Sunday, August 30, 2009

Ham Radio Deluxe Logbook w/ Mac OSX Backend

Hello All,

I've been searching for a good logging program for sometime now. Not being very high on MS Windows and it's long term reliability and stability. I'm a Mac/OSX guy, however one of the best HAM radio application suites I've found is Ham Radio Deluxe (http://www.ham-radio-deluxe.com/)which only runs in Windows. With the recent release of HRD Beta version 5, the developers have created a new stand alone logging program (HRD Logbook). I've been experimenting with the HRD Logbook for a few weeks and have grown to like it. It also allows you the flexibility to use either MS Access, MySQL, or SQL Server for its back end.

So, I setup a small Windows XP VM in Parallels on my Macbook for which I'm running the front end HRD Logbook and DM780 (for PSK31) applications, on the back end I installed and configured MySQL server on my iMac (connected to my home network). My iMac has a 1TB RAID 0 attached to it and is my primary iPhoto and iTunes sever and backup.

Setup is fairly straight forward:

Step 1: Download HRD Deluxe Version 5 from the HRD Website (http://www.ham-radio-deluxe.com/)

Step 2: Download MySQL Server from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html (I used the Mac OSX 10.5 x86 Version)

Step 3: Download the MySQL Administrative GUI Tools from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/gui-tools/5.0.html

Step 4: Install MySQL Server (I created a symbolic link to my RAID e.g., ln -s /usr/local/mysql /Volumes/RAID/mysql)

Step 5: Install the MySQL Startup Item from the Disk Image

Step 6: Copy "cp /usr/local/mysql/my-large.cnf to /etc/my.cnf"

Step 6: Start the MySQL Server "sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start"

Step 7: Install the MySQL Admin Tools on your Mac

Step 8: Login to the localhost as root (probably no password unless you set it)

Step 9: Click on Catalogs and create a new db called hr_deluxe

Step 10: Click on the accounts tab and add a new user, I called mine hrd

Step 11: Click on the right arrow and look for the % sign under the user name and click on this

Step 12: Select all of the available privileges and move them into the assigned category

Step 13: Install the MySQL OBC connector (http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/5.1.html#win32) on the Windows machine that will be running HRD

Step 14: Install Ham Radio Deluxe

Step 15: Launch the HRD Logbook

Step 16: Click on Tools and then ODBC Manager

Step 17: Click "Add", Data Source Name = hrd_logbook, Description = HRD Logbook, Server =your mac's ip, User=hrd, Password=what u set, Database=hr_deluxe, click "Ok"

Step 18: Click on "Logbook", then "Databases", then "Manager", click on "Add" then click on the drop down under "or select" and select hrd_logbook. Then enter your user name and password for the "hrd" user

Step 19: Enjoy

HRD Logbook allows you to readily import ADIF files and exports from other HRD Logbooks, so if you are traveling you could use the local database and sync when you get home.

Here are some screen shots of portions of the install. When I have some more time I'll attempt to align with the steps.








73s
--Chris



1 comment:

  1. Hi Chris, please check out http://machamradio.com for a much better list of loggers avail on the Mac.

    73 Lee
    WW2DX

    ReplyDelete