[CQ-Contest] [NCCC] WRTC2006 Radio and Software Stats

[Rick Tavan N6XI]

WinTest is European, with an enthusiastic, multi-national development and
test team. It gets most press and personal testimonials in Europe, so many
of us in the US just have never seen or even heard of it. It is
down-loadable at www.win-test.com and there is a reflector conducted in
English. There is a fee of EU 45 if you decide to use it for real and the
latest major upgrade fee was only EU 15.

I talked to some of the development/test guys and played with the program a
bit at Friedrichshafen. I liked what I saw. It imitates some of the core
feel of CT while running on Windows, with more layout flexibility than my
current logger, WriteLog. It integrates nicely with some SO2R hardware,
supporting the complex and proprietary features of EZMaster (another device
best known in Europe) and with a variety of contesting support programs like
propagation displays. It appears to support multiple operating positions,
including two ops on the same band, using a real network rather than serial
port daisy chains which are so last-century. It has some good looking fault
tolerance features.

I can't speak for others, but the main reason I won't consider even trying
it is that it does not yet support either Sprint or the M2 rotor control,
both essential to me at home. I expect these shortcomings to be corrected
and look forward to trying it then.

/Rick N6XI

>From Ken WM5R:

>
> > Observations:
> >
> > * WinTest was used exclusively by teams from Europe, and it was the most
> >  popular logging program amongst the European teams.  Any ideas why it's
> > not
> >  more popular outside Europe?
> >