At 10:11 PM 5/18/03 -0400, Jim Reisert AD1C wrote: >At Dayton, I spoke with Jack AA4LU (DXbase) about this very problem >(Paul/Steve did not have a booth this year). Yes, computer "illiterates" >are going to have trouble with this. I expected more integration with the >logging software than Jack described to me. The API (software programming >interface) hasn't been released to developers yet. It will be interesting >to see if exporting, signing etc. can all be done through the logging >program simply by pushing one button.
This does seem to be the objective, and a worthy one. The certificate request software seems to be fairly straight-forward, but I've been playing with computers long enough that my impression is probably invalid. I heard Wayne Mills say that the API was to be released the day after his talk. That tells me that they had some problems with the client-side software after the alpha test, perhaps accounting for the last period of delay. It wasn't clear whether this API would include both TQSL and TQSLCert founctionality -- maybe Steve or Paul can tell us when they get it. From first looks, though, the delay seems to have resulted in a pretty good product -- I uploaded 9661 QSOs in one batch yesterday. The per-qsl processing time was noticeably longer than for the smaller batches described in the getting started file, but the outcome seemed good -- only one QSO ignored for an error, and that because I had an "oh" instead of a "zero" in the callsign. The only thing that puzzled me was that some people have reported seeing the number of matches go up as more people uploaded and they revisited the website. I couldn't see anywhere that would have that sort of info available, nor is the page available that Wayne described, which tells you which QSOs are matches and gives you the option of sending them to the award managers. I didn't expect the latter to work yet, but thought the former might be there for testing purposes. I guess we all need to remember this is a beta, and there will be gaps and changes. There has already been one update of the client-side software since last Thursday. 73, Pete N4ZR The World HF Contest Station Database was updated 9 May 03. Are you current? www.pvrc.org/wcsd/wcsdsearch.htm
