ct v8 or v9 for next cqww: summary

[Peter Casier]

Thanks for all reactions concerning my question whether to run CT v8 or v9
in the upcoming cqww (original inquiry was posted in the contest forum).

There were people praising v9, others found too many problems still exist in
v9 and advised to stick to v8.

I took a quick look at v9.02 and found a couple of problems which did not
make me feel comfortable running v9.02 in the complicated m/s setup we have
(we're running 9 computers doing all kinds of stuff with CT):

All tests were run on a 385/25 with plenty of memory, running ct 9.02, with
no com-ports used. CT was configured for plain cqww phone, m/s

1. Multipliers on 10m:
Logging a new mult on 10m did increase the multiplier counter in the summary
window, but did not indicate any multiplier in the log window (right
handside of the qso logged). 

2. QSY indicator
The 10 minute rule looks simple, as described in CQ, but it is not. 
Actually, in CT, there should not be a difference between a running station
or mult station. At our setup, we change mult/run very frequently. The run
station qsys to the mults station's frequency and takes over, and vice
versa. So, we run with one 'virtual' station. Often, when we calculate a QSY
to be ok, the mult station switches to a 3rd band (different than the one of
the mult or running freq.) to work a multiplier. This is not a run station
QSY, but a multi station QSY. Also, our run and mult stations do swap to
eachothers frequency often enough that one will easily forget to type in
'run' or 'mult'.
Last year, at OT3T, we had a long discussion abt the 10 minute rule. We have
come up with what we call 'ON4UN's 10 minute rule':
  a. look up the time of the last QSO logged 2 bands ago
  b. if that QSO was logged more than 10 minutes ago, the QSY is ok.
That should be pretty easy to implement in CT, right? No more hassle whether
you are run or mult station.

3. band change violations
(see also 2) there are too many occasions where band changes are ok, but
indicated as band change violations.

4. QSY time > than 10 minutes
Playing around, I got the QSY timer often higher as 10. Of course that is
not possible

5. in VGA mode: hangup using ctrl-enter
Remember: I had no radios connected to the computer. ctrl-enter should allow
me to make manual entries in the band map. Running VGA mode, I got the
error:' This function is only avail for computer control'. According to the
CT v9 manual's addendum, this should work. After doing ctrl-enter, I could
not enter QSOs anymore, nor could I use the up arrow, or have 'QUIT'
accepted. CTRL-Q was the only thing left for me to do.
I had similar problems using ctrl-right arrow (not much use without radios
connected, I admit)


6. in normal (non-vga) mode: error using ctrl-enter
again without radios connected to the computer. The error message
(literally) says: "Beep Enable audi". Looks like some address pointers are
screwed up


I did not dare to test v9 out in the setup we normally run (large ct
network, all radio's connected, cluster connected...).

A pity, as the vga mode and the ability to position the windows is like
'Wow'. Certainly the possibility to show super check partials and the
country check window is great.(we made our own master.dta file with 400.000
qso's in them, giving us a 95% hit rate hi).

So.. concluding: we'll stick to our ol'faithful v8.42 for at least the next
cqww.

CU from OT4T!

Peter - ON6TT.

p_casier@ub4b.eunet.be