What's New at OrcaStar* ? QSO Wizard Pro II

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Orcastar is shipping QSO Wizard Pro II (our version 8.1). This is our first major revision since early 2007. "Pro II" has several significant new features:

• A major expansion of the Station Log, with twice as many log fields (now there are 45 fields).

• A choice of log records: (a) a standard log record for informal operation (e.g., with spaces for names, addresses, and comments), and (b) a new contest log record with many fields for technical log data (it even looks up the DXCC number for that rare country you just snagged). As usual, time stamps and information from internal databases and QRZ look-up are automatically entered, in turn, into the log record, the station log, and the QSL card maker.

• A Log Analysis drawer that allows you to track "worked" versus "not yet worked" lists for countries, islands, states, and provinces.

• The addition of "drag and drop" capability for managing records within the station log.

• The addition of new editors for exporting and importing log records in the Amateur Data Interchange Format. This allows you to prepare log records for upload and download with the ARRL Log of the World. It also allows you to move log records from other logging programs (e.g., perhaps on a PC) that can export in the ADIF format.

• A refined main view, with reduced clutter and easier to to use view controls.

• A new custom internet access window that calls up the website resource "Google-Earth" for the location attributes you specify and presents maps for your contact in the main view. We earlier added a mini-internet access window for looking up QRZ information on the internet. With today's widespread wideband internet access, it is reasonable to integrate such internet resources into your QSO Wizard operations.

• An added feature in the QSL Card Maker to show the path line between you and the QSO contact.

Most of these changes reflect our conversations with you, the user or prospective user. Please let us know if you find these features to be valuable, and what you think we should look to in future models and upgrades.