Dear CT aficionados,
We were using four standalone laptops with CT 9.50, .bin file and all CT
files on a floppy. The machine we had a problem with was booted into Win98
DOS mode from the hard disk, using the
Win98 shutdown menu. We keyed CW from the parallel port, but no other
hardware features such as
networking, packet or radio controls. We started CT (from the floppy) with
a batch file which
contained this command line:
CT 2000FD -FO -now
One of our members was working 80CW, and all was fine for about 2 hours.
Then, the CW keying (through the parallel port) started to become erratic at
times (it would key down too long, so some elements were drawn out). By
this time, there were about 65 contacts logged. At some point,
the "savelog" command was used. In an attempt to recover from the keying
problems, an attempt to exit CT by pressing ALT-Q was made; the "do you want
to exit Y/N?" prompt appeared and 'Y' was typed. CT never finished exiting.
The machine was powered off. We may have had a low battery condition, and it
could have had something to do with some of these problems.
When CT was restarted, a message we have never seen before appeared, stating
that CT was going to "fix" entries with old date formats. It did not offer
any choice not to do this, or to abort. After it finished "fixing" things,
only 4 contacts were in the log.
Another problem occurred on the same laptop when working 10CW. We had
started to manually make backup copies of the .bin file, just in case any
problems occurred. Before changing operators, the "savelog" command was
entered, and CT exited normally after we entered ALT-Q and "Y" to exit. We
made a backup copy of the .bin file, and restarted CT. There were no
contacts at all (everything was wiped out). We exited CT and checked the
backup copy, which as expected
also had zero contacts. We were able to restore the previous backup and
experienced no
further problems, but we had lost all of the contacts made since that backup
copy.
This is a commercial for working CT with a network, if only to have a backup
.bin file. We just didn't have enough > laptops with 2 serial ports for the
standard CT network and had not been
able to make the LOOP option work over the great distances we work over
during Field Day.
If Ken is going to "fix" anything, I think it would be a good idea to
describe what CT is going to do first, and gives the operator a chance to
abort (so they can make a backup copy first).
73, Randy
W6SW
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