The hardware log for the radio amateur is the second most important document, after the permission to operate the radio station. HRD has no affiliate program and I receive no compensation whatsoever for this review nor does anyone at HRD know I am writing this review.Not a computer version of a ham radio's hardware log. Switching to another rig control/logging program is no easy feat.Īll in all I think HRD is a quality program. I nearly left the HRD fold over this but decided to give them another chance. Suffice it to say I think the company learned from its mistakes and has taken step to assure it won’t happen again. I don’t know all of the details and I won’t spread rumors. Something happened within program development quality control. Over the last few months some major HRD program updates have been incredibly buggy.It’s a very comprehensive add-on for WSJT-X. *Don’t let the name GridTracker fool you. For you digital fans you can just JTAert or GridTracker* along with WSJT-X to log directly to HRD. I wish the message would get across to HRD that these new digital modes are not just a passing fad. HRD has not been quick to support the new digital modes such as WSJT-X’s FT8 and FT4 modes.When this first happened, I was concerned about the lack of potential continuity in the company - most resources are U.S.A-based - but I haven’t seen any subsequent negative impact. The guiding principal behind HRD, WA9PIE, moved to Australia a few months ago.That restructuring appears to have been for the best and the issue is closed. There have been some management issues at HRD in the past with one principal leaving the company under cloudy circumstances.Its employees are disbursed over multiple continents. HRD is not a brick and mortar company.Rig control has been honed over the years and works flawlessly.
professional - I dealt with both for many, many moons. But do you really have 10 million QSOs? I think SQL is overkill. PSA: Microsoft Access, contrary to popular belief, is a widely used and competent database…unless you try to input maybe 10 million records. It defaults to Microsoft Access, but you can change it to SQL. The logbook database is fast and solid.You don’t have to stare at the entire kitchen sink. Just display the modules you want to view. The overall UI layout makes sense to me.
These days rig control/logbook programs must interface with other ham radio software products.If so many hams use it, that has to be a good sign, I thought to myself. It has been around for years…and is very mature. It has the largest established user base in the ham radio kingdom.I won’t bore you with a list of its features (go the HRD’s main website instead), but here’s why I settled on HRD: I have been an HRD user ever since…six years now.
I then tried the free 30-day trial version of HamRadioDeluxe (HRD). It’s a very competent program but it’s look and feel turned to off. After struggling with rig control problems, its general UI reminded me of a DOS program ported to Windows back in the 1980s. I found Log4OM to be a good, basic program but after a few months I wanted more. The three programs that made my final list were Log4OM, Logger32 and Ham Radio Deluxe. I want the best software available to meet my needs and if that means paying for something then I will pay for it.
I actually wanted to dedicate a Mac computer I have to ham radio only, but quickly abandoned that idea - the feature list I had in my head made me go with Microsoft Windows - there is a lot more ham radio stuff written for Windows.īefore I go any further, I realize many hams use free software…and criticize software that isn’t free.
There isn’t a lot of software written for ham radio. This blog post is dedicated to why I chose Ham Radio Deluxe. And I was delighted to learn that rig control would be computerized too. However being a hardcore DXer, of course I wanted to keep a logbook. As a matter of fact, the FCC didn’t even care if I kept a logbook at all. When I came back on-the-air in 2014 - only after being off-the-air for a few decades! - I was pleased to find that I no longer had to keep a pen and paper logbook.