Below you will find my original message about a problem with DX4WIN and the cluster nodes. I'm thrilled to tell you that Larry Gauthier, K8UT, came up with the solution. He emailed me tonight (Thursday) and within about one minute all was back to normal!! Here's the solution:
Ensure that the spot colors under file >preferences> packet 2 ARE NOT DUPLICATED. I had made priorities 7,8, and 9 the same font and background colors. I changed 7 and 8 to be a slightly different font color and everything is functioning correctly. I'm not sure why that created a problem, but the problem surely disappeared after I changed the colors! Thanks again to Larry and also to Will, WC2L, who offered a couple of suggestions also. 73, Karl, K1KO Virginia Beach Original Email to the Reflector............... I have run into a problem with DX4WIN and interfacing correctly with DX nodes. It is not particularly straightforward, but I will try to explain it clearly and as succinctly as possible. In a nutshell, the problem is that I am not getting DX spots as they become available on the node. I do receive announcements, time hacks (when there have been no dx spots for 9 minutes), and talk messages (whether to me or to others). I use the macros in the "packet window" of DX4WIN, as shown below: 1. SH/DX|SH/DX/10%M (obviously, to show DX spots) 2. NA Only|set/filter doc/pass k,ve1,ve2,ve3,co,vp9,c6 %M (to filter out spots on all bands from other than the countries with the listed prefixes) 3. NE Only|set/filter dos/pass me,nh,vt,ma,ri,ny,pa,nj,md,de,va,wv,nc %M (to filter spots from other places than the states shown in the US) 4. 160 Only| set/filter dxbm/pass 160%M (to filter out spots other than on 160 during 160M contests) 5. FLTS OFF| set/filter doc/off %M (to turn off all country filters) 6. WWV|SH/Wwv/2%M (to show the last two WWV reports) 7. K1KO|K1KO%M (to "connect" with the various nodes). I realize that everyone reading this understands what these macros will do, but I wanted to show clearly the format I have put them in. I'm pretty certain they're correct, but if you see a problem with any or all of them, please let me know -- that could easily be the progenitor of all the other problems. Those problems include the following: 1. If I have all filters turned off or have just the 160M filter or just the NE filter on, when I send the show/dx/10 macro (or type it in), I get an error message from the node. It flatly will NOT send the dx spots in response to the command. Neither do I get any DX spots as they are spotted. I will, however, get the "keep the circuit open" time hack after nine minutes have passed. 2. If I have the NA filter only turned on, the sh/dx macro will allow the node to send me the ten dx spots, as you would expect, but I still do not get the spots as they are spotted. 3. The sh/wwv/2 macro always works correctly, regardless of the settings of any or all of the filters. Clearly something is amiss. I occasionally had these problems prior to installing the newest DX4WIN update, so I doubt that it is the issue. This same thing happens regardless of which node I connect to. I have removed and reinstalled the macros two or three times without any affect. I have uninstalled and then reinstalled DX4WIN once, again without affect. I have run to ground everything I can think of which may be causing these problems and so far, as Dizzy Dean said, I should have stood in bed. Please help. Any ideas will be gratefully accepted and acted on. This has reached the point that I am significantly frustrated and close to being angry, which means it's REALLY getting in the way of having fun chasing DX; that is, to me at least it's a VERY SERIOUS problem that is driving me nuts (however short a trip that drive may be!!). Thanks, in advance for your assistance (and just for reading my ranting...if you've gotten this far, that is!). 73, Karl, K1KO
