Q: Why do I have to register? A: If you do decide to become a TACLog user please register and you will be informed when a new release is available. Please send a mail to your representative. You are also welcome to send a comment and a short description of your system. This will help me in case of debugging on special configurations. Even though TACLog is free of charge you may not alter or patch in the TACLOG.EXE and TACLOG.OVR files or the TACLog name showing up on print-outs etc. Why this? - Well, at the small cost of maximum one diskette, allow me to have a BIG ego. Registration is used for my own amusement and to see how many users I have.
Q: I see many different ways of writing the program name, which one is the correct one? A: There is only one correct way to write the name and that is: TACLog or in a filename TACLOG.EXE. Colour font and size are unimportant.
Q: Why does TACLog not have default 59(9) reports?
A: There are several reasons why the report has to be entered in every QSO, mainly
"ideological."
1) Default 59(9) report would cause too many 59(9) reports which are not related
to the actual field strength at all. In the IARU Region 1 July 1996 contest OZ9EDR had the
following report distribution:
| Report | Incidents | Percentage |
| 41(9) | 1 | 0,2% |
| 46(9) | 1 | 0,2% |
| 51(9) | 25 | 5,1% |
| 52(9) | 54 | 11,1% |
| 53(9) | 74 | 15,2% |
| 54(9) | 49 | 10,1% |
| 55(9) | 79 | 16,2% |
| 56(9) | 38 | 7,8% |
| 57(9) | 63 | 12,9% |
| 58(9) | 11 | 2,3% |
| 59(9) | 92 | 18,9% |
Thus other reports than 59(9) are used.
2) I prefer amateurs to give as honest reports as possible.
3) 59(9) default reports are some kind of HF-phenomenon.
4) The little extra time used is negligible.
5) If reports are not honest, then ask the contest manager to exclude reports from the contest exchange.
6) If default reports were implemented, then the percentage of 59(9) reports would undoubtedly increase.
7) If default reports are used both ways then where is the sport?
Q: Why do I have to accept the suggested WWL? A: The idea is that the look-up thing is to improve your speed of operation especially when it comes to rotator control etc. The human nature is so that you hear what you see - your eyes deceive you. Therefore you have to be careful using this feature. This is also the reason why you have to accept the suggested WWL. I will strongly recommend contest managers to severely punish the abuse of incorrect WWLs from the look-up. Since the first pre-release, in June 1993, a common practice has been to prepare a good .C_W file for the contest. Before, one usually had to type in the hand-written log; now it is preparation of the .C_W file instead.
VALID MULTIPLE QSOS WITH THE SAME STATION
Q: Can TACLog log and awards points for working the same station after a given time interval or on both SSB and CW? A: Currently no, TACLog is a "linear" contest logging program and this goes against the internal structure. However, this feature is planned for later releases.
In the meantime you can use a trick proposed by David, G1OGY:
| 20000610 | 1400 | G1OGY | 57 | 58 | First SSB QSO | 20000610 | 1400 | G1OGY | 57 | 58 | First QSO | |
| 20000610 | 1834 | G1OGYC | 579 | 589 | First CW QSO | 20000610 | 1834 | G1OGY2 | 57 | 58 | Second QSO |
After making the .LOG/.EDI file edit the file before printing it/sending it.
Q: TACLog seems to score QSOs (distances) a bit different than my old VHF Contest Log Program, why is that? A: TACLog uses the principles recommended by the IARU Region 1 VHF Committee (Noordwijkerhout, 1987), i.e. the formula proposed by PZK, for calculating distances in VHF and Above Contests and the "commenced km" points rounding method (Lillehammer, 1999). For the same reason TACLog also awards 1 QSO-points, excl. multiplier, for QSOs with own WWL. Other programs may use different distance formula and points rounding method, e.g. truncation or math rounding. Please also be aware that TACLog awards points not distances.
Distance = 111,2*arccos(sin Latitude1 * sin Latitude2 + cos Latitude1 * cos Latitude2 * cos(Longitude1-Longitude2))
where the conversion factor is 111,2 km/deg.
| Points rounding methods | |||
| Distance | "Commenced km" | "Math" | "Truncation" |
| 0 km | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 43,2 km | 44 | 43 | 43 |
| 56,7 km | 57 | 57 | 56 |
To read more about this visit the IARU Region 1 VHF Committee recommendation IIIb or go to the EDR VHF Committee WWW Pages | Contests | Basic Contest Rule.
(What computers do or do not has nothing to do with the distance calculation specification)
The maps made by TACLog do not necessarily reflect the programmer’s political standpoint. I take no responsibility for the way countries and borders drawn. If you have any corrections you are more than welcome to send me the corrections, so I can change them in the TACLOG.COR file.
Q: Why is it not possible to print the maps to a file, e.g. GIF format? A: To be honest I have tried and cannot get it to work properly. However, experiments continue. In the meantime and if you use Windows use ALT+Print Screen to copy the plot to the clip board then paste it into any graphical program and save the plot to a file.
Q: Why is there no packet interface in TACLog? A: For one reason only - memory limitations. However, packet is planned.
Q: Station X is wrongly identified belonging to DXCC Y, why is that? A: This is not really a bug, rather a call mismatch in the TACLOG.DXC file used. You can do one of four things:
Another thing is that TACLog used only a six character DXCC identification. This means that e.g. OZ1FDJ and OY/OZ1FDJ are identified to belong to the same DXCC.
Q: Why does the CW keying sounds terrible when using TACLog or WVK under Windows in a DOS box, or even in DOS mode, and what can I do about it? A: The problem is that Windows is a multitasking operating system that divides the time between various applications and the operating system itself. Thus, the computer power and timing is assigned to many different processes. For this reason TACLog cannot control the timing as accurate as in pure DOS. There is not much to do about it, however, you can try to minimise the number of applications and processes running to allow more attention to TACLog or WVK. (What would be needed is a separate piece of external hardware that keys independently of Windows.)
AURORA, MULTIPATH AND SCATTER REPORTS
Q: How do I enter aurora, multipath or scatter reports into TACLog? A: Aurora reports are entered as 57A(S/R), multipath reports as 57M(S/R) and scatter reports as 57S(S/R). Aurora reports can only be entered below 500 MHz and multipath and scatter reports only above 1 GHz.
Q: It seems that TACLog writes some odd fields in the ADIF file, why is that? A: TACLog does not as such write odd fields in an ADIF file. The "problem" is that ADIF is an open specification, meaning that anyone can make up any field identifier name. This has been the case in many situations as the ADIF is very HF oriented. It might be that TACLog supports writing certain field information before it was added to the specification. If this is the case you can ask the ADIF standard forum to enclose the field identifier name used by TACLog or if the field identifier name has been identified, by now, ask me to implement that one. The latter will, however, not be available before the next version.
AVG. IN QSOS AND POINTS WINDOW
Q: What is the meaning of "Avg" in the top window? A: "Avg" is short for "average," and the small pointers show if the averages go up or down, e.g.:
| QSOs | QSO-points | OptExchs | WWLs | DXCCs | Total-points |
| 3 | 552 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2052 |
| Avg: | 184 =Q-p/QSOs |
0 =OEs/QSOs in % |
100 =WWLs/QSOs |
67 =DXCCs/QSOs |
684 =T-p/QSOs |
Q: How can I work two contests on the same date on the same band? A: This is not directly possible. However, what you can do is either to use a dummy band to store the second contest, or make a back up of the first one, that can later be restored/swapped, before starting on the new contest.
Q: I have set-up TACLog so that it should name the .EDI file according to OZ5TG's NAC naming standard, but all I get is TLyymmdd.EDI. Why is that? A: The file naming specified by Verner, OZ5TG, NAC OZ Contest Manager is very sensitive to the Section description. If you do not specify a Section that makes it possible for TACLog to generate a valid file name TLyymmdd.EDI will be made instead.
PRINTING TO AN USB OR WINDOWS PRINTER
Q: How do I setup TACLog to write to my USB printer, or Windows only? A: Actually, the problem is not TACLog as such. The problem is that USB is a Windows-thing, or lack of DOS support in your printer, and not intended for DOS applications, i.e. TACLog or any other DOS box in Windows. You can either buy a LPT to USB converter or setup TACLog to print in 7 bit mode and then use a Windows application such as Notepad/Wordpad to print from.
Q: During a QSO the other station vanished, in QSB or just disappeared, how can I store this QSO and continue with the next station? A: If you are not exchanging QSO-numbers then just clear the unfinished QSO. If you use QSO-numbers you can block the current QSO-number by entering "ERROR".
PROBLEMS WITH WINDOWS 2000, XP, VISTA AND 7
Q: Why will TACLog sometimes on some PCs not run under Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7. A: The problem seems to be solved. See below tricks:
Uffe, PA5DD, found that creating a small .BAT file helped him with Windows 2000 setting the Code Page first:mode con cp select=850 (must match the country setting of the operating system)
cd c:\taclog (the path to where you store TACLog)
taclog.exe
Then start TACLog by executing this .BAT file.
I am not saying that the above works. Please try it out and report your findings to me.
Peter, OZ1PIF, tried the .BAT file trick on his non working Windows XP and it worked.
Steffan, DL1ELY, has reported that he does not have any problems with Windows XP, NTFS and a 60 GB hard disk.
Bo, OZ2M, has also made a small .BAT file and it works for me too. Same trick can be applied with other DOS applications under Windows 2000 and XP.
Marcus, PA2DB, tried the above trick but on his PC with XP it did not work. Instead he got this error message: "Could not start ms-dos ......." To get TACLog working in his case he found a solution described here.
USE SAME QSO NUMBER SERIES ACROSS ALL BANDS
Q: The contest rules say that QSO numbers do not restart on each band, i.e. the next QSO is equal to the current number plus one no matter if band is changed. A: Use the Optional Exchanges to manage own QSO number. It is not the optimal solution but usually in these kind of contests the number of QSOs are fairly low.
CALL MISMATCH ERROR WHEN USING THE C_W.EXE TOOL
Q: I get lots of call mismatch errors when converting a .TXT file to TACLOG.C_W when using the C_W.EXE tool but I cannot see what is wrong. A: Most likely the source list you have is not sorted according to ASCII. E.g. Microsoft Access does not sort correctly according to ASCII, and Excel does not sort correctly according to ASCII but follows the international setting controlled by Windows.
Q: I already use Linus and have no plans for Windows, can I still use TACLog? A: Dominique, HB9HLI, reports that he has TACLog running under Debian Linux:
TACLog run perfectly like on a native DOS machine and it is very stable. Now TACLog is my friend for contests :-)
I have tested only logging, soundcard, serial and parallel ports are not tested. It is a great alternative for a very powerful contest log program on Linux.
Peter, OZ1PIF, had verified the following on Linux Mint 4.0 and Ubuntu 7.10:
Here's how it's done: with a brilliant small (Free) program called "dosemu" www.dosemu.org , you can even run multiple DOS-PCs simultaneously!
INSTALLATION ON Windows 2000, XP, VISTA AND 7
Q:I cannot install TACLog on my PC why is that? A: The problem may be related to lack of rights, i.e. you do not have administrator rights or you are trying to install in a directory that Windoes does not allow.
Either hand copy/move files as specified in the manual to the right directories or try to install to a different directory using the !install.bat file e.g. !install.bat c:\Program Files\TACLog.
Running TACLog in a DOS emulator, e.g. for 64 bit environments
Neil, G4BRK, was unable to run TACLog, and other DOS programs under Windows 7 64 bit, so he made this guide.
TACLogwon't run directly under the 64-bit version of Windows 7.A message about 32-bit compatibility is displayed when trying it.
I found a way to do it using DosBox.