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ARRL Radio Designer 1.0 ARD.TXT -- V 1.02  (21 Feb 1995)
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This file, which contains information about the RF
circuit modeling software product called ARRL Radio
Designer, is a product of

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL)
225 Main St
Newington CT 06111
USA

tel 203-666-1541
fax 203-665-7531
BBS 203-666-0578
e-mail hq@arrl.org

supersedes the file ARD.TXT V 1.00 of 4 November 1994

This file looks best when viewed or printed with a
fixed-pitch text font--for example, Courier or Courier
New.

Conventions: Asterisks (**) delimit italics, \/ delimits
superscript, /\ delimits subscript. In the text to
follow, the initial group *ARD* is sometimes used
as an equivalent to the phrase *ARRL Radio Designer*.

********************************************************
* For the latest ARRL Radio Designer news, e-mail      *
* ARRL's automated info server at the Internet address *
*                                                      *
*                     info@arrl.org                    *
*                                                      *
* sending the four lines                               *
*                                                      *
*                     SEND ARD.TXT                     *
*                     HELP                             *
*                     INDEX                            *
*                     QUIT                             *
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* You need not specify a subject unless your mailer    *
* requires it. The HELP line nets you the info server  *
* Help file; the INDEX line nets you the latest        *
* listing of all information files on the server.      *
*                                                      *
* You can also download the latest ARD.TXT from the    *
* the ARRL BBS at 203-666-0578.                        *
********************************************************

Contents:

(A) Latest ARRL Radio Designer 1.0 README.TXT (V 1.02,
22 Feb 1995)

(B and later) Reserved.


(A)
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ARRL Radio Designer 1.0 README.TXT--V 1.02 (22 Feb 1995)
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README.TXT contains information compiled after 
ARRL Radio Designer 1.0's printed documentation went
to press. This README.TXT V 1.02 supersedes README.TXT
V 1.01 of 4 November 1994.


1.x -- SETUP TOPICS

1.1  Canceling Setup by clicking on Cancel in the
Installation Location dialog nonetheless may result in a
partial or complete installation. This is a Setup bug.
Use the Exit button (lower right screen corner) to exit
Setup. Depending on when in the Setup sequence you exit,
a subdirectory named as shown in Installation Location
(default: ARRL) may still be created.

1.2  Erroneous "not enough space to install" message in
ARRL Radio Designer Setup after trying to install in
insufficient disk space.

ARRL Radio Designer 1.0 requires at least 6 megabytes of
free disk space to install without databanks, and at least
11 megabytes to install with databanks. Trying to install
in insufficient disk space results in the "Severe" dialog
message

   There is not enough space on the target disk to
   complete the installation as requested.

Once this message has popped, you must exit and rerun Setup
to install ARRL Radio Designer, even if you switch to a file
manager and clear sufficient disk space. Otherwise, Setup
will continue to erroneously report insufficient disk
space even if sufficient space exists.

To exit Setup at this juncture:

Click on OK in the Severe dialog. The Installation Location
dialog reappears. Instead of clicking on Cancel in the
Installation Location dialog, click the Exit button in the
lower right screen corner. An Exit Setup dialog appears;
click on Exit. Then rerun Setup when you're sure you have
enough space to complete the installation you want.

1.3  Installation Disk 1 and Disk 2 serial number disagree.
Some installation disk sets bear different Disk 1 and
Disk 2 serial numbers; among these, some number pairs are
not sequential. Record the Disk 1 number in the serial
number field on your registration card.


2.x -- TROUBLESHOOTING TOPICS

2.1  Correcting system hangs. If your system hangs--that
is, freezes in midflight and does not respond to keyboard
and mouse input--during an ARRL Radio Designer session,
your VGA display hardware and Windows video driver may
conflict. Via the Options Change System Settings menu
choice in Windows Setup, change Windows' Display driver to
plain-vanilla VGA--just "VGA" in the Change System Settings
Display menu. If this cures the hang, a video conflict
is the probable cause. If this doesn't cure the hang,
contact the ARRL Technical Information Service at 203-666-
1541 (voice), 203-665-7531 (fax) or via the Internet e-mail
address hq@arrl.org.


3.x -- PROGRAM TOPICS

3.1  Edit menu items inactive but ungrayed with when a
table window selected. This is a bug. To copy a table to
the Windows Clipboard, right-click in the table window
and select Copy to Clipboard.

3.2  Help button in Open Audit File dialog inactive.
This is a bug. Audit Help is available via the Settings
index choice in ARRL Radio Designer Help.

3.3  Closing the default graph produced by the Alt+A
(analyze circuit and do admittance plot), Alt+I (analyze
circuit and do impedance plot), Alt+P (analyze circuit
and do polar plot) and Alt+R (analyze circuit and do
rectangular plot) keyboard accelerators and then pressing
any of these accelerators again generates an error
message that leads to closure of the graph. This is a bug
connected with ARRL Radio Designer's Quick Reporter
feature. Use Report Editor (AKA Linear Reports) instead.

3.4  The next keyboard or mouse event performed after
the (spurious) keyboard accelerator command Alt+Z has
been issued changes the status bar Linear indicator to
Nonlin and renders the program unresponsive to further
analysis and reporting commands. This is a bug. To
regain control, exit the program and rerun it.


4.x DOCUMENTATION TOPICS

4.0  *ARRL Radio Designer Manual* Typographical
	Errors

4.0.1	Page 5-3: The formula alpha = beta/(1+2)
	should read alpha = beta/(1+beta).

4.0.2	Page 4-5: In the page's first item, the
	phrase "In the Report window, double-click
	on . . ." should read "In the Circuit editor
	window, double-click on . . ."

4.0.3	On page 4-24, the phrase "MS21=0DB" in the
	second-to-last netlist line on should read
	"MVG2=0DB". Relatedly, the "MS21" under
	"Parm" in the Statistics graphic on page 4-26
	should read "MVG2".

4.0.4	On page 4-17, the attribution "James Lawson,
	K5IRK," should read "John Lawson, K5IRK."

4.1  Audit (Settings menu) coverage omitted in The ARRL
Radio Designer Manual.

The Audit feature is available via Settings or the
hotkey Ctrl+T. Turning on Audit opens an Open File dialog
that prompts you to name a preexisting or proposed *Audit
file* (an ASCII text file with the extension .LST) in
your ARRL Radio Designer directory. With Audit turned on,
ARRL Radio Designer saves to the Audit file (appends to
the file, if it already exists) the contents of any
tables displayed at exit time. Audit can therefore be
used as means of saving ARRL Radio Designer output data
to disk in ASCII form.

Note, however, that ARRL Radio Designer tables can also
be saved in ASCII form by two command paths: (1) via the
Reports Save Tables command (keyboard Ctrl+F7), which
opens a dialog that prompts you for a filename with a
default extension of .TXT; and (2) by copying them to the
Windows Clipboard (right-click in a any table window to
bring up the menu) and pasting them into a word processor
capable of saving its contents to disk as ASCII text, such
as Windows Notepad.

4.2  Misleading allusion to Windows Notepad as a
means of importing databank data into netlists. On page
17-5 of The ARRL Radio Designer Manual, the section titled
Data for ONE and TWO black-box elements includes the
passage "Databank information can be manually copied
in an ARRL Radio Designer netlist by opening the databank
file with an ASCII text editor (Windows Notepad, for
example) and copying it via [the] Windows Clipboard and
ARRL Radio Designer's Circuit Editor." Many databank
files exceed Notepad's maximum file-size limit,
however. As an alternative, use Windows Write or
another Windows word processor capable of reading ASCII
files.

4.3  Manually imported databank data that does not
include frequency units produces meaningless results and/
or the error message "Math error occurred. Program cannot
continue." The convention for manufacturer-supplied SnP
data requires that each data line's frequency
specification (1) be in gigahertz and (2) omit the GHZ
unit suffix, as in the S-parameter data line

0.047  0.77  -166  9.84  94  0.03  48  0.22  -88

where "0.047" means "0.047 GHz." The description on
pages 17-10 through 17-15 of the data formats of
standard (.flp) and secondary (.SnP) databank files,
originally included as part of Compact's documentation
of Super-Compact ability to pull in databank files
*automatically* at analysis time notes, on page 17-14,
that the default unit for *automatic* analysis-time
data import in Super-Compact is gigahertz--but *this
frequency-unit default does not operate for data hard-
coded into a netlist's DATA block.*) A frequency spec
of "0.1" on a databank line therefore means "100 MHz"
when Super-Compact pulls it in on the fly, but "0.1 Hz"
when Super-Compact or ARRL Radio Designer reads that
line in from a hard-coded DATA block line.

Data copied into the program *manually* for use with ONE
and TWO elements therefore must include *fully explicit*
frequency data--"fully explicit" as in "0.1GHZ" or "1E8"
or "100MHZ", all of which specify the same frequency
in ARD-speak. The data syntax shown in the Examples on
page 17-6 (Data for ONE) and 17-8 (Data for TWO) therefore
applies to databank data imported into ARRL Radio Designer
by hand, with the further qualification that each data
line's frequency spec must be fully explicit, as in

0.047GHZ  0.77  -166  9.84  94  0.03  48  0.22  -88

or

47MHZ  0.77  -166  9.84  94  0.03  48  0.22  -88

or

47E6  0.77  -166  9.84  94  0.03  48  0.22  -88

or

47000KHZ  0.77  -166  9.84  94  0.03  48  0.22  -88

--all of which specify the same S parameters at the same
frequency.

end of ARD.TXT Ver 1.02 (22 Feb 1994)

