Specifications

From March 2008 QST © ARRL
permit you to save the log data
in Cabrillo formats as required
for ARRL and CQ HF and VHF
contests. After Cabrillo formatting,
the data may be printed, PDF’d, or
copied and pasted into e-mail.
After a contact, QSO Wizard
has a cool QSL card generator that
automatically completes all the
contact information from the log,
but allows you to personalize the
card by using any image for the
card’s background and by allowing
you to include individual remarks
regarding the contact. You can
print the card for real mail or PDF
it for e-mail.
For future contacts, QSO Wiz-
ard has a scheduling feature that
allows you to set up one-time and
recurring on-the-air skeds. You can
configure the software to alert you
of each sked 1 to 15 minutes ahead
of schedule, as you desire.
Reviewer’s Impressions
Using QSO Wizard is very intuitive. I only
consulted the documentation to fine-tune the
software and to learn more in depth about its
various features. The average user, that is,
someone not reviewing the software for QST,
can probably get by without ever looking at
the documentation.
I like the global view of the Earth that
QSO Wizard features. This view gives you
a true impression of the planet and its rela-
tionship to time, size, location and direction
(especially direction) that no flat map projec-
tion can provide. (Hey — Japan is really over
here, not over there!)
QSO Wizard is a fine addition to the soft-
ware toolbox of any Mac ham shack. It looks
good and as a visual aid, looks are important.
It also works as advertised; I encountered no
“gotchas” or program errors. The software
ran without a glitch and did not stop until I
told it to quit.
The Fine Print
OrcaStar* Software (www.orcastar.com)
sells QSO Wizard for $49 and recommends
running the application at a minimum on Mac
OS X version 10.2.7, but preferably on Mac
OS X version 10.4 (or later).
Steve Ford, WB8IMY

QST Editor

[e-mail]
short takes
Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
1 Glen Avenue
Wolcott, CT 06716-1442
[e-mail]
OrcaStar* Software bills
QSO Wizard as a Mac OS X appli-
cation that provides “visual aids
to assist amateur radio operators
in identifying, locating, selecting,
beam pointing, scheduling, and
logging contacts world-wide.”
After you configure the soft-
ware with your preferences, it
is off and running with an easy-
to-use and pleasing-to-the-eye
graphical-user interface (GUI)
featuring an Earth globe display
centered on your location. On
three sides of the globe are the
buttons and fields that you use
to control the application.
The globe displays the current
night and day based on your local
time (and calculated from your
Mac’s clock). The software also displays
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the local
time at the station you are in contact with or
are attempting to contact.
Point and click on the location of the
other station and the software displays the
great circle path on the globe as well as in
the numerical Azimuth field in the Contact
Data panel of the GUI.
If the location of the other station is in the
opposite hemisphere of your station location,
select Opposite Lat & Lon in the Display
View pull-down menu and then point and
click on the location. The Continent selection
in the Zoom pull-down menu allows you to
view more details. This is especially helpful
in areas where a bunch of small countries are
grouped closely together, for example, South-
east Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Alternatively, you can obtain the path by
means of a call sign prefix look-up. Select Call
Sign Prefix in the Select Category pull-down
menu of the Locate panel, type the prefix in
the Search Prefix field, then press the Return
key to display information about the location
in the fields of the Contact Data panel.
You can select a location from a database
(the software includes databases of DXCC
entities, worldwide cities, cities by country,
and cities by state/province) or you can enter
QSO Wizard:
Mac OS X Amateur Radio Visual Aid
a location’s latitude and longitude.
The software augments the great circle
path display by also showing the approximate
antenna beam width of its main lobe, as well
as the effect on the backside of the beam.
This display is fairly accurate because you
customize it according to the actual antenna
you are using.
In addition to the Azimuth information,
the Contact Data panel also displays the other
station’s alternate call sign prefix (if any),
location (country/island, continent, state/
province, city/town, ITU and CQDX zones,
maidenhead grid number, latitude, longitude,
time zone) and distance (“range”) from your
station. The Contact Data panel also indicates
if there is a QSL Service (bureau) in the other
station’s location.
When your contact begins, you click
on the QSO Begin button and the software
creates and displays a new entry in its log,
which pops out from the right side of the
GUI. Some of the information appears in the
log automatically, that is, the date and time
of the beginning and end of a contact. You
must manually input other information: fre-
quency, mode and signal reports. At the end
of a contact, clicking on the QSO End button
completes the logging of the contact.
QSO Wizard includes templates that
OrcaStar* Software built its Mac OS X QSO Wizard around an
easy-to-use and pleasing-to-the-eye graphical user interface
(GUI) featuring a global display of the Earth.