DXKeeper allows you to capture and manage more than 100 items of information about each QSO. Some, like the station's callsign or the QSO's start time, will always be of interest. Others, like the station's grid square, may never be utilized. The awards for which DXKeeper provides progress reporting have differing requirements as to what items must be recorded with a QSO in order to properly determine credit; a table describing the requirements for each supported award is provided here. The Main window's Log QSOs tab provides access to all of these items, for
Since your hands will generally be on the keyboard while logging QSOs, DXKeeper provides keyboard shortcuts for rapidly navigation from item to item.
The distinction between logging new QSOs in "real time" as they're made, and logging already completed QSOs is important. When you log a QSO in real time, the QSO's frequency, band, and mode can be obtained from your transceiver if Commander is running. When you're logging QSOs from a paper logbook or from notes taken during an operating session, the frequency, band and mode should be set to the frequency and mode of the last logged QSO; these won't always be correct, but even if you QSY'd between QSOs its often easier to "adjust" the frequency than type it in from scratch. Similarly, when you log a QSO in real time, the QSO's start time is now, but when you log an already completed QSO the QSO's start time will be after the last logged QSO's end time. The Log QSOs tab of DXKeeper's Main window can be optimized for either logging new QSOs, or for logging already completed QSOs, as described in logging new QSOs and logging already completed QSOs.
New QSOs can also be logged via the Capture window, a smaller window that can be used to record the most commonly-used items; keyboard shortcuts are provided for rapid navigation among Capture window items. By logging via the Capture window, the Main window's Log QSOs tab is available for viewing previous contacts with your QSO partner, or for mining other information from your log while you're in QSO.
On the Main window's Log QSOs tab, DXKeeper organizes items into 9 groups, each associated with a panel:
The QSO panel is always present; you can independently control the presence of the Auxiliary, QSL, Online QSL, Award, Contest, Propagation, Details, and User-defined panels using the Log Panel checkboxes in the Configuration window's Log tab or using the eight checkboxes to the right of the QSO panel. All information items are stored with each QSO, whether or not the panels displaying them are visible. This allows you to adjust DXKeeper's consumption of screen real estate to meet your operating needs of the moment.
Located at the bottom of the Main window's Log QSOs tab, the Log Page Display contains one entry for each QSO in the current Log file. Each entry in the Log Paged Display corresponds to one QSO in your log. The visibility of each entry is subject to settings in the Filter panel; for example, you can filter the Log Page Display to show only QSOs made with Albania during 2003.
Clicking an entry in the Log Page Display selects its associated QSO; the panels above the Log Page Display will show the items recorded for that QSO. The QSO panel's caption displays the name of the selected QSO's DXCC entity; if the selected QSO's duration is non-zero, the QSO panel's caption parenthetically displays the QSO's duration in mm:ss notation; the QSO panel also displays the full name of the station's DXCC entity, as well as the DXCC prefix and country code assigned to this entity by the ARRL. These items can also be shown in the Log Page Display; the caption at the top of each column identifies the information item in the cells below it.
The Report button generates a log report with one entry for each QSO in the Log Page Display, and places that report in a file in DXKeeper's Reports subfolder. This report's sort order and layout are those of the Log Page Display with one exception: if the Log Page Display includes the country code, the report appends the full DXCC entity name to the country code. You can create a layout optimized for this report and save it in a file for later recall.
If DXView is running, the Plot button conveys all QSOs in the Log Page Display to DXView for display on its world map.
QSOs and their information items are stored in a log file. When you run DXKeeper for the first time after installing it, you will be prompted for your callsign. DXKeeper uses your callsign to create a log file in the databases subfolder of its DXKeeper folder, and automatically opens that log. If you installed DXKeeper in the folder c:\program files\DXKeeper and your callsign is AA6YQ/KH6, for example, DXKeeper will create and open the file c:\program files\DXKeeper\aa6yq-kh6.mdb. This log file may be all you ever need. But if you participate in contests or operate from multiple locations, you may wish to maintain multiple log files; the controls in the Configuration screen's Log File panel support this mode of operation by enabling you to
create an empty new log and then open it
select an existing log by navigating with a Windows file selector or by typing its pathname, and then open it
A log file also contains realtime award tracking information for the ARRL DXCC and Top List awards. By default, realtime award tracking for CQ Worked All Zones (WAZ) awards is not enabled in a newly-created log, but the user can direct DXKeeper to enable it; the user can subsequently direct DXKeeper to disable realtime award tracking for WAZ if desired.
If you start DXKeeper with a command line argument that specifies a valid pathname, DXKeeper will attempt to open the designated file as a log.
If you operate from multiple QTHs and wish to automatically generate QSL cards or labels that correctly reflect the QTH from which you were operating , DXKeeper allows you to specify the details of each QTH (e.g. city, country, state, grid) and assign each QTH a unique identifier that can be logged with a QSO.