Monday 10 September 2018

Introducing StationBase--A Tool for DX'ers

It's funny. I've been a DX'er for about 42 years--not that I'm old now (I'm about to turn 54). I started DX'ing when I was twelve, and over the years I keep coming back to it.

What's DX'ing? Fair question. DX'ing is listening to the radio in an attempt to hear stations over long distances. This can involve many different bands and methods of reception; from ham and VHF/UHF bands, to the AM and FM broadcast bands. It can be active, such as involving radio amateurs trying to conduct conversations over long distances. It can be passive, such as sitting up late with an AM receiver, trying to identify that faint signal on 1640 KHz.


In my case, and many others', I've settled on the AM broadcast band, which runs from 530 KHz to 1700 KHz in North America. Over 30 years of on-again, off-again listening, I've managed to bag nearly 600 stations. This is a very radio-dirty location; the band is always humming with radio noise, so DX is a bit difficult to come by. to date, I think my farthest catch was Vatican Radio (Rome), broadcasting a newsmagazine-type show on 1611 Khz, early one morning in the late nineties. To date, my only translatlantic reception.


Naturally, keeping records straight on 600 stations isn't an easy task. So, I decided years ago to keep my records electronically. I've progressed through dBASE, WordPerfect, MS Word, and Excel. Each solution was subtoptimal, and I found myself spending as much time trying to keep my records straight as actually listening to the radio.


I searched for software. There wasn't much, and most of it seemed to be aimed at hams.


"I know," said I; "I'll put my web-application development talents to use and program something!"


And so began the birth of StationBase. It's been in active development now for about ten months, and it's almost ready for a beta test. 


StationBase was developed from the outset to encourage sharing of records. A default operator is assigned, so that visitors will see that operator's records before they login. (Users can designate their records as private, visible only to them; but where's the fun in that?)


For each operator, StationBase keeps track of lists of Locations, Equipment Sets (collections of equipment often used together), Equipment, and a common pool of Network definitions.  These are attached to Station records, through Reception Reports. If geographic coordinates are supplied for both a Location and a Station, the distance will then automatically be calculated when a reception report is filed. StationBase also has a logging feature, and can automatically generate reception reports when it finds you logging an identified station, or even creating a station record if it doesn't already exist. It can also do the same when you enter Reception Reports directly, converting them into log entries.


In the main screen, you can filter your stations by whether they are still active; by Location, and by Equipment Set. You can combine these filters so that, for example, you can view only those active stations bagged in Rockland, using the Original set of equipment.


For the Online Edition, there are some extra niceties:



  • An online news feature; you can post news items, which can be viewed by other users, with custom expiry dates;
  • An online bug-reporting/tracking feature, which should be very handy during the beta-test period;
  • An email function (planned for the next major release);
  • The ability to view anybody's records who has not marked them private.
There are also a Stats section, which shows you statistical data about your catches, and a Data section, divided into three parts: Export, Import, and Deletion. Data export of any part of your records can occur in any of three different file formats (text, CSV, and XML). Anything that the program can export, it can also import, guaranteeing protection for your valuable records.

For the past week, I've also been developing a Desktop Edition of StationBase. This version will compile and run on just about any platform and is completely self-contained. It doesn't require a database server, a web server, or anything else. It will also feature full data interchangeability with the Online Edition. A typical scenario I've envisioned points out the usefulness of this ability. You could use the Desktop Edition of StationBase to maintain your records; but when you're DX'ing, you probably don't want your primary computer running (a major source of radio noise). So, you operate with a tablet, and access the online version of the program while DX'ing, probably from a mobile device like a smartphone or a tablet. When you're done, you export your data from the Online Edition, feed it into the Desktop Edition--and you're up-to-date.

Here's a peek at the landing screen (logged out), so you can get some sense of what I'm talking about.

Both the Online and Desktop Editions will be available later this autumn. My thought was that groups of like-minded DX'ers could run a version of the Online Edition (it does require a Java application server); and anyone can run the Desktop Edition.

Both projects have been leveraged as educational opportunities. For the Online Edition, I've programmed a custom data-grids package in JavaScript, and developed it in the Eclipse IDE, using Java Spring MVC, and for the Desktop Edition (programmed in Free Pascal and the Lazarus IDE), I've programmed custom database routines and a simple indexing package that brought me up-to-date on directly handling raw data.

Anyway, here's that screenshot:
StationBase Landing Page