The program uses a country file from which it takes all the information like the country name, CQ zone, ITU zone, continent, latitude and longitude etc. This file mostly called CTY.DAT is not directly used by the program but has to be read into the currently used database. The program will retrieve all information from the database (not from the cty.dat file). When importing the country file the program will ask for the file to import. this way several cty.dat files could be used for different contests.
When entering a callsign the left pane of the Entry Window will give Prefix, country name, CQ zone and continent. The Info Window will also give this information and additional calculated information like beam heading, distance, sunset and sunrise.
A number of high profile stations who are not in their own call area, have this built into the country file. The file will populate the correct zone, even though it looks out of place. An example is K2KW who we would expect in zone 5 but lives in California and is entered in the CTY.DAT file living in zone 3.
| Column | Length | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 26 | Country name terminated by a colon character. |
| 27 | 5 | CQ zone terminated by a colon character. |
| 32 | 5 | ITU zone terminated by a colon character. |
| 37 | 5 | 2-letter continent abbreviation terminated by a colon character. |
| 42 | 9 | Latitude in degrees, + for North terminated by a colon character. |
| 51 | 9 | Longitude in degrees, + for West terminated by a colon character. |
| 61 | 9 | Local time offset from GMT terminated by a colon character. |
| 69 | 6 | Primary DXCC Prefix terminated by a colon character. |
| next line(s) | List of prefixes assigned to that country, each one separated by a comma and terminated by a semicolon. |
|
Note: The fields are aligned in columns and spaced out for readability only. It is the ":" at the end of each field that acts as a delimiter for that field. |
Alias DXCC prefixes (including the primary one) follow on consecutive lines, separated by ",". If there is more than one line, subsequent lines begin with the "&" continuation character. A ";" terminates the last prefix in the list.
If the country spans multiple zones, then the prefix may be followed by a CQWW zone number in parenthesis, and it may also be followed by an ITU zone number in square brackets, or both, but the CQ zone number in parenthesis must precede the ITU zone number in square brackets.
The following special characters can be applied to an alias prefix:
| (#) | Override CQ zone where # is the zone number |
| [#] | Override ITU zone where # is the zone number |
N1MM logger can also use the country file WL_CTY.DAT from WriteLog which has extra CQWW zone information for several countries including: Canada, Australia, and China. Because each of these countries is allocated a multitude of prefixes, but the CQWW zone is determined by the call area regardless of prefix, a very large number of entries would be necessary to spell out all the combinations. Instead, WL_CTY.DAT contains special "macro" commands that indicate how the CQWW zones are determined for that country. See the example below. See the update instructions.
Importing the wl_cty.dat file as country file is preferred over the 'normal' cty.dat file because of the extra information it contains.
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Note on KG4 stations: When a KG4 callsign is a 2x2 callsign it is assumed to be Guantanamo otherwise it is K (2x1 or 2x3). When the exact callsign appears in the loaded cty.dat the associated country will be used (K or KG4 are then not automatically assumed). |
Netherlands: an easy example with nothing special. The
program will assign all calls starting with PA, PB, PC, etc. to
the country Netherlands in CQ zone 14, ITU zone 27 and EU as
continent. PA will be the the prefix shown in the multiplier
window.
Netherlands: 14: 27: EU: 52.40: -4.90: -1.0: PA:
PA,PB,PC,PD,PE,PF,PG,PH,PI;
Greenland: Normally only stations with OX are counted as
Greenland. The callsign XP1AB has been added which normally
belongs to Denmark (OZ). XP1AB will be valid as Greenland with
standard Greenland parameters i.e. zones, continent etc.
Greenland: 40: 05: NA: 62.50: 45.00: 3.0: OX:
OX,XP1AB;
African Italy: This is an example where a * is added before
the primary prefix which means that the country only counts in
CQ-sponsored contests.
African Italy: 33: 37: AF: 35.40: -12.50: -1.0: *IG9:
IG9,IH9,IQ9L,IZ9;
Other nice examples with zone changes on calls are VE and UA9,
see the CTY.DAT file in the program directory.
Writelog macro example.
The macro starts with # and ends with the next ; It means that
for all the prefixes in China the zones are determined by the
call area and first letter of the suffix.
China: 24: 44: AS: 40.00: -116.40: -8.0: BY:
# BY: BY3G(23),BY3H(23),BY3I(23),BY3J(23),BY3K(23),BY3L(23),
BY9A(23),BY9B(23),BY9C(23),BY9D(23),BY9E(23),BY9F(23),BY9G(23),
BY9H(23),BY9I(23),BY9J(23),BY9K(23),BY9L(23),BY9T(23),BY9U(23),
BY9V(23),BY9W(23),BY9X(23),BY9Y(23),BY9Z(23),BY0(23);
3H,3I,3J,3K,3L,3M,3N,3O,3P,3Q,3R,3S,3T,3U,BG,BT,BW,BY,BZ,XS;