ericek111
d9f9d880f2
The packet window showed traffic and took a command line, and everything else
about the cluster lived in a dialog under Config. It is now the window N1MM has,
with the same five tabs.
Telnet shows the traffic with spot lines in green, what went out in blue and
lines from a preferred spotter in bold. Double clicking a spot line, or "Jump to
this spot", puts the radio there with the call in the entry window. Scrolling
stops while the pointer is over the traffic. The client keeps the last two
hundred lines, so a window opened mid-contest is not blank.
Clusters keeps the operator's nodes with their ports, passwords and after-login
commands, connects and disconnects, and holds the logon settings. Download
fetches the published list of telnet nodes from NG3K — around fifty, with the
sysop's call and a note about each — and clicking one fills the boxes in. N1MM
downloads its list from its own web service, which asks the operator to opt in
to data collection and is N1MM's to run, so this reads a public page instead.
ClusterList takes any page with telnet:// links in a table; a page it cannot
read leaves the stored list alone.
Filters decide which spots reach the bandmap: bands, modes, beacons, busted
calls, stations outside the call history file, blacklisted spotters and calls,
spots from outside your country, continent or a list of prefixes, and how long a
spot stays on the map. A busted spot is a call the callsign database has never
heard that is one character away from one it knows; a call nothing resembles is
kept, because that is what a new station looks like. Nothing is filtered out of
the traffic itself — the operator sees everything the node sends.
Buttons edits the twelve command buttons. A button takes what N1MM's takes: the
message macros, several commands separated by semicolons, or {CONN} and the name
of a favourite, which connects to that node instead of sending anything. The
label takes the macros too. Right-clicking a button opens the editor.
Config ▸ Cluster now opens this window on the Clusters tab rather than a dialog
of its own, which is where N1MM keeps those settings.
Three things that could take the program down while a cluster was connected:
Settings.Load read a null where the property is not nullable. A file that names
a key with a null value — one written before the property existed and then
edited — put that null straight through, because the property's own default only
runs when the key is missing. Opening the telnet window then threw on the first
list it touched. Every null is now put back to the default the property
declares, walking into the stored records and the lists of them.
Bandmap was written from the cluster's thread and read from the window's, so a
dictionary could be modified while a window enumerated it. Every method locks
now.
ClusterClient disposed its token source while its own loop still used it, and
the retry delay sat outside the catch, so a disconnect faulted the loop task.
Along the way the message macros were checked against N1MM's function-key
documentation, and several were wrong. {LOGGEDCALL} is N1MM's {LASTCALL}, the
serial is #, and there is no {MYZONE}; {NAME} and {GRIDSQUARE} stand for the
other station's name and grid, not ours; {OTHERMHZ} is the radio the operator is
not on. The single-character macros * and ! were missing. Added from the same
table: {LASTCALL}, {PREVNR}, {NAMEANDSPACE}, {CHNAME}, {GRID}, the two grid
bearings and the grid distance, {FREQ}, {FREQROUND}, the other-radio
frequencies, {TIMESTAMP} and {TIME2}. Frequencies are formatted the way N1MM
formats them, with R for the decimal point on CW. The macros that pass a station
to the other band take the second radio as a new argument, and stand for nothing
at a one-radio station.
Left out, and written down: saving spots to a database, which N1MM keeps in its
admin database rather than in the log file the two programs share; the
special-calls list; the two-character busted check, which is a few hundred
thousand lookups per spot against a few hundred for one character; and N1MM's
action macros, which need a different shape than an expander that returns a
string.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
146 lines
8.5 KiB
Markdown
146 lines
8.5 KiB
Markdown
# What is not finished, and what has not been tested
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Two separate lists. A feature can be finished and untested, or half-built and
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exercised every day. Written 2026-08-27.
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## Never run against the real thing
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Everything below is written from a published protocol or from N1MM's source and
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tested against a fake that speaks the same protocol. A fake agrees with whatever
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the person who wrote it believed, so these are the places where a wrong belief
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is still sitting there undiscovered.
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| What | Tested against | What has never happened |
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| `RigctldRadio` | a stand-in for `rigctld` over a real socket | no real `rigctld`, no real radio. The extended answer format, the `+` prefix and the split commands are from the documented protocol. If the format is wrong, nothing works rather than something being subtly off — check this first. |
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| `OtrspBox` | a `MemoryStream`, checking the bytes | no real SO2R box. Command forms are from N1MM's `N1MMPort.cs`. |
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| `ClusterClient` | a node fake over a real socket, sending the telnet negotiation, the login prompt and spot lines | no live cluster node. Which nodes send bare CR, and which send option negotiation, is guessed from N1MM's code. |
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| `StationNetwork` | the message format, round-tripped | no second station, and no N1MM on the same network. |
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| `CwDaemonSender` | the UDP messages, and a fake daemon that answers the `<ESC>h` reply request | no `cwdaemon`, no radio keyed. |
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| `WinkeyerSender` | the status-byte reader, on its own | no test of the serial side, and no WinKeyer. The host-mode open sequence is from the WinKeyer datasheet; the status bits are from N1MM's `Winkey.cs`. |
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The Cabrillo output has not been put in front of a contest sponsor's robot.
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## Half-built
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**Voice keying.** `MessageSender` was written to cover a voice keyer playing a
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recording, and nothing implements it. No DVK support either, so the second radio
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of an SO2R station cannot call CQ by voice. Alternating CQ therefore works on CW
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only, though nothing in it is CW-specific: a voice keyer that reports when the
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recording has finished would drive it as it stands.
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**Alternating CQ does not restart itself after a contact.** Escape stops it, and
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it has to be started again with Ctrl+B. N1MM carries on calling after the QSO is
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logged.
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**Call history: the section-validating directives.** `!!Validate50State!!`,
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`!!ValidateArrlSection!!`, `!!MapOnSection!!` and `!!GTA2GH_NT2TER!!` are read
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and passed over. Acting on them means holding N1MM's section lists and its
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rules about which sections are retired, and getting that wrong throws away good
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data. The file is read without them.
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**The QTC window does not transmit.** Ctrl+Z opens it and traffic goes into the
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log, but N1MM sends the QTC text itself: the lines on CW and RTTY, and recorded
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voice messages for QRV, Agn, Cfm and TU on SSB. Here the Agn, Cfm and RX Ready
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buttons only move the cursor. What is missing under it is the message templates
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for QTC traffic, a voice keyer, and the digital window.
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**The QTC setup covers the window, not the sending.** Right-click ▸ Setup has
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the four settings that change how the window behaves, with N1MM's defaults.
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What is not there is everything about putting QTCs on the air: N1MM's CW
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messages for Agn and TU, its SQTC field spacing, its four SSB recordings, and
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its RTTY message templates. Those wait on a transmit path.
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**Two WAE numbers do not agree with N1MM, both from 2020 and 2021 logs.** The
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disagreements are the country file of the day, not the rules: 4U1A counted as
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`4U1V` then and as `OE` in today's `wl_cty.dat`, `KP2BH` counted as `KP2` then
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and is listed as a US call now, and China was not split by call area yet. The
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2022 to 2025 logs agree to the contact. One difference is ours on purpose: N1MM
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counts a callsign it cannot place — `D1M` — as a multiplier with an empty
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value, and we do not.
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**Telnet window: what N1MM has and this does not.** Left out: the special-calls
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list, and saving received spots to a database — N1MM keeps those spots in its
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admin database, which is not the log file the two programs share, so there is
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nothing to be compatible with and nothing asks to read them back. The band plan
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tab is not repeated either, because Config ▸ Sub bands already edits the same
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numbers.
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The node list is downloaded from the public NG3K page rather than from N1MM's
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own web service, which asks the operator to opt in to data collection and is
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N1MM's to run. A page that changes shape would stop the download working; the
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reading only needs `telnet://` links in a table, and the old list stays in place
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when a download brings back something unreadable.
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**The action macros do nothing.** The text macros are N1MM's, spelled as its
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function-key documentation spells them, and they are listed in the README. What
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is missing is the other half of N1MM's table: the macros that run a program
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command rather than standing for text — `{WIPE}`, `{LOG}`, `{ENTER}`, `{RUN}`,
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`{S&P}`, `{SPOTME}`, `{TOGGLE}`, `{END}`, the `{CAT…}` and `{OTRSP…}` families,
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the audio, rotator and call-stacking macros. They expand to nothing, so a
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message that holds one sends the right characters and takes no action.
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They cannot be added to `MessageExpander` as it stands: it turns a template into
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a string, and an action macro has to reach the entry window, the keyer or the
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SO2R box, some of it after the message has been sent (that is what N1MM's
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`{END}` is for). That wants a different shape — a list of steps rather than a
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string.
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Two more text macros are out for want of the data behind them: `{LASTEXCH}`,
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which N1MM only fills for ROPOCO and LZ Open, and `{OPERATOR}`, because there is
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no operator separate from the station callsign here. `@`, which voices the
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receive frequency from recorded letter files, waits on voice keying.
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**The busted-spot check is one character wide.** N1MM offers two. Every call one
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character away from the spotted one is looked up in the callsign database, which
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is a few hundred lookups per spot; two characters away is a few hundred thousand,
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which is too much work per spot for the little it would add.
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**Digital modes.** A contact can be logged as RTTY or another digital mode, and
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the contest rules score it, but there is no digital window: no decoding, no
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transmitting, no interface to fldigi, MMTTY or similar.
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**Contest coverage.** Eight families are built in, plus whatever `.udc` files
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are in the user-defined folder. N1MM ships well over a hundred. Opening a log
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from a contest that is in neither place fails with the contest name, which is
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the right answer but it is still a wall.
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Most of what is missing does not need code. A contest whose exchange is a
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report and one value, scored by band, mode, continent or country, and counted
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by country, zone, section or prefix, is a `.udc` file, and the file published
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for N1MM is read as it is. Code is for the ones `.udc` has no words for: WAE
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needs QTC traffic, IOTA needs island references as multipliers, and CQ WW RTTY
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needed a third multiplier and its own points table because it shares a name
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with the CW and SSB running of the contest.
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What `.udc` cannot say here yet: an exchange that differs by the other
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station's country (the OK/OM district against a serial number from everyone
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else), points that depend on a zone or a distance, and multiplier sources
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beyond country, prefix, zone, section, exchange, grid and continent.
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## Known rough edges
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**The log window's column widths** are the grid's own automatic sizing with a
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character-count floor. A column can change width as rows scroll into view.
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**Contacts arriving over the station network** are applied from the socket
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thread, and `AppSession.TakeFromNetwork` reopens the whole contest to do it.
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That is correct but heavy, and it discards what is typed in an entry window on
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another radio.
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**The band plan covers 160M to 2M only.** 60M and everything above 2M get no
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CW, digital or phone shading on the bandmap, because N1MM's own numbers for
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those bands contradict themselves — its CW top for 1.25M is below its phone
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start, and its 70CM CW top is above the band. Config ▸ Sub bands cannot add a
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band that has no default.
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**Available mults and Qs is only as good as the bandmap.** It lists what is
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spotted, so a multiplier nobody has spotted is not there. N1MM's window also
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shows the mults a contest has and nobody has worked, which needs a list of every
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multiplier the contest counts. Only the section and state lists are held here,
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so the zone and country lists would have to come from the country file first.
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**Two entry windows and one keyer.** The SO2R box is told which radio to key
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before each message, but nothing stops both radios sending at once if the
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operator asks them to.
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