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Reviews For: Afreet Software Band Master

Category: Ham Software/Apps - Other than logging

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Review Summary For : Afreet Software Band Master
Reviews: 4MSRP: 25
Description:
Band Master is a program for Radio Amateurs that downloads DX spots and displays them in different ways, including a graphical band map. It can be used either as a stand alone application or as part of a logging or contesting software .

Rig control, country/province resolution, azimuth/distance calculator and online QRZ lookup are built-in, propagation prediction and geographical mapping are available through integration with HamCap and DX Atlas respectively.

Product is in production
More Info: http://www.dxatlas.com/BandMaster/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0044.8
KD0ZV Rating: 2018-03-04
Best cluster software I have used Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The big advantage for me with bandmaster is I can set spots at X miles from my location so I should always be getting local spots. This works most of the time but not always. Still better than any other program I have tried.

My biggest complaint is that it and its companion program DX atlas is hard to read the spots when highlighted on the map and bandmaster. When I see an island on the map I want to hover over it and read the DXCC entity. This shows correctly part of the time and the rest shows the actual spotter. When you click on it on DX Atlas it changes the background on Bandmaster to light grey with white font and is not easy to see on modern resolution monitors.

Could be perfect. Alex is one talented guy and with a few updates this would be over the top perfect. Still the best out there.
WD4ELG Rating: 2008-12-22
Well done, Afreet Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Kudos to Alex VE3NEA!

I use the following

* Bandmaster for spotting and tuning

* DX Atlas for real-time propagation monitoring

* Ionoprobe for propagation prediction

So versatile and powerful, I could not do without them. Thanks, Alex!
W8EFA Rating: 2004-10-17
Great Product Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First reviewer pretty much said it all - this is a great product to use. I also downloaded the free OMNI-RIG software which allows me to click on a spot and automatically tune my rig to that frequency including split operations. The lookup on QRZ is great also.

It will also paint on the DXATLAS screen all of the QSO's going on so you can see what parts of the world are open.
WZ7I Rating: 2004-10-06
Fascinating: Propagation and DX Spots Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Alex, VE3NEA, has written a program that downloads DX spots and displays them in different ways. One option is to plot the spots on a graphical band map. This allows you to identify the DX stations as you dial across the band. The display is similar in some ways to that in the contesting program, “WriteLog”.

But I especially like the way “Band Master” works with the programs “DX Atlas” and “Ionoprobe”. These two programs display the density of the selected ionospheric layer in real time on a world map. “Band Master” plot the great circle path between the DX station and the spotting station on top of this ionosphere density map. It is an amazing tool to really understand something about HF propagation.

Rig control, country/province resolution, azimuth/distance calculator and online QRZ lookup are also built-in.

Another unusual feature of the program is the Spot History function. This plots all spots for a given DX station during one week on each band as a function of time of day. It is a fascinating tool for predicting when and where the station may make an appearance again.

I find the combination of “DX Atlas”, “IonoProbe”, and “Band Master” so interesting that I ordered a new 19” flat screen monitor, removed the base, and mounted it on the wall of my study. I pulled an old PC out of the junk box, updated some of the components, and ran cables from the study down to the basement where this PC runs this combination of three programs. My wife thinks I am easy to entertain but it is a cheap way to keep me out of trouble.

All of this software is either shareware or freeware. So download it, try it, and decide for yourself whether you find it useful, especially if you have an “always on” internet link.