Looking for a way to bring together all relevant information about each DXpedition I’m hoping to work, I remembered a product from Microsoft, part of the Office suite, called One Note.
OneNote lets you grab items from webpages, or other sources and quickly assemble them into a note page, complete with any images, text or hyperlinks you might want to include. It’s as simple as drag and drop, or highlight, drag and drop.
You can arrange items in any arrangement, and even resize items. I’ve shown everything for each dxpedition on a single page, but you can even have multiple pages should you like.
Screen capture from OneNote
Here’s a page I put together for the CY0 dxpedition (if they’re actually able to get to the island).
I’ve included the logo from the webpage (just for looks purposes), a capture of the VOACAP propagation charts between me and the location, a capture from their webpage showing the frequencies and splits, the qsl information, and a hyperlink which will quickly display any spots for that country or call from DX Watch.com
You can include just about anything you might want to include for your own purposes, but it’s looks to me like it will be a great tool. I have a Notebook called DX with tabs for each of the stations I want to keep track of.
I already owned Microsoft Office Student (it came with my PC) and OneNote is included in that software. But I’ve found just OneNote on the web for $14.95 – it’s the old edition, but for these purposes it’s all you need. http://www.trustprice.com/593240/microsoft-microsoft-office-onenote.html
One other piece of software you’ll need is a screen shot capture. I’m using Greenshot (www.getgreenshot.org) which is an open source (free) software package and it works GREAT. I use it to capture the HamCap propagation prediction images, and the propagation data from ClubLog.
Here’s another example: I”m still playing with how I like to lay pages out, and each one seems to be different, although there are some common elements
An alternative to OneNote is Evernote, which is a free product. It’s not a flexible as OneNote, espspecially in creating your own arrangment or resizing, but it is free. http://www.evernote.com
Very interesting. I’d love to see what the resulting notes look like when done. I have been looking for a good amateur radio tie-in with OneNote for awhile.
73,
John Guin
KB7ZJW
John, I just posted another example at the end of the article. I’m still experimenting and every page is different, based on the data elements available. But there are some common elements – the propagation predictions, the link to the spots etc.
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I love the layout – it looks fabulous!
Also, did you try WIN+S to use OneNote’s screen clipping tool? I’ve never used Greenshot, but OneNote’s clipping may be all you need.
John, I played with WIN+S and it works great, and would be sufficient for most needs. Greenshot provides a more robust capability including the ability to specify region, window or screen, and the ability to annotate what you’ve captured with text, graphics etc.
But for most simply region captures, the built-in capability is great. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.