Just downloaded the APP and it works great. Thank you Fred. Prepare for the worst and pray for the best, Mike
Thank you very much Fred for your effort. The app surprised me on my phone today. It's a very nice surprise . Thank You Konrad kc9nuw
Needs to show licenses as expired or suspended etc. where appropriate. Overall, I like the convenience of the app. Great work. Thanks. Wayde kd2nop
Version 2.1.35 just released. Includes some minor bug fixes plus now, support for 11 Languages including Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portugese, and Russian. The help files are being translated now. So far, we have Spanish (thanks Julio EB1BSV), and are looking for volunteers for any of the other languages. The English version is located at https://xml.qrz.com/AppData/app_help.htm
The compass is still terribly buggy. It just spins wildly when you try to orientate it to North...which is actually required to make the bearing reading it gives you useful.
The magnetometer in most cell phones is highly susceptible to external magnetic fields. When I was developing the app, I downloaded a regular compass app from the store and used it to compare against the QRZ compass. When they both agreed in both direction and stability I called it a day. The raw magnetometer data is actually very noisy. We employed an alpha value low pass filter to smooth the changes. This approach has the effect of slowing the overall slew rate such that if it were any higher, there would be an unacceptable delay in reorienting after significant direction changes. For example, when you have the compass active, note the position of North and then quickly turn the phone 90 degrees. The compass should take no more than a couple of seconds to reflect the new heading. That was our design goal. 73, -fred
Most HF directional antennas don't need yuuge precision. Typical -3dB beamwidth is on the order of 45° or greater. IOW about ±22° or greater is close enough. I've been using the direction indicator built into my contest logger software. With PC interface, my yagi is automagically rotated.
I have tried your app's compass on two different phones, a Galaxy S8 and a Galaxy S5. Indoors, outdoors, and 6miles away from civilization...and it spins like a top every time the you try to line it up on a northern heading. Sine I also have two other compass apps on my phone, and neither of them show this erratic behavior...it's it's kinda doubtful it has anything to do with the magnetometer in my phone/s.
Also, every time I start the app on my phone, it defaults to my own information, which is fine, except it also cause the XML look-up count to increase by two (sometimes 3)...each and every time the app is started. Since the app uses my QRZ login info (just like the website) it shouldn't be counting those instances...just as the website doesn't.
