[Xlog-discussion] Re: xlog 0.8rc2 - distance/bearing/time info box

[Joop Stakenborg]

Op wo 15-01-2003, om 17:46 schreef Gordon Pritchard:
> Hi, Joop:
> 
>       I'll use the first image on your website as a reference:
> 
> http://people.debian.org/~pa3aba/xlog.png
> 
>       See at the lower left (info for TI9M)...  How does this get there?  I
> ask, because the info I see is incorrect.  If I enter a local friend's
> call-sign (VE7AWV), I expect to see the same timezone as me (it's not;
> we're both PST), and his location should be similar to mine (~122W
> ~49N).
> 
>       I have turned on the time/clock display in the lower right of the xlog
> window, and I note that my local time-display is correct (it's in GMT,
> calculated properly from my system-clock which is kept in local-time).
> 
>       I infer from the above that what isn't working for me is the call-sign
> data lookup.  I even tried my own call-sign, and Timezone and Location
> are incorrect (Paths are also both incorrect).
> 
>       Is there something I can do at my end to fix this?
> 

I hope I understand what you are trying to say :-)
Timezone information is derived from cty.dat in
/usr/local/share/xlog/dxcc/cty.dat

The person who is responsible for this file (one of the CT crew I
guess), thought about Canada as being one country in one timezone, line
656 in cty.dat says:

Canada:                   05:  09:  NA:   45.00:    80.00:     4.0:  VE:

Now the problems with trying to calculate locations is: it is almost
impossible to account for every call district in every country. And
there are so many non-standard prefixes that I would have a daytime job
trying to cope with them. Can you imagine the U.S. call districts, where
a W6 ham can be in California (west coast) or New Hampshire (east
coast), introducing a 4000 mile error? 

I guess that's what happend to you....
I have written some code for 'anomalities' like this. If you take a look
at /usr/local/share/xlog/dxcc/xlog.dat, you will see what I mean. But
this won't fix your problem. xlog.dat does not account for different
time zones.

For the time being, you could try to add a line to cty.dat, like:

Canada|VE7:              05:  09:  NA:   xx.xx:    yy.yy:     7.0:  VE:
    VE7;VA7;

Fill in the correct zones, coordinates and timezone (7.0 is a guess).
The disadvantage is that it will be overwritten the next time you
install a new xlog version and I really don't want to maitain my own
version of cty.dat.

I will have to write some code for this, so we can use xlog.dat. I will
put this in the TODO list. Maybe it will end up in the next version!

>       Thanks!
>       -Gord (VA7GP)

Regards,
Joop PA4TU