VUCC is the VHF/UHF Century Club Award offered by the ARRL.

The "VUCC" program creates a map of worked VUCC grid locators from the VUCC Band Listing created by DX4WIN. The program shows checked (submitted), confirmed and worked locators, either in different colors or different fonts. Click this link to see an example of the output. See the color key below for the meaning of each color.

VUCC to HTML

Version 3.3 of the VUCC program was released on 24 June 2020. It will run on Windows XP and later. Go to the Version History to download the installation program.


Disclaimer

The VUCC program is supplied "AS IS" without any warranties.

The author assumes no responsibility or liability for the use of the software, conveys no license or title under any patent, copyright, or mask work right to the product.

The author reserves the right to make changes to the software without notification. The author also makes no representation or warranty that such application will be suitable for the specified use without further testing or modification.


Installation

IMPORTANT: If you try to start the program and see any error messages like these:

The program can't start because MFC140.dll is missing from your computer.
The program can't start because MSVCP140.dll is missing from your computer.
The program can't start because VCRUNTIME140.dll is missing from your computer.

then you need to download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019.

NOTE: This Microsoft library is not included in the installation program in order that you install the most recent version available.


Creating the VUCC Data

The program requires a VUCC listing from DX4WIN as input. To generate this VUCC listing:

Using DX4WIN 8 and later:

Using DX4WIN 7 and earlier:

When the listing window comes up, right-click with the mouse and choose "Write to File". Give the file a name (no spaces). It will be saved as a CSV (comma-delimited) file. Take note of where this file is, because you will have to navigate to it from the program.


Using the Program

The program has a number of settings. The Input file, Band and Lower-left Field are required. The remaining settings can be changed to suit your needs. All settings except for Input file name will be saved and restored the next time you run the program.

After starting the program from the desktop icon, click on the Input button and navigate to the folder where you saved the VUCC listing from DX4WIN. Double-click on that filename to close the dialog box.

Select the band of interest by clicking on the down-arrow next to Band. Then type in the LL Field to specify the lower left-hand corner of the map. For USA stations "CL" will give you all of the USA and some of Mexico when printed in landscape mode. "CM" will give you most of the USA and some of Canada when printed in landscape mode. The field can be chosen to show any part of the world. You can type in a complete grid square (i.e. DM79nx), but only the first two letters will be used.

Next, choose the Print Format. There are three options:

Because each grid square is 2° x 1°, landscape output generally works better than portrait. Try 17"x11" only if you have access to a printer which can handle that size.

This is the color key for the output:

Note that in non-color mode, confirmed, submitted and checked VUCC credits will all be the same color (bold black).

Finally, click on the Generate button to create the output. Then click on the View button to see it. Windows will open the output using your default web browser. At this point, you can click the Done button to exit the VUCC program. Your web browser will remain open.

NOTE: Hovering the mouse over any setting should pop up a short description.

Clicking the Help button will being up this web page.


Tips on Choosing Colors

After clicking the View button, and/or printing, you may not be happy with the output. While the colors themselves can not be changed (yet), you may want to experiment with different settings of the various check boxes, as well as the layout. You can keep the program running. Simply make changes, then click on Generate again. You don't need to click on View, you can simply go back to your web browser and click on its Refresh button to show you the latest output.

I realize that the program is probably violating the Americans with Disabilities Act due to lack of support for red/green color blindness. If that is the case, let me know and we can try to work something out.


Printing

To print using Mozilla Firefox:

To print using Internet Explorer (example is for IE7):


Known Problems:

The map won't wrap properly at the International Date Line. I probably won't fix this.

Future Work:

Other Resources:

The ARRL has some links to help you determine your grid square.

ICOM America has a grid square map for USA on the downloads section of their web site.


Version History

To download the installation program, click on the hyperlink containing the version number and date.

Ver 3.4 - TBD
Feature: restored compatibility with Windows XP
Bug Fix: layout was not restored properly from saved settings
 
Ver 3.3 - 24 June 2020
Feature: Program remembers settings from previous run
Feature: Added tool tips for settings
 
Ver 3.2 - 23 June 2020
All of the changes in 2.9 (below) plus:
+ Optionally draw an FFMA border in blue
+ Added a check box to emphasize unworked grids instead of worked grids
+ Added a check box to use the same color for confirmed, submitted and checked grids
+ Added a "legend" at the bottom to indicate what the different colors/shades mean
+ Removed the excess border around 10x10 fields
+ "View" button is disabled until after "Generate" button is clicked
+ Removed the Output selection, input (CSV) file can be located anywhere
+ Use Microsoft "safe" string and file functions
 
Ver 3.1 - test version
 
Ver 3.0 - test version

Ver 2.9 - 14 June 2011 (test version)
Converted to true Windows (GUI) program
Checked (Submitted) grids are shown in black
Added bold font selection (default is bold)
HTML file dialog had wrong "Save as type"
Found and fixed another uninitialized variable

Ver 2.1 - 22 June 2010
Fixed uninitialized variable which caused incorrect output
Title was missing band/frequency if "-f" frequency mode was used
 
Ver 2.0 - 21 June 2010
Added support for DX4WIN 8
Recognizes submitted and checked status as confirmed
Shows field name in background of 10x10 square (field)
Unworked grids are shown in light gray
Added -b option to specify band
Added -f option to specify frequency
Added -l option to output in landscape mode
Added -17 option to output for 11x17 sheet
Added -c option to output in color

Ver 1.4 - 3 June 2006
Initial release.