Ham Radio Deluxe v6.8 Maintenance Release

The purpose of this email is two-fold. One - we're announcing the first Ham Radio Deluxe v6.8.0.71 maintenance release. And two - we want to tell you about our revised plan for maintenance releases.

Please download this version of Ham Radio Deluxe Software from our Downloads page here: www.HamRadioDeluxe.com.

First and foremost - YOU WANT THIS RELEASE. A lot of work has gone into addressing things that customers have raised since we returned from Dayton.

One of our customers wrote us with the following:

"The new version is amazing! I love HRD Alert!!! Bye, bye . Since yesterday I have already picked up a few countries that I had worked but were not confirmed. couldn’t tell me that. With HRD Alert, I was able to see the ones I need and that they were on LOTW so I expect confirmation of those soon. This is one of my favorite features!

I have been using HRD for many years, I was an early adopter when Simon released it. You folks have taken this software to another dimension. It is worth a lot more to me than y’all charge for it and I am happy to be a customer. I don’t think I could operate without it now. Please let Mike and the developers know how much I appreciate their great work."

Thanks, Greg!

At the time of this writing, there are over 40 fixes in this maintenance release. Most of them are not related to HRD Alert (which had very few defects). But we do have a broad selection of fixes.

Fixes in this maintenance release include:

• More speed optimizations for QRZ XML lookup
• Elimination of the "all red" condition when using WSI row coloring
• Worked Bands and Modes columns corrected
• Some cases where Filters and Alarms didn't catch the WSI
• Contest incrementing serial number in both Logbook and DM-780 (brackets no longer required in STX field)
• Contest fields for STX, STX_STRING, SRX, and SRX_STRING are correct
• Contest-related tags in DM-780 macros corrected
• Potential extended support for Windows 7
• General improvements to Alarms & Filters for both DX Cluster and HRD Alert
• Setup now installs the proper version of Access and C++ Runtime; this reduces many odd problems through standardization
• Elimination of a few isolated reported crash scenarios

There is a large list of things that were fixed in this release – too many to enumerate here. The full release notes can be found by >>clicking here<<.

IMPORTANT: Maintenance Release Plan

With this first maintenance release, we are moving to a development cycle that will have us releasing a maintenance release EACH WEEK - probably on Mondays.

Now that we have developers working full-time on the software, they are fully focused on the backlog of bug reports provided by customers. Each week they will work to eliminate as many as they can by week's end. We'll bundle them up and publish them early the next week.

We'll continue at this pace until the backlog of defects is empty - or down to a limited number of defects that cannot be reproduced.

There will not be weekly newsletter announcements for these maintenance releases. Customers can visit our webpage and check the date of the release there.

There are about 250 defects in the system today, compared to a few years ago where the number approached 1,000. At our current pace, it's possible that we can get through all these before October - in time for us to put together new features for the holidays.

This is great news and it signals a definite change in the way we're able to approach development as of 2022.

A Word About Windows 7

We do not have an agenda for eliminating support for Windows 7 - or any other versions of Windows. But our development platform is Microsoft Visual Studio (Azure DevOps). In order for us to remain supported by Microsoft, we need to be on their most current version of Visual Studio. Therefore, when Microsoft ends support for an operating system, we end support for an operating system. We will continue support for an operating system for so long as it is technically and reasonably feasible to do so.

Officially, we do not support Windows 7. But we have made some tweaks to the installer so this version can run on Windows 7. We make no warranty about how well the software works on Windows 7. In particular, as device drivers are no longer available for Windows 7 for radios and soundcards, we have no way to assist with that.

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All those who have purchased Ham Radio Deluxe at any time in the past should download and install this version to benefit from these improvements. You are entitled to them. Our clients who are covered by an active Software Maintenance and Support period are entitled to Feature Enhancements.

Please watch these newsletters for updates. Pass these updates along to your friends.

Newsletters will also be posted on our website's blog here.

Thank you es 73 de Mike, WA9PIE

HRD Software, LLC