Contents
- My favourite node doesn't exist in the node list, can you add it?
- I'm getting incorrect CQ or ITU zone details for a given station, why?
- There is no country or zone information in spot's details.
- I can't do a QRZ.com XML lookup despite entering a known good username/password.
- Why isn't QRZ.com supported?
Q: My favourite node doesn't exist in the node list, can you add it?
NKCCluster doesn't come with a hardcoded or predefined node list, it benefits from stellar work done by Jim, AD1C, www.dxcluster.info. At installation time NKCCluster downloads the current node list from www.dxcluster.info and applies it locally. Check if your node exists on dxcluster.info list and, if it doesn't, let Jim know.
If your node does exist in the dxcluster.info list, you can always refresh it in NKCCluster. Enter the Settings menu and under "Internet Updates" tick the option "Node and country lists". Restart NKCCluster. If there is a more recent list on dxcluster.info, NKCCluster will download and apply it.
Q: I'm getting incorrect CQ or ITU zone details for a given station, why?
NKCCluster uses the http://www.country-files.com/cty/cty.dat list. This is the same list a number of DX cluster server software use and the intention here is that NKCCluster behaves identically. This list specifies most US hams as being in CQ5/ITU8 but also comes with some station-specific exceptions as regards to the zones.
Ultimately there is a trade-off in terms of bandwidth + memory usage and accuracy, this is especially the case for mobile devices. The approach implemented in NKCCluster is simple and lightweight but its accuracy depends on the accuracy of the country file list. For anything more precise it would need to query some callbook, such as hamqth.com or QRZ.com. This would provide near-100% accuracy but also incur a few KB (for XML subscribers) up to 20+ KB (for non-XML subscribers) overhead per each new call, probably acceptable for someone connected to a WiFi network but probably prohibitively expensive for someone using expensive 3G/4G bandwidth.
A configurable option to perform hamqth.com lookups for all spots (currently this happens only for selected spots) will be added in one of the forthcoming NKCCluster updates. Meanwhile, if accurate zone lookup for countries that span multiple zones is something you really can't do without, as a workaround you can set up such filters on your DX cluster node, NKCCluster will not interfere with them and will present whatever it gets from your chosen nodes. You can use the "Cluster Node" -> "Command" menu option to enter any DX cluster commands.
Q: There is no country or zone information in spots' details.
You're facing is a bug that affected Android 2.3 devices, for some reason on such devices the list of prefixes sometimes wasn't being entirely populated. This problem has only been reported on Android 2.3 devices. This bug has been confirmed fixed in 1.1.0.1 but chances are you still have an old (corrupt) copy of the prefixes'' database.
To resolve it try one of the following:
- In the "Settings" menu tick (at the very bottom, under "Internet Update") an option "Node and country lists". Exit the application and start it again. You should now see the "Populating list of countries" progress bar.
- If "1" doesn't help (this could happen if your list of countries has been updated relatively recently and NKCCluster thus "thinks" it's up to date), uninstall the application and install it again (this will, I'm afraid, require you to configure it again). On the first startup you should see the process of populating both lists.
Q: I can't do a QRZ.com XML lookup despite entering a known good username/password.
At this point in time only hamqth.com XML lookups are supported, if you had chosen any other callbook you would have got the username/password fields disabled were it not for a bug that allows selecting XML lookups after exiting and re-entering the "Preferences" menu. This bug will be rectified in a forthcoming release but meantime please note: QRZ.com XML lookups aren't supported.
Depending on the level of user interest, QRZ.com XML support may be added at later date, most likely as an in-app purchase. Please refer to QRZ.com XML support feature request for more details.
Q: Why isn't QRZ.com supported?
QRZ.com XML lookups are under consideration at the moment but as the author is not a subscriber himself, he can't really test NKCCluster with it. There isn't a compelling business case in spending $$ on supporting the QRZ.com functionality when otherwise NKCCluster is free and as such won't even make up for the cost of the QRZ.com subscription. If there should be considerable interest for this feature, it may be added in one of the future releases, probably as an in-app purchase.
Please refer to QRZ.com XML support feature request for more details.
