Copy & Paste Error From Microsoft Excel Into WIN 500

[KD4YGG]

Don

I utilize Microsoft Excel to "pre-plan" programming templates for my PSR-500.
I've noticed that when I attempt to cut and paste from Excel into WIN-500 I get an error as follows:

Any TGRP Object IDs whose ALPHA TAG starts with the letter "W" in my Excel file are interpreted as wildcards when pasted into WIN-500.

An Example (using Tippecanoe County, Indiana)

This is what I copy
WLFD DISPATCH 32336
WLFD OPS NORTH 32368
WLFD OPS SOUTH 32400
WLFD ANNOUNCE 33552

This is what I get
32336 Wildcard
32368 Wildcard
32400 Wildcard
33552 Wildcard

It appears as if WIN500 ignores the intended ALPHA TAG, imports the TGRP number as the ALPHA TAG, and assigns a WILDCARD designation to the TGRP ID.

At first I thought it was because of the ALPHA TAG length or numeric format, but to no avail.

It happens on Motorola, EDACS, and LTR systems.

More of a nuisance than anything else. Not sure if anyone else has noticed this.

Thanks for the continued development of WIN-500.

 

[DonS]

Yes, in your example above, the 'W' is causing Win500 to think it's a wildcard.

Win500 goes through the columns of text trying to figure out what each column contains. It works from "most restrictive" to "least restrictive"; for talkgroup data, this means it first looks for Private vs. Group, then Talkgroup ID, then Alpha Tag. When checking for Talkgroup ID, a 'W' or '*' character in the first position is interpreted as "wildcard".

You can override this behavior by using a "header row". In Excel, insert a row above your talkgroup data, and put "Alpha Tag" above your tags and "TGID" above the IDs (without the double-quotes).

 

[KD4YGG]

Yes, in your example above, the 'W' is causing Win500 to think it's a wildcard.

Win500 goes through the columns of text trying to figure out what each column contains. It works from "most restrictive" to "least restrictive"; for talkgroup data, this means it first looks for Private vs. Group, then Talkgroup ID, then Alpha Tag. When checking for Talkgroup ID, a 'W' or '*' character in the first position is interpreted as "wildcard".

You can override this behavior by using a "header row". In Excel, insert a row above your talkgroup data, and put "Alpha Tag" above your tags and "TGID" above the IDs (without the double-quotes).

That was easy!!!