The Spots History Window

The Spots History window displays incoming PacketCluster spots in a spreadsheet-style list. This list uses highlighting to indicate which spots are needed by band and mode.

The Spots History window is displayed by choosing View/Show Packet Spots History. If you would like the Spots History window to be automatically displayed when the Packet Window is displayed choose Options/Packet Options and Port Select and set the Show Spots History Window when Packet Window Starts option.

Searching the Spot List

Choose Edit/Find (Ctrl+F) to search through the spotted callsigns. You should disable the "AutoScroll" option before searching so that incoming spots won't cause a scroll to the end of the list. You can disable auto-scrolling by choosing Options/Autoscroll to End or by clicking on the "Autoscroll On" indicator at the bottom of the window.

Choose Edit/Find Next (F3) to find the next occurrence of the same call. Edit/Find Next starts from that last item found by Edit/Find and searches back to the beginning of the list.

Simple wildcards are allowed when doing callsign searches, for example W1* will match calls starting W1, *XX will match calls ending XX, and *XX* will match calls containing XX.

Clearing the Spot List

Choose Edit/Clear Spots History delete all displayed entries as well as entries saved in the Spots History.

The "Options/Colors, Fonts, Etc." Menu Item

Spot Colors

Use the Spot Colors buttons to set the colors used to indicate the "need" status for spots:

Not Needed Confirmed for this band or mode
Band/Mode Unconfirmed for this band or mode
All Unconfirmed for all bands and modes

Enable Columns

Use the Enable Columns options to control how much information will be included in the list. If the display is taking up too much screen space try turning off various columns. You can also try using a smaller font like Arial 8 (Regular, not Bold).

Normally the width each column is automatically adjusted to accommodate the widest data item currently in the column. If you want to adjust the width of the columns yourself disable the Automatically adjust column widths option. After you disable this option here's how to adjust the column widths manually:

Font

The Font button lets you pick the font type and size used in the display.

Spot Limits

Use Maximum number of spots displayed to define how many spots are displayed and Maximum number of spots saved to control how many spots will be saved between XMLog sessions.

The "Options/Sort By..." Menu Item

Use the Options/Sort by... menu item to control how the list is sorted. Normally spots are sorted by Date/Time but sorting by Call or by Frequency can be useful when searching through the list.

The "Options/Autoscroll to End" Menu Item

The Options/Autoscroll to End menu item controls whether the list will be automatically scrolled to the end of the list to display newly added spots. However, if you are searching the list you will probably want to temporarily disable this feature. To enable/disable automatic scrolling choose Options/AutoScroll to End or click on the AutoScroll status box at the bottom of the display.

The "Options/Filter Settings" Menu Item

Callsign Filtering

Callsign filtering restricts the spots displayed to those in a callsign list unique to the Packet Spots History Window. To use callsign filtering choose Options/Filter Settings and fill in the calls you want to see. This list of calls will be ignored until you enable callsign filtering by choosing Options/Filter by Callsign. To disable callsign filtering choose Options/Enable Callsign Filter again or click on the Filter status box at the bottom of the display.

If the Match Callsigns Exactly option is set then the callsign from the spot must exactly match one on the callsigns in the list. If this option is not set then if any of the strings in the list occur anywhere in the call the spot will be displayed. For example, if one of the strings in the list is PJ5 and the spot is for W1ECT/PJ5 then the spot will be displayed.

Mode Filtering

Mode filtering restricts spots displayed to selected modes. To use mode filtering choose Options/Filter Settings and select the modes you want to see. These selections will be ignored until you enable mode filtering by choosing Options/Enable Mode Filter. To disable mode filtering choose Options/Filter by Mode again or click on the Filter status box at the bottom of the display.

Band Filtering

Band filtering< restricts spots displayed to selected bands. To use band filtering choose Options/Filter Settings and select the bands you want to see. These selections will be ignored until you enable band filtering by choosing Options/Enable Band Filter. To disable band filtering choose Options/Filter by Band again or click on the Filter status box at the bottom of the display.

Inhibited Spots Filtering

The main Packet Window lets you control which spots cause alerts by choosing Options/Packet Options and Port Select and using the PacketCluster Alerts tab. Alerts can be inhibited based on band, mode, spotter, etc. If you don't want the Packet History Window to display spots that were inhibited in the main Packet Window choose Options/Filters and clear the Show inhibited spots option.

Un-needed Spots Filtering

If you don't want to see spots for confirmed bands/modes choose Options/Filters and clear the Show un-needed spots option.

The Spots History Window and the Mouse

If you click on:

If you double-click on:

If you right-click on a line in the display a popup menu will be displayed that will allow you to:

Normally it doesn't matter where you right-click on a line. However if you right-click on the Spotters callsign that call will be used for "Start new log entry" and "Callbook lookup" rather than the call that was spotted.

Callbook Lookups

As noted above you can display callbook info for spotted calls or for spotters calls by double-clicking or right-clicking on the appropriate field. You can also display the Callbook Lookup Window by choosing View/Show Callbook Lookup (Ctrl+L).