Sorry, Gary, misunderstood the nature of your post.
I do have Windows XP Home on my desktop hp 522a 1.7gHz machine, am
considering moving WL on to that. It is a bit rf noisy compared to the
laptop, however.
73
Barry
end
Barry Kirkwood PhD ZL1DD
Signal Hill Homestay
66 Cory Road
Palm Beach
Waiheke Island 1240
NEW ZEALAND
ph/fax 64-9-372-5161
www.waiheke.co.nz/signal.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Garry Shapiro" <garry@ni6t.com>
To: "Barry Kirkwood" <bjk@ihug.co.nz>
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 9:05 PM
Subject: RE: [WriteLog] Writelog: My experience
Barry:
Transmit the details of your computer setup to the Reflector--not to
me--accompanying your problem description. I can only help with problems
that I have encountered and defeated.
Win95 is a bit long in the tooth at this point--even the diehard
pennypinchers are on Win98. For myself, having migrated to Windows after a
decade as a Mac user (due to two factgors--my job and ham radio) my
opinion
is that everything pre Win2K is somewhat buggy. In contrast, WinXP seems
bulletproof. Its only downside, from a cash standpoint, is that it can
only
be loaded on one computer. I suspect the first thing that you would be
advised to do is to start from scratch with a clean hard disk and Win XP
(or
at least Win2K, as both are NT-based, and much more robust than prior
Windows OS's).
Unless you start clean, you will never really know how to solve the
problem.
It's a PITA, but--like your annual housecleaning--it's a damned good idea.
Garry
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Kirkwood [mailto:bjk@ihug.co.nz]
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 12:43 PM
To: Garry Shapiro
Cc: John and Mary Powell
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Writelog: My experience
Hello Garry,
Thanks for the reply.
I have taken the liberty of ccing this to ZL1BHQ who is not doing much
better than me with Writelog.
One problem is that as far as we know there is no cw contester in our
immediate region using Writelog so we have no Elmer to coach us,
unfortunately.
So far as the cognitive ergonomics go, when I first got Writelog I printed
out what I thought were relevant sections from the K9JY site. These were
put
into a ring binder, and tips from the writelog reflector were added over
the
years. I ended out with a crazy document with highlights, post it tags
etc.
Difficult to use.
Rather stupidly I did not return to the site until very recently. I find
it
much better organised and following the "Writelog Lite" section was at
least
able to get the F keys operating for the Oceania Contest and was very
happy
until the programme refused to enter more than three digit q numbers. I
then
made an error ( I assume) in closing the programme (or possibly in
initialising the F functions) and to this day have not been able to make
them work when I reopen the file for that contest.
My system:
Yaesu FT1000D, Yaesu FIF 232C interface, Toshiba Satellite 300CDS
computer.
Intel Pentium (r) running Win 98(second edition), 16mByte RAM, Generic
IDE
Disc type 01, C Drive 775 mByte, 237 mByte free.
This machine is dedicated to the radio, has no peripherals save an IBM
Mouse. I plug in printer into USB as required.
ZL1AIX who runs 300 computers at his plant says Win 2000 is more stable
that
Win95 and am considering upgrade.
If I am to persevere with Writelog I would like to get the programme on CD
from the source as I want to remove any possibility that the programme has
been corrupted in transmission. I am, however, reasonably persuaded that
my
problems are operator error, my grizzle is that I experience the system as
very unforgiving of operator error.
I suppose everybody experiences frustration learning to operate a new
programme. In my case I did do practice runs before the contest and
everything seemed OK. Having things go wrong during the contest is a bit
like having a process control device go down. I found trying to resolve my
problems while time was going by a miserable experience, am having to ask
myself why I bother. May give up on contesting and just go DXing and cw
ragchewing.
I would be happy enough to play at contests keying and logging by hand,
but
the rhythm of the interchanges has changed with widespread automation and
it does not feel the same. Up until the Oceania test last month I used WL
as
a log and sent the interchanges by hand or memory keyer, which worked for
me
but is not good value for $100US to a retired guy.
73 es tnx agn
Barry
end
Barry Kirkwood PhD ZL1DD
Signal Hill Homestay
66 Cory Road
Palm Beach
Waiheke Island 1240
NEW ZEALAND
ph/fax 64-9-372-5161
www.waiheke.co.nz/signal.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Garry Shapiro" <garry@ni6t.com>
To: "Barry Kirkwood" <bjk@ihug.co.nz>
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 7:19 PM
Subject: RE: [WriteLog] Writelog: My experience
Barry:
Wayne likes to have details of the computer setup you are using, without
which he cannot fathom oyour problem. Operating system,
motherboard/CPU/speed, hard disk, memory, peripherals, etc. I think you
will
agree that your other, considerable life skills do not enter into the
equation. :-)
Garry, NI6T
-----Original Message-----
From: writelog-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:writelog-bounces@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Barry Kirkwood
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 4:06 AM
To: writelog@contesting.com
Subject: [WriteLog] Writelog: My experience
There is no question that Writelog is an excellent programme.
I bought writelog after observing G3PJT use it at my place and beat out
the
only ZL super station in the Commonwealth Contest some years back.
Johnathon
W1CU also used it in CQWW cw last year in my shack with no problems.
I bought Writelog fair and square over three years back($70), paid
another
$30 for an upgrade, and have also bought the Yaesu interface for my rig
in
case my homebrew job was the problem.
I have now tried to run Writelog in many contests and have never got the
programme to run properly. In my last effort (Oceania CW 2004) I finally
had
the basics running for the only sort of operation I am interested in
(single
op CW) with the bare minimum of functions and was delighted in its
functionality. Then I found that it refused to enter four digit QSO
numbers.
Tried to do a fix, gave up and saved the log while I took a break, opened
it
and found that the F keys were not functioning and to this day no matter
what I try the F keys cannot be revived for this log. Presumably I failed
to
do an earlier save settings operation and it now remembers a null and
will
not change.
I might mention that John ZL1BHQ has also had Writelog for over a year,
also
only wants it only for single op hf cw contesting and has yet to get the
system running properly.
At this moment I have to look at the option of dumping Writelog for CT as
I
just cannot go on trying to work Writelog which has turned out to offer
more
frustration than it is worth. I did way better hand logging.
I make no secret of the fact that I am no computer whiz, but I can use
all
the other standard stuff on my computer with no undue difficulty and want
to
address the question: Why is it that I cannot run Writelog?
Let me qualify myself : I am 68 years of age, was not socialised into
computers and for the latter part of my professional life I was able to
use
coolies to solve computing glitches. You could say that I have an analog
mind, love knobs dials and switches and dislike menus (except in
restaurants). The other side of the equation is that I have a PhD in in
Experimental Psychology and a reasonable range of applied technical
skills
(RNZAF Wings, competent in celestial navigation, Certificated Yachtmaster
(Offshore), able to build houses, boats, cars, and so on, with success).
I
am also a founder member of the NZ Ergonomics Society, sometime member of
the NZ Institution of Professional Engineers and have over 100
publications
in refereed journals.
So this is the guts of my evaluation: Writelog is an excellent piece of
work
as a programme, but the job is less than half done in that what
documentation there is is scattered over a number of sites and has been
put
together by talented amateurs. But the fact remains that what I have paid
for does not hack it. Instruction manuals, help programmes etc are a
critical part of even relatively primitive devices and Writelog is
pathetic
in this respect. About 0.5 out of 10 in my opinion.
While many users may enjoy the puzzle solving, from my point of view, the
very modest range of functions that
I need to understand are buried under the noise of a huge mass of
operations
(wave files, digital modes etc) that I have no interest in or need for.
There are no diagnostic systems, so problems must be solved by trial or
error or tapping the Writelog reflector.
Goodness knows I have tried, and have spent by my estimation over 20
hours
trying to get the thing to run for every hour I have had it on the air.
Only
once have I had it as anything more than an automated log. Maybe the
problem
is me, but the question remains, how come I can run all the other
software
around here but not Writelog?
73
Barry ZL1DD
end
Barry Kirkwood PhD ZL1DD
Signal Hill Homestay
66 Cory Road
Palm Beach
Waiheke Island 1240
NEW ZEALAND
ph/fax 64-9-372-5161
www.waiheke.co.nz/signal.htm
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WriteLog on the web: http://www.writelog.com/
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WriteLog mailing list
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WriteLog on the web: http://www.writelog.com/
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