A necessary feature of a fully customizable radio program such as Ham Radio Deluxe is the definition of custom band layouts.
The IARU regions have own band plans; there is no doubt that these will change in the future. Consider also the traditionalist who has never owned a microphone in his life and is only interested in the CW portions of the bands – he wants his own band layouts.
With this feature you can edit any band so only the frequencies are shown which are allowed by your License class. You can then activate the Out-Of-Band alarms to notify you when you tune outside of your allowed frequency ranges.
Manager
To start the Manager do one of the following:
- Select Manager from the Bands menu. or
- Press CTRL+B.
Here you see the existing definitions. In the Edit menu you have the expected New, Copy, Edit and Delete options.
Adding a Band
Some radios have 6m and operators may want to add a 6m button to their layout.
To add a band button to your layout, click your ITU region as shown here and then click "Edit."
Then click on "New" to create (add) an additional band.
Enter the upper and lower limits of the band you wish to add in MHz (it is not necessary to enter the trailing zeros).
Finish by clicking "OK".
You might want to rename this from "160m - 10m (Region 2)" to "160m - 6m (Region 2)" and move the new 6m entry up so that it is above 10m in your button display.
Then click "OK" until the selections boxes are closed.
To display this new band, click on the Selections button in the toolbar, then click Bands in the side panel.
Then click the new band range you've just modified.
Now a 6m button will be displayed in your Rig Control screen.
Adding a Definition
In this example a band layout is created for our CW enthusiast. Select New from the Edit menu to create a new definition using the Band Layout Editor.
- 1. In the Title field enter CW Only.
- 2. From the Edit menu select New to define a new frequency range.
- 3. In the Band field enter [160m]
- 4. In the From field enter [01.800.000]
- 5. In the To field enter [01.830.000]
- 6. Ensure Enable is checked
- 7. Press OK
When you press OK the frequency range is added to the band layout. Repeat the steps above for 80m and 40m using the values below:
- 80m, 3.5MHz to 3.55MHz, (Remember the leading zero)
- 40m, 7.0MHz to 7.05MHz.
The band layout now looks like this:
To rearrange the order of the frequency ranges just select a range and use the Move menu options or the Move buttons.
- 8. When you have finished your new layout press OK. The CW Only definition is added to the band layouts.
- 9. In the Band Layouts window press OK to save the definitions and close the window.
Copying a Definition
To copy an existing band layout:
- 1. Start the Manager,
- 2. Select the entry to be copied,
- 3. Select Copy from the Edit menu,
- 4. Enter the new title,
- 5. Change the frequency ranges are appropriate,
- 6. Press OK.
Selecting
To select a band layout either:
- Open the Bands pane in the Selection window (select Display from the Bands menu) and select an entry in the list, or
- Click on the Band Title 160m – 10m (Region 1) in the radio display and select a new layout from the popup window.
