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Assaf thanks for jumping in and updating the user guide. I've been swamped with the migration project at RR and it's been eating up a lot of my free time.

I've been tracking the changes on .8E (and whatever comes next), and I'll get back to it as soon as I can. On dialup you can imagine that this migration project is extremely painful...73 Mike

No problem Mike I figured you were busy. Plus I wanted to add my own notes as well since these things often incorporate Things Only I Know so I thought adding them to the wiki could avoid potential confusion in the future.

Now that I've broken free (momentarily, anyway) I had a chance to review the release notes from .8D and .8E to see what I missed in the user guide, and there are a few things that need a bit of explanation, I think

- What is this business about holding the CTRL key down and it applies changes to multiple channels? How many at one time?

- What is the 'Global Frequency Exchange'?

- Unfortunately there aren't many systems around me that use NAC codes, so I haven't been paying much attention to it. I see that it's all now handled in hex. Is that the way it's represented in RR? Is there an internal conversion that takes place if someone enters one in decimal, or should users be directed to use Windows Calculator to do the conversion?

- Where is the negative delay option for conventional systems? Is this in the Virtual control panels? All of them?

Once I get these items cleaned up, I think, at least for the most part, I'm caught up  73 and thanx...Mike

Hey Mike. A lot of people have requested to be able to change more than one channel at a time when editing. For example, they might have 50 or so channel they would like to set to Digital Only. Holding down the Ctrl key is pretty standard in Windows for selecting multiple items so thats how it's done. With the new channel editor though, it might take a bit of practise at first because it does some funny things with the highlight colour but it does work. You can select up to 1000 channels at a time. You can also apply this to other operations such as delete, copy, etc.

The Global IF Exchange is a new feature in the XT scanners, see the XT reference for more details.

Now I can understand where you might get a little confused with the negative delay because there are two types present, a simulated negative delay and a real negative delay. The real negative delay is supported by XT scanners and is set where you would normally set the delay for conventional systems. The simulated negative delay is a feature I made some time ago, it only works in virtual control mode. It works in either the Lcars or the Windows style virtual control. I hope that clears everything up.

OK fine. I'll get this stuff into the wiki shortly.

I know about the IF Exchange feature on the XT scanners - but where in FreeScan do you call or use it?

And what about the NAC codes - since everything is in hex, (and I don't know - does RR store it in hex or decimal)? - do you need to use Windows calculator to do the conversion, or does FS have an internal converter?

73 and thanx..Mike

Oops I forgot all about your NAC code question. It is listed in HEX in RR, the scanner gives it in hex by default, and users seem to prefer hex, so I eventually went with hex for entry and viewing. There is a built in converter of sorts. If you use EZ Grab to bring in the data, one of the column options is NAC CODE and it gives you the option of telling it you are looking for either a decimal or hex code. It will convert any decimal codes to hex for you.

RR gives NAC codes in their own seperate columns. But some websites list NAC and CTCSS codes in the same column. So if you import a column and set to CTCSS, and EZ Grab picks up something like "294 NAC" in that column, it will import it as a NAC coded channel and set the audio type to digital. However, it is hex only when done that way. I didn't think this would be an issue because handling NAC in decimal seems to be very rare.

The Global IF Exchange is available in Scanner * Setup Scanner Options * Frequencies tab, right next to the global frequency lockout list.

Can someone explain how to do the hold down ctrl key to edit multiple lines, such as modulation? I'm not grasping how to do this. Tried a few variations but not finding the right way. Thanks.

Hold down the ctrl key and don't let it go! Click on the channels you want to affect and make the change you want to one of them. Now you can release the control key, and as soon as you click on a channel again it will redraw and show you your changes.

Thank you, Sir!

Just wasn't sure on the sequence for it.

You can also use the standard Windows convention of clicking on the first entry, holding the shift key, and then clicking on the last entry in the range that you want to change.  If you then change to the ctrl key and make the change, it works the same way.  Saves having to click use line.

Dick