only partially supported commands). Ar86ctrl works faster than most other
control programs and does everything in one window.

At the top of the program window you find the usual menu. Most of the commands you can execute
from here are also accessible with the toolbar buttons.
Below the buttons, there is the main control in a dialog bar. If you know how to operate your
receiver, you will find yourself at home within short time. One of the main features of this program
is the possibility to easily access the memory and the search banks in a listview, which is located
below the dialogbar. You can do many operations on these list items from a context menu (right
click the mouse on an entry). In the lower left corner of the dialog bar you'll find a dropdown list
from which you can choose the appropriate list.

There are a lot of options/menu entries that are only active in a certain context. This is meant to
simplify the operation of this rather complex receiver and in any case it's better than to bore you
with thousand of message boxes telling you that you can't do this or that in a specific mode...

A nice feature is to use your receiver's squelch to automatically generate log files, and to start
recording when squelch opens (you can, of course, also start recording manually).

From version 1.30 there is the possibility to directly connect to Excel and dBASE frequency lists.

Last not least, there is a bandscope mode. The bandscope is shown in the place where normally the
lists are displayed (below the dialog bar).

If you need a specific feature or have any suggestions to make the program better, then don't hesitate
to contact me by email. My address is [email protected]

Requirements

I have tested the program on a 133 MHz Pentium with 32 MB RAM, running Win98, and a faster
machine with Win2000. Problems may arise on slow (133 MHz) machines in the bandscope mode
(see the bandscope section below for the appropriate settings in that case). Other operating systems
or slower machines are not tested. Please report me any problems. You should use a screen
resolution of at least 1024x768.

Getting started

First thing you have to do after you have connected your receiver to your computer is to set up the
serial port. The AR8600 supports 3 baudrates: 4800, 9600 (factory default) and 19200 Baud. I work
with 19200 Baud and have no problems with it. 9600 should also be ok, but 4800 is not
recommended (esp. if you want to use the bandscope).

Turn your receiver on and start the program. If it does not connect do the following:
Check and change the AR8600 settings: see manual, page 108.
Setting the program: use Settings -> Serial Port Settings.
After you have clicked OK, the program tries to connect to your receiver. You can see the
communication status in the status bar at the bottom right.

When the program starts it reads out some basic information from the receiver like, e.g. the memory
bank names. The whole start up procedure should take less than 3 seconds if no communication
errors occur.

Communication with the receiver

The program always tries to keep track of your receiver's current status. This means that every
command that is sent to the receiver is verified by reading out the setting which was made with this
command afterwards.

If a command is not acknowledged by the receiver, the program tries to send it again two times. It
may sometimes happen that a command is not recognized. You will then see a message box. Simply
repeat the last operation if an error occurs.

Basic Operation

Operation is normally done with the mouse, there are Hotkeys, too. See "Help --> Shortcuts" from
the Program's menu.

Menu, Toolbar & Statusbar

A short description of each command is shown at the bottom in the status bar. To see the status bar,
the check mark in the View menu must be active. Other useful information you find in the status
bar: "LOG" is flashing when logging into a log file is active, and "REC" flashes if the squelch has
opend during a search and/or the program is recording audio. Additionally, the current
communication activity between your AR8600 and the PC is shown (IDLE, BUSY, RETRY, ..)

VFO Mode
The AR8600 has 3 VFOs. Choose one with the radio buttons located at the left of the frequency
display. Entering a frequency can be done using the mouse and the numeric buttons, or by using
your keyboard. Frequency must be entered in MHz. You can use a comma ',' or a dot '.' as the
decimal point. You can add only a part of the frequency (e.g. if you want to tune to 3,000000 MHz,
type '3' <enter>). Unsupported frequencies are rejected by the program. You can also tune with the
arrow keys located above the frequency entry field.

You can start a VFO-search using the button "VFO start". The search runs between the VFO-A and
VFO-B frequencies. The settings of the currently active VFO will be used for the search.

Lists
 From the dropdown field called "Lists" you can select different lists for
display in the list view.

The first twenty entries are the memory banks A-J and a-j. The size and
names of these banks are read by the program on every startup and not
stored to your harddisk.

The cursor in the picture on the left points to the first entry that does not
represent a memory bank. The last four entries are described later in this
document.

Once a list is loaded into view, you can sort the entries by clicking on a
list header (e.g. FREQUENCY or TEXT).

Memory Banks

To read out a memory bank from your receiver, use the dropdown field called "Lists". There are 20
memory banks A-J and a-j. Note that if the memory bank has been read out once, it is stored in your
computers RAM and if you select it next time it is displayed immediately. This speeds up operation.
If you want to read out a bank again, press the "Refresh" Button.

Once a list is loaded into view, you can sort the entries by clicking on a list header (e.g.
FREQUENCY or TEXT). The screenshot below shows the listing of memory bank 'A', that has
space for 70 entries, sorted by the TEXT field.
To recall a memory channel, either double click on the entry or use the context menu. You can pass
an active memory channel to the VFO by pressing <enter> on your keyboard or clicking the "Enter"
button.

To store an active VFO into a memory channel point the mouse over the wanted location in the list,
then, from the context menu select "Store VFO here...". You will then be asked for a description,
then all settings are stored.

If you change the AUTO, MODE, ATT or PASS status of a currently active memory channel, this
change is not reflected in the list until you press the "Refresh List" button. Note that these changes
are saved inside your AR8600 even if you don't explicitly save the memory channel. This behaviour
is AR8600 specific, and not a problem of the program!

Once you have recalled a memory banks entry, you can start a scan inside that bank by pressing the
"Start Scan" button.

You can copy a memory channel using <Ctrl+c> and paste it using <Ctrl+v> into another channel.
Target and source channel may be in different banks. You can also cut a channel and then paste it.

When cutting (<Ctrl+x>), note that the source channel is deleted immediately without any
warning!

Memory Files

From version 1.20 you can store memory bank contents to your harddisk. The file format used is the
same that AOR uses, but not all entries are filled in by Ar86ctrl, see the remarks in the following
file formant description. The files are plain text files and have the suffix ".mem". You can view and
edit them in any text editor (e.g. Notepad if you have nothing better), however be careful with the
formatting. Mem-file formatting:
DATA IS RECOGNIZED IN AOR WORKSHOP BY IT'S INDEX! (FIXED POSITION IN STRING!)
AR86CTRL handles file during reading a bit smarter. Anyway, we write
data at those fixed positions to be compatible with AOR Workshop.
The file starts with the string "AR8200 extras memory data" and ends with the
"Label: bla bla" string.

10 20 30 40 50 60
| | | | | |
0123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

AR8200 extras memory data

D00 145.600000 12.50 AUTO NFM ham repeater
D01 145.625000 25.00 AM ham repeater
D02 P 145.650000 12.50 AUTO NFM ham repeater
D03 S 145.675000 12.50 AUTO NFM ham repeater
D04 * 145.700000 12.50 AUTO NFM ham repeater
D05 145.725000 12.50 AUTO NFM ATT NL AFC XX ham repeater
D06 ---
D07 ---
D08 ---
D09 ---
Label: bla bla
#^^ ## ^ ^ ^ |-text MUST start at zero based index 55

^ those are not written by Ar86ctrl. If they are present (e.g. in a file that was generated
with AOR Workshop) they are ignored when reading this file.

# P = PASS is written to file, but ignored when reading file

## AUTO is written to file, but ignored when reading file

The fields are:

channel number, pass (P or blank), sel (S or blank),
protect (* or blank), frequency, step size, automode, mode, attenuator,
noise limiter, AFC, CTCSS tone index XX(if you have the optional CT8200 unit fitted) & comment.

For compatibility with AOR Workshop, no TABs are allowed. The AUTO entry may be omitted, it
is not used inside the program, i.e. the AUTO flag is always set zero when loading the file into
memory. The string "---" stands for an empty channel. At the end there is an entry "Label: ". The
text after this string is used for memory bank description. There is a maximum of 8 chars of the
description used.

Saving and Loading of Memory Files

To save a memory bank bring it into listview and select "Write Memory Bank Into File".

To load a bank from a file, you must be in memory mode. Bring the target bank into list view,
switch to Mem Mode and open the file, using "Write Memory File Into Bank".

When writing a memory bank, global protection and the target bank's protection is switched off and
NOT RE-ENABLED!

The program handles any mismatches in file size and bank size for you. If there are any, you will be
asked what to do. You can for instance

 load a file into bank 'A' that contains bank 'e'. The bank letter 'e' is adjusted to 'A'.
 load a file with entries beyond the size of the target bank. These entries will simply be skipped.
 load a file with less entries than in target bank available. Some items remain unchanged.

When memory writing starts, do NOT press any button until it's finished. Do NOT switch off your
receiver during writing! Look at the status bar. There you see a message when operation has
finished.

Memory Bank Resizing

To change the size of a memory bank, the scanner has to be in memory mode. When you start
resizing, be aware that this operation can take very long, up to several minutes. Do NOT switch off
your scanner when resizing is active. Do NOT press any button until operation is finished. Look at
the status bar. There you see a message when operation has finished.

Search Banks

Further down the dropdown field called "Lists", you find an entry "SEARCH BANKS". There are
20 search banks inside your AR8600. Note that if the search banks list has been read out once, it is
stored in your computers RAM and if you select it next time it is displayed immediately. This
speeds up operation.

To start a search in a search bank, either double click on the entry or use the context menu.

To stop a search inside a search bank, click either one of the VFO buttons or switch to memory
mode (button Mem Mode).
Select Scan List

Further down the dropdown field called "Lists", you find an entry "SELECT SCAN". Here are those
memory channels listed, that are used during a select scan. Memory channels from different banks
can be combined here. A select scan can only be started from the context menu, and stopped with
the "Stop Scan" button.

Pass Frequencies

Next entry in the dropdown field called "Lists" is "PASS FREQS". Here you find all the frequencies
that are flaged as pass frequencies inside your AR8600. There is one pass frequencies list for each
of your search banks. Which one is displayed depends on which search bank (or VFO search) is
active.

Logfiles

The next entry in the dropdown field called "Lists" is "LOG VIEW". This is the only list, that is
NOT from inside your AR8600. It displays the entries of the currently opened log file (or is empty if
no file is open). With the context menu, you can play or delete the wav-file (if there is one)
associated with a log entry.

Shortcuts
You can control the program using shortcuts. You find a description of those by selecting Help -->
Shortcuts. If you are a keyboard freak, you can also activate the option "Optimize for keyboard
operation" in the Misc Settings menu. There are some drawbacks on mouse operation when using
this setting, e.g. you have to click twice on a dropdown field to open it. But if you use your TAB
key to get to a dropdown, it automatically opens.
Advanced Features

Scan Groups
You find detailed information about scan group settings in your manual, page 66. You have 10
(0..9) so called "scan groups" which you can select from a dropdown list. Scangroup '0' is fixed and
is the default scan group. In the other scan groups, you can set the following items.

If a slider is set to zero, the function is disabled. Of special interest is the "Delay" slider in
conjunction with the log settings. The "Delay" value determines how long the squelch must be
closed for the AR8600 to resume scan. This time should be at least one second longer than the
"squelch close time" in the log settings. Otherwise your log entry (and the audio file, if audio
logging is active) might become a mix of different scan channels. The "Free Scan Pause" setting
should be disabled (set to zero) when logging is active.

To perform a bank link scan, simply double click those entries you want add to the link list and vice
versa.

Search Groups
You find detailed information about search group settings in your manual, page 81. You have 10
(0..9) so called "search groups" plus one search group for VFO, which you can select from a
dropdown list. Searchgroup '0' is fixed and is the default search group. In the other search groups,
you can set the following items.
If a slider is set to zero, the function is disabled. Again of special interest is the "Delay" slider in
conjunction with the log settings. See "Scan Groups" above.

To perform a bank link search, simply double click those entries you want add to the link list and
vice versa. This does not work for the VFO search group.

Log Settings
Logging works squelch controlled. When the squelch opens or closes, the AR8600 sends a
command to the PC. You change the conditions of how and when log entries are made in the "Log
Settings" menu.
The timing section was already mentioned above with the scan- & search group settings. The setting
of these two parameters depends also on the band you work in (noise, fading, etc..). Just experiment
with the settings.

Ar86ctrl comes with wave-recording and playing capability. For recording, you have to use the
built-in recorder. Choose a recording format from the dropdown list. Only some mono-formats are
supported, but for a scanner this should be enough.

The built-in "player" however has absolutely no features, except playing a wave from begin to end :)
So please give the path to your favourite audio player and set the check mark "Use external audio
player". This player is then called when you doubleclick a log entry in the log list view.

Audio recording can be switched off. If it is activated, you may give a maximum time for recording
if disk space is of concern. In the greyed-out field, the program calculates the maximum required
disk space per audio file for you. In the example above this means: 3600 seconds = 1h of recording
with 16bit, 11025Hz will occupy 77,519 MBytes on your hard disk.

Opening a log file

The default directory for the log files is the ./LOG subdirectory. You can change this if you like.
You can open an existing log file or create a new one using the file menu. If you start logging by
pressing the "Start Log" button without a log file already open, you will be asked to create one or to
use an existing one. New entries are always appended, so if you want to delete a log, you have to do
it manually.
Start logging
You can start logging when the VFO is active (single frequency watch) and in any search or scan
mode. You can NOT use the logging facility when VFO-A or VFO-B is active. When a VFO search
is running (search between the frequency in VFO-A and VFO-B) logging is also available.

To stop logging, use the "Stop Log" button in the toolbar or the menu entry.

Bandscope
This bandscope is a high resolution bandscope, that has nothing to do with the one you can run on
your receivers display!

Important:

 To start the bandscope a search must be already running

 When bandscope is running, the complete dialog bar with the receiver controls is locked.
 You can halt the bandscope (stop sweeping) and by right clicking inside the scope window
 While halted, all controls of the dialogbar are available.
 Turn your squelch control at the receiver and the LSQ slider fully CCW when bandscope is
running.
 When you switch back to listview, the scope will be halted. It is not possible to continue from
where you left the scope. You can still use the stale scope data, but to resume, you have to start a
new search from listview.
 Set up your bandscope in the "Misc Settings" dialog. These settings are stored in an ini-file on
your harddisk.
The S-Meter output of the AR8600 can differ from receiver to receiver. Maybe that on some units,
you will never get an S-Meter reading greater than 200. If this is the case, then set your S-Meter
maximum value to 200.

The Bandscope Threshold defines the minimum S-Meter level for a signal to be displayed in the
bandscope. In noisy bands like shortwave, you may want to increase this value.

If you run the bandscope within a large spectrum, so that you have a lot of points to be displayed
(e.g. a range of 20 MHz in 25 kHz steps, resulting in 800 discrete frequencies) you may run into
problems on slower computers. For instance the context menu will not pop up, or the program will
not react on your inputs anymore, since the CPU is too busy drawing and receiving continous inputs
from the serial port. A solution is to increase the "Bandscope Delay Time". This makes the time for
which the AR8600 stays on a single frequency during bandscope search longer. From a Pentium
with 200MHz, I think you can leave this value set to zero.

The other settings in the "Misc Settings" dialog have nothing to do with the bandscope. After you
have done all the above, you're ready to start the bandscope. It supports three modes:

 normal mode: previous values are overwritten

 peak hold mode: the highest level on a frequency is stored and represented by a blue line, while
the current values are displayed using red lines.
 statistic mode: especially useful if you do a lot of search passes over your selected frequency
range. Displays the activity on the frequencies in percent.

As mentioned above, nearly all operation on the AR8600 is disabled while the bandscope is
running. You can, however, halt and resume the search using a context menu in the bandscope
display area.
 When the search is halted, the cursor turns into a cross,
and you can see the current frequency in the lower left
corner of the status bar. Now do a single click with the
mouse and your receiver is tuned to that frequency. The
dialogbar is unlocked as long as the scope is halted.
However, if you change settings like RxMode or
StepSize while scope is halted and then restart it, the
scope might not work as expected anymore. In that case,
switch back to listview do your settings and start a new
search.

If you want to proceed with the bandscope running,

choose "Resume Search" from the context menu.

If you switch back to list view, the bandscope will be kept in memory and the search is stopped.
You can switch between listview and bandscope using the old data as often as you like, but you
cannot resume the search once you left the bandscope. If you start a new search when in listview, all
old data will be lost.

Database support
From version 1.30, Ar86ctrl supports Excel and dBASE files. These formats, esp. Excel appear in
many different versions. The implementation in Ar86ctrl, however, is a very basic one. This, among
other reasons, leads to the following restrictions:

• Ar86ctrl can not create any database files, but it can open existing files and add entries to them.
This means that you must use Excel or OpenOffice ( www.openoffice.org) or any other
spreadsheet editor that can handle these formats to create your database. OpenOffice can handle
the Excel format, however it's output is not 100% compatible with the underlying database
engine in Ar86ctrl. So if you use OpenOffice, create dBASE files from it.
• dBASE III, IV and V are supported. These formats define different field types from which only
the following can be used in Ar86ctrl: "CHARACTER" (any text up to 255 chars), "FLOATING
POINT", "NUMERIC" and "DATE" (in the format YYYYMMDD). Mind the limitation of 255
chars for text in any field!
• dBASE: the filenames MUST NOT exceed the 8.3-format. The path to the file may contain
longer names. For Excel there's no such restriction.
• Excel: the program connects to Excel-files as "Excel 95". This works with newer versions of
Excel too, but keep in mind that you should not use any fancy features of newer versions. If you
run into problems, save your file in the older Excel 95 format.
• OpenOffice: you should use the dBASE format with OpenOffice. When storing to Excel format
use "Excel 95", however, this may not work.

How to create databases

I assume that you use OpenOffice or Excel for database creation. With both you can create .xls or .
dbf – files. When storing files to dBASE format, choose "Save as.." and then dBASE III. Regardless
of what format you choose, you should follow these guidelines:
• The first line on top of your spreadsheet MUST contain the headers.
• Each header should be no longer than 8 characters.
• The headers should only contain "real" characters, no blanks(!), no dots, commas, semicolons or
similar stuff.
• There MUST NOT be any comments between the headers and the data, i.e. headers are in the
first line, data starts in the second line.
• Excel files usually contain more than one spreadsheet. The spreadsheets with your data should
contain only that, nothing else. If you need additional information that is not part of your
database, use an extra spreadsheet. It is possible to store many databases in one Excel-worksheet.
• Excel automatically formats a cell depending on the data you put into it. For instance, if you
enter a number, that cell is automatically formatted as "number". In most cases this is not a
problem, but the best way is to format every cell as "text" before entering data into it. When you
start with a blank spreadsheet, mark as many columns as you need with the mouse, right click
and format the cells as "text". Then you can enter your data. If you enter your data before
formatting these cells, Excel (and OpenOffice too) mostly ignore that formatting. It's a bit
curious.

Connect to a database in dBASE format

Databases are loaded into Ar86ctrl from the File-menu or with the buttons DB1..3 on the toolbar.
Before loading you have to setup the connection to tell Ar86ctrl how to connect. If your database
contains valuable data then make a backup before using it with the program!!!

Use Settings -> Database Settings to open the setup dialog and follow the instructions. Next you see
an example how I connect the ILGRadio Database (http://www.ilgradio.com/ilgradio.htm) to
Ar86ctrl. There are different versions of that database. Use the file "ILGSIMPO.DBF", this is the
one without DOS-graphics. Steps 1 and 2 are self-explaining. In step 3, you have to map the headers
available in your database to the ones in Ar86ctrl.
The first 2 columns are used to tune AR8600. You must at least provide the FREQUENCY field,
and it must be in the first column! If you want to set the receive mode too, the second column
must contain the modes (WFM, NFM, ...). You may put anything else in the second field, like the
column "STATION" in the above example. To map the headers, simply choose the column you
want to setup (COL0, COL1, ...) with the radio button, then click on the header in the snapshot, or
enter the name of the header directly (take care of correct spelling).

In step 4, you choose if you want to open your database write protected. If you do so, you can not
add entries to it from Ar86ctrl. The frequencies in ILGRadio Database are given in kHz, so I
checked that option. After making all selections, press "Write DB Configuration File" to store your
settings (don't worry, your database file remains untouched).

Connect to a database in Excel format

As mentioned above, an Excel-worksheet can contain many (up to 255) databases. Each spreadsheet
is treated as a single database by Ar86ctrl. The following screenshot is taken from Excel, you see
the tabs for different spreadsheets. You can rename them by right clicking on a tab.
The spreadsheet containing the data is named "AIRMIL". It is part of the worksheet
"AIRMIL-D.xls". The top of that spreadsheet is shown in the next picture, to give you an idea of the
headers:

The headers consist of a maximum of 8 characters and contain no special characters like commas
etc. The data starts right below the headers. That's the way it should look like. When we want to
import this file to Ar86ctrl, we do that like before with the dBASE file. The connection setup dialog
for this file is shown in the next picture. In the dropdown field you find the names of the 3 tabs of
the 3 different spreadsheets. Ignore the '$' character. We don't want to import the header "Valid" so
we simply omit it.
Loading a database into the listview

After making the settings you can load that database into Ar86ctrl by simply clicking the toolbar
button DB1. From the "Lists" dropdown field choose "DATABASE". The program now starts to
load your database. Below you find a table, giving you an idea of how long it takes to load 9
columns of the database "ILGSIMPO" into the listview. The table shows the performance for
different machines and formats. As you can see, the dBASE format loads significantly faster than
the Excel format opened in read only mode ("open database write protected" is checked). It's
curious, but Excel format loads as fast as dBASE when it's not opened "read only". On slow
machines, if you have big databases, use the dBASE format. You're probably not happy with either
format on a computer slower than a K6-II running at 300MHz ;-). By the way, "ILGSIMPO"
contains over 11800 records (rows).
 P-133/32MB K6-II-300/128MB Athlon 1200/256MB
Win98 Win98 Win2000
ilgsimpo.dbf load 45 s 15 s 2s
unload 20 s 7s 1s
ilgsimpo.xls load 10 min 40 s 4 min 30 s 22 s
READ ONLY unload 20 s 7s 1s
load - - 2s
READ/WRITE unload - - 1s

When you load the file for the first time, all columns have the same width. Doubleclick between the
headers or drag them to adjust the column width. From the context menu (right click) choose
"Database -> Store Column Widths" to make your changes permanent. The screen then looks like
this:

As you can see, the entry "VFO To Database" is grey, because we opened the database write
protected. To tune from the database you can use the context menu, but it's easier to doubleclick an
entry.
In the toolbar you can see that the button "DB1" is pressed. If you click again on it, you are asked to
disconnect the database. If you click another one, a different database is loaded (if configured). You
don't have to disconnect the active database to switch to another one.

You can sort the entries in the list by clicking on the column headers.
Things that are currently not supported

Option cards
Sorry, but there are no plans to support option cards.

Unsupported and partially supported commands

Not all commands are supported, those with yellow background will probably never be
implemented (Options, Internal Bandscope, and all protect commands – useless in my opinion).
Others will be supported in future versions of the program. The commands are (in alphabetical
order):

Command Description Remarks

^A Remote ID only ID 0x00 allowed
AM Bandscope Analyzer high resolution scope available
BP Search Bank Protect
CF Bandscope Center Frequency high resolution scope available
CN CTCSS Operation option required
DC Bandscope Date Center Frequency high resolution scope available
DS Bandscope Data Analysis high resolution scope available
DT Display Frequency On/Off
EX Exit RS232 when program is still running:
push ENT at the receiver.
Automatically executed on program
termination.
LS Tone Eliminator Frequency option required
MC Monitor Control
MF Bandscope Set Marker Frequency high resolution scope available
OF Frequency Offset
OL Set And List Frequency Offset
PC Protect Memory Channel
PH Bandscope Peak Hold high resolution scope available
PP Priority Channel
QM Quick Memory
SC Voice Inverter Frequency option required
SH Set Offset Step
SI Voice Inverter on/off option required
SW Bandscope Span Width high resolution scope available
TI Set Priority Intervall
TS Text Search
VR Firmware Version
WM Write Protect Bank only clearing of this setting is done (when
writing a file to a bank)
WP Write Protect Enable only clearing of this setting is done (when
writing a file to a bank)